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curitate al ONU pe tema invaziei rusesti in Ucraina/ OSCE s-a reunit la ora 12.00 intr-o sedinta speciala consacrata implicarii Rusiei in Ucraina.Premierul Ucrainei, Arseni Iatseniuk, cere SUA, UE, G7 sa inchete bunurile si activele Rusiei pana cand Moscova isi retrage fortele de pe teritoriul Ucrainei.In randurile noastre se afla soldati in termen, care prefera sa isi petreasca vacanta nu pe o plaja si cu noi, intre frati, care lupta pentru libertatea lor, a spus el intr-un interviu publicat pe Vesti.ru, citeaza Reuters.Kremlinul a anuntat ca verifica informatiile aparute in presa referitoare la funeraliile parasutistilor care ar fi fost ucisi in lupta.Autoritatile locale: 11 civili au fost ucisi in bombardamentele din Donetsk.Separatistii au cucerit un punct strategic, pe dealul Savur-Mohlya din Donetsk, a declarat o sursa din armata ucraineana, potrivit Reuters.Raportul se refera la perioada 16 iulie - 17 august, cand aproape 6000 de persoane au fost ranite. Documentul citat de AFP va fi examinat de Consiliul de securitate.Este insa vorba de o estimare foarte prudenta bazata pe cifre oficiale: este posibil ca numarul celor ucisi si raniti sa fie mult mai mare.Bilantul include civilii, fortele guvernamentale si grupari armate pro-ruse.Inaltul comisariat pentru drepturile omului subliniaza in raport ca separatistii continua sa comita crime si acte de tortura si ca sunt dotati in mod profesional si par ca beneficiaza de o furnizare constanta de arme perfectionate si munitie, care le permit sa contracareze aparatura militara ucraineana. Nu se precizeaza si cine furnizeaza armamentul. BBC noteaza ca in anumite zone periculoase, precum in regiunea Luhansk, se relateaza ca mai multe victime au fost ingropate informal, de exemplu in gradini.Mamele, sotiile si rudele baietilor nostri care au fost luati captivi in Ucraina au facut apel la mine, ca lider al Mamelor Soldatilor din Kostroma. Ii cer presedintelui tarii noastre si ministrului apararii sa ajute sa ii aduca inapoi in viata, spune Ludmila Koklova, sefa asociatiei din regiunea Kostroma, pe inregistrare, dand apoi cuvantul mamelor.Una dintre acestea implora autoritatile sa ii aduca inpoi copilul in viata si pe ceilalti care sunt prizonieri in Ucraina. O alta femeie se prezinta insa izbucneste in plans.Aceasta inregistrare a fost facuta la o zi dupa ce Putin a sugerat ca nu exista motive de ingrijorare inceea ce priveste prinderea celor 10 soldati rusi in estul Ucrainei.Kievul a afirmat marti ca a capturat soldatii rusi in timp ce se aflau intr-o misiune speciala pe teritoriul Ucrainei, publicand pe internet imagini cu acestia la interogatoriu.Ministerul rus al Apararii a negat ca a trimis trupe si a declarat ca trupele paramilitare prinse au ajuns acolo din greseala. Ce am auzit eu este ca acestia patrulau la granita si au ajuns din intamplare pe teritoriul Ucrainei, a spus Putin jurnalistilor in Minsk.(CNN) -- Bangladesh has a serious power problem. Nearly half of its 162-million population does not have access to electricity.
Light can change lives, which is why the residents of this small village are beaming about one project that is harnessing the power of the sun.
Grameen Shakti a non-profit company in Bangladesh is introducing solar power, borrowing power, and girl power to the villagers all at the same time.
The program trains village women to install and repair solar panels and electrical outlets on homes and businesses.
"This kind of job will help the women and they will be able to contribute financially to their family. It will be good if this kind of job opportunity expands," Trainee Monowara said after coming down from installing a solar panel on the roof of a villager's house.
While increasing her own family's income she says her work is also changing the lives of her neighbors.
For 40-year-old Fatima Begum it means she will have electricity in her home for the first time in her life.
"I used kerosene lamp for the light but it blackened my house with soot," she said.
Now Begum and her family can breathe easier and have appliances in their home.
But the panels don't come cheap. They cost about $300 dollars -- around half of what Bangladeshi's earn per year on average.
"You know the first barrier was high up on the cost of the solar system. We've overcome that problem by introducing micro-credit tools. The people, when they buy a solar home system they don't have to pay all the money at a time," Grameen Shakti Senior Manager Fazley Rabbi said.
And the solar power program is self-sustaining -- the cost of the panels pays for the training of the local technicians.
Solar power isn't just being used in homes here in fact nearly every single business along this street is using it and some are making much bigger profits because of it.
Tailor, Ekabaar Ali, says the solar light means more time to sew and sell his clothes.
"We could not work much before we got the solar power. We had to stop work before sun set. But now we can work until 10 in the night so it boosts my income. It's good," He said.
His boss, the shop owner, said his profits have nearly doubled since the solar panel was installed.
The solar power program has also sparked an entrepreneurial spirit in the village.
"They're using the energy in different ways so they can earn more money. One business is they're renting the light to others." Grameen Shakti's Fazley Rabbi said.
Another moneymaking venture is linked to the popularity and cheap cost of cell phones.
One solar powered shop in the village offers a charging station for a few cents per charge. After all what good is a cell-phone if the battery is dead?
Grameen Shakti technicians have installed 550,000 home solar systems in 40,000 villages since the program began in 1996.
Bangladesh's abundance of sunlight is being harnessed on a massive scale to try and improve the lives of its impoverished residents.On Friday morning, a Republican member of Congress said “demonstrated” was the crucial phrase: North Korea has never conducted a test of a warhead, showing that it could be precisely targeted or that it could survive the heat and forces of re-entry into the atmosphere. But he said that there is “a consensus building” among rival intelligence agencies that “If they are not there, they are close to there.” Differences among the assessments, he added, “are not huge.”
The last time the differences among intelligence agencies came into such sharp relief was 10 years ago this spring, when the Bush administration sought to explain why it had dismissed the dissenting opinions of parts of the intelligence community over Iraq’s nonconventional weapons.
The Defense Intelligence Agency’s conclusion was clearly an assessment that the Obama administration was not eager to share with the world. Officials said that at a moment when there were troubles with Iran and Syria, to say nothing of the rest of the Arab world, there was little desire to rekindle the North Korean crisis. That is especially true because North Korea has not demonstrated any capability to place its weapons on a missile, meaning that all the intelligence assessments were based on analysis, not discoveries.
But that effort came undone when a staff member on a House Armed Services subcommittee that oversees nuclear issues read a copy of the agency’s classified report, as part of his regular staff work, according to two people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal communications between Congress and the Pentagon.
The staff member noticed an important one-paragraph conclusion that was labeled “unclassified,” and went to the Defense Intelligence Agency’s legislative affairs liaison, who confirmed it. The staff member then alerted an influential member of the subcommittee, Representative Doug Lamborn, a fourth-term Republican of Colorado and a co-chairman of the House’s missile defense caucus, who decided to ask Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the report’s conclusion at a budget hearing on Thursday. “It’s important to have all the facts on the table,” Mr. Lamborn said in a telephone interview Friday, adding that he had no misgivings about asking his question in a public hearing.
Republicans in Congress have led efforts to increase money for missile defense, and Mr. Lamborn said that he raised the issue largely because the Obama administration proposed this week in its annual budget submission to reduce financing for missile defenses by more than $500 million.
Given the agency’s responsibility for protecting American forces, it is not surprising that the Defense Intelligence Agency has been the most aggressive in arguing that North Korea is on the verge of marrying the products of its nuclear and missile programs. Two years ago, Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr., then the head of the agency, edged up to a similar conclusion, but with several caveats.Conservative activists attending their party’s conference in Manchester have been told to hide their Tory-branded identification passes when walking around the northern city
The threat of hostile protest has led party bosses to warn members to take extra precautions if they venture outside the secure “ring of steel” around the event.
Conference passes must be worn at all times within the secure zone around the convention centre where the event is planned to be held.
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.
But in an email to people attending the conference, party chairman Lord Feldman said it was “particularly important” this year for activists to take the Tory-branded identification badges off when around town due to safety concerns.
A number of protest events are expected in the city during the event.
Manchester has been hit particularly hard by the Government’s spending cuts, with the city region’s borough ten councils facing a £285m budget reduction this year on top of £1.2bn austerity since 2010.
Local authority leaders say that if Manchester had only received cuts on average in line with the rest of the country, it would be £1m richer every week.
An analysis reported by the Independent yesterday showed that the poorest councils in the country were facing funding cuts more than 18 times than of the richest local authorities.
Every single one of Manchester City Council's 96 councillors are from the Labour party. The city had over 30 Liberal Democrat councillors as recently as 2010 but all lost their seats after the formation of the 2010 coalition government.
“You may be aware that a protest march planned by the TUC will take place on Sunday 4th October to coincide with the start of our Conference,” Lord Feldman wrote to members.
“The march will pass close to the Conference venues and I wanted to let you know that there may be road closures and potentially some local travel disruption on the day.
“It will be particularly important not to wear your Conference security passes outside the secure zone. I am, as ever, grateful to Greater Manchester Police for all their efforts to put in place measures to secure the smooth running of Conference.”
The TUC is holding the march, concluding in a rally near Tory conference, in response to a planned crackdown by the Conservatives on trade union rights.
The Government plans to make it more difficult to strike and to impose criminal sanctions on people who fail to jump through trade union laws’ byzantine hoops.
The People’s Assembly group has also called a national week of action against austerity cuts during the party conference.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is also set to speak at a separate event near Conservative conference, addressing the issue of privatisation of the Royal Mail.
This year Tory party conference will be held at Manchester Central convention centre and the Midland Hotel. It is standard practice for party conferences to have secure zones and accreditation.
The Conservative conference starts on Sunday 4 October and continues to Wednesday 7 October.
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 now.Catherine Shakdam is a political analyst, writer and commentator for the Middle East with a special focus on radical movements and Yemen. A regular pundit on RT and other networks her work has appeared in major publications: MintPress, the Foreign Policy Journal, Mehr News and many others.Director of Programs at the Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies, Catherine is also the co-founder of Veritas Consulting. She is the author of Arabia’s Rising - Under The Banner Of The First Imam
Two years after British Prime Minister David Cameron declared “mission accomplished” in Afghanistan, the war-torn nation is standing besieged by the Taliban, its military faced-down on the floor as terror has returned with a vengeance.
It was December 2013 - In a surprise visit to Camp Bastion base PM Cameron told the world his countrymen successfully fulfilled their military mandate in Afghanistan, and were coming home.
“I think they [the troops] can come home with their heads held high … To me, the absolute driving part of the mission is a basic level of security so it doesn't become a haven for terror. That is the mission, that was the mission and I think we will have accomplished that mission and so our troops can be very proud of what they have done."
It is now December 2015 and the Taliban is hounding Afghan security forces, threatening with one smooth swoop to disintegrate whatever military resistance Kabul has mastered to throw at terror’s army. If already back in 2013 British officials viewed the prime minister’s statement as grossly premature, recent developments underscored what many have already labelled as Britain’s criminal oversight.
With a symmetry which would be ironic if not so tragic, the warning Conservative MP John Baron voiced in 2013 came to pass exactly in the fashion he described - if only someone had listened.
Commenting on Cameron’s victory cry, MP Baron theorized: "in one guise or another the West would be handing back chunks of Afghanistan to the Taliban once British and American forces withdrew.”
As of December 23, the Sangin district has fallen almost entirely to the Taliban, leaving the rest of Helmand province open for a complete take over. Mohammad Shakarpuri, an officer posted near Sangin confirmed on Wednesday that “Afghanistan stands once to fall into the hands of ragtag mercenaries … all because Western powers have failed to invest in Afghanistan’s reconstruction.”
Amid a stream of alarming reports by local officials that civilians are fleeing before the advances of the Taliban, Kabul has carried a complete different narrative, offering words of comfort where chaos seems to have all but consumed the ravaged nation.
Speaking from Kabul, Afghanistan's acting Defense Minister Masoum Stanikzai described the situation in Helmand as "manageable", noting that fresh support troops had been sent to Helmand province to meet the challenge. While it maybe so, tribal leaders near and around Sangin have complained that Kabul forbade them to take up arms against the Taliban.
Speaking under cover of anonymity for fear of reprisals from both US troops and the Afghan government, members of the Afghan tribal council have accused Kabul government of betrayal as its officials have refused to revive the country’s ancient tribal security system known as Arbaki.
Contrary to popular beliefs the Arbaki is not a militia force, but a cohesive tribal coalition animated by a single goal - the protection of Afghanistan sovereign integrity. More importantly, under the Arbaki system only tribesmen vetted by their respective sheikh are ever allowed to partake, thus guaranteeing unity and order among the troops.
The efficacy of the Arbaki system has withstood the test of time. Throughout the centuries, and long before the Taliban ever came to be, the tribes of Afghanistan have always been able to ward off their enemies by standing a united tide against foreign aggression.
Today as hordes of mercenaries have besieged their people, and their territories, the tribes of Afghanistan have been denied the rights to self-defense - left to weather an assault their military cannot possibly hope to oppose, for a chronic lack of weapons and manpower.
But why would Kabul and its Western allies stand in the way of resistance? And most importantly where did the millions of dollars Western powers poured into Afghanistan went to if not to help towards its institutions reconstruction - most specifically its military complex? After all, no amount of training will ever replace access to proper weaponry.
One man has very definite answers … which answers raise some very disturbing truths.
Prince Ali Seraj, a member of Afghanistan’s royal family and grandson of His Majesty Amir Habibullah (1901-1919), is adamant Afghanistan was set up for failure; sold to chaos by powers whose interests are vested in war instead of peace. “Looking at Afghanistan today and how Western powers have handled the whole terror dossier and it is quite clear that chaos was always the name of the game. Why else have Western powers systematically refused to assist the Afghan tribes, while covering for Pakistan’s aiding and abating of radicals,” Prince Ali told me on Wednesday.
“It is Pakistan you see behind the Taliban … and Pakistan is no more than another agent of Saudi Arabia, the world’s greatest exporter of Wahhabism. Do you seriously believe the Taliban and al-Qaeda just manifested into existence? They were imported from Tajikistan, Chechnya, Pakistan and those regions which are under the control of Riyadh,” he emphasized.
Just like in Syria and Iraq, terror’s army went straight to the financial jugular, choosing Helmand province for the millions of dollars its poppy fields promise. As of 2015 Afghanistan remains the world exporter of heroin, a trade the Taliban has vastly benefited from, without ever being choked out - an interesting feat bearing the level of surveillance Washington and other Western capitals invested in the country.
While officials in Kabul debate how best to handle the Taliban resurgence, as British and US soldiers are paying with their lives the price of their respective government’s failed policies, thousands upon thousands of tribesmen in Helmand province stand ready to defend their homeland - only their hands are tied.
Countless tribal leaders have been bullied into submission, warned by Kabul that should they rise any force outside the direct control of the military they would be outlawed and declared terror outfits. Rather than eliminate the threat of terror within their border, rather than incorporate the tribes of Afghanistan into a cohesive anti-terror campaign, Afghan officials have spent their efforts disabling those powers which could best defeat radicals.
“The tribes are the foundations of the country and without empowering them nothing will be done,” Prince Ali told me. In truth the prince makes perfect sense - Afghanistan’s future lies with its people, and unless Afghans are empowered fast, it is Central Asia which stands to fall to Wahhabism - the ideology which rose legions of terror groups across several continents.
And still we remain blind to those hands which direct its armies. And still we call on young men and women to fight a fight they cannot possibly win, for the dice were rigged.The US Ambassador to Libya and three other diplomats were killed last night during a mob attack on the embassy in Benghazi. The embassy in Cairo was also attacked. Both riots were over 9/11 and a stupid amateurish movie trailer produced by an Israeli Jew living in the US who holds the subtle, thoughtful position that “Islam is a cancer”. The movie portrays Mohammed as a philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse.
Before any of the violence occurred in Cairo or Benghazi, the US embassy in Cairo issued a statement condemning the film saying, in part, “we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions”. After the attack, the Obama Administration issued a statement condemning the attacks. Here’s the GOP response:
That tweet was after the Romney campaign issued a statement saying that the Obama Administration’s first response was to “sympathize with the attackers”. The statement also criticized the Cairo embassy’s efforts before the riots to defuse the crisis by using Twitter to emphasize the statement.
These assholes just don’t care about the consequences of the lies they tell, if they think it will move Romney in the polls. And, of course, the MSM is going to give them a big old pass. Here’s the Times:
Apparently unaware of the timing of the first embassy statement, the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, put out a statement just before midnight Tuesday […]
“Apparently unaware” my ass.
(via TPM and Kevin Drum)I am a Catalan businessman, the son of labourers. My mother emigrated from Murcia, a Spanish province, and my father was born in Badalona, the third most populated city in Catalonia. We spoke both Catalan and Spanish at home, like the large majority of Catalans with Spanish roots. I am 41 years old, I live in Barcelona. I am married with a seven-month-old son and two other children (stepchildren) whom I love as if they were my own. I am the 10th president of Òmnium Cultural – an organisation set up to promote the Catalan language and spread the region’s culture. It’s a position I hold completely voluntarily. I have been in prison for 50 days now, without a trial, accused of sedition, along with Jordi Sànchez, former president of the Catalan National Assembly.
We are deprived of our freedom for having made use of our right to free expression and demonstration, for the simple act of publicly and democratically defending the right of Catalonia to decide its future as a people at the polls, like Quebec and Scotland did with the mutual agreement of the governments of Canada and the UK.
Timeline Eight key moments in the Catalan independence campaign Show Hide Spain’s constitutional court strikes down parts of a 2006 charter on Catalan autonomy that had originally increased the region’s fiscal and judicial powers and described it as a “nation”. The court rules that using the word “nation” has no legal value and also rejects the “preferential” use of Catalan over Spanish in municipal services. Almost two weeks later, hundreds of thousands protest on the streets of Barcelona, chanting “We are a nation! We decide!” At the height of Spain’s economic crisis, more than a million people protest in Barcelona on Catalonia’s national day, demanding independence in what will become a peaceful, annual show of strength. The pro-independence government of Artur Mas defies the Madrid government and Spain’s constitutional court by holding a symbolic vote on independence. Turnout is just 37%, but more than 80% of those who voted - 1.8 million people - vote in favour of Catalan sovereignty. Carles Puigdemont, who has replaced Mas as regional president, announces an independence referendum will be held on 1 October. Spain’s central government says it will block the referendum using all the legal and political means at its disposal. The Catalan parliament approves referendum legislation after a heated, 11-hour session that sees 52 opposition MPs walk out of the chamber in Barcelona in protest at the move. Spain’s constitutional court suspends the legislation the following day, but the Catalan government vows to press ahead with the vote. Police arrest 14 Catalan government officials suspected of organising the referendum and announce they have seized nearly 10 million ballots destined for the vote. Some 40,000 people protest against the police crackdown in Barcelona and Puigdemont accuses the Spanish government of effectively suspending regional autonomy and declaring a de facto state of emergency. Close to 900 people are injured as police attempt to stop the referendum from taking place. The Catalan government says 90% voted for independence on a turnout of 43%. Spanish government takes control of Catalonia and dissolves its parliament after secessionist Catalan MPs voted to establish an independent republic. Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, fires regional president, Carles Puigdemont, and orders regional elections to be held on 21 December.
But we have not committed any crime. The Spanish government has put us in prison for our ideas and opinions, for having organised mass peaceful, festive and family-oriented demonstrations, the images of which have been seen around the world. Today we are in prison not for being dangerous individuals or having committed fraud, theft or murder, but for our political ideas, shared by the 80% of Catalans who are in favour of holding a referendum on self-determination. There were more than 900 victims of Spanish police violence as they exercised their right to vote on 1 October.
The repressive spiral of the Spanish government has extended to the members of the government of the Generalitat. Half went into exile in Belgium and the other half were immediately imprisoned. It was an unprecedented event in modern Europe: half of a democratically chosen government was sent to prison. On Sunday, as we draw closer to the Catalan election on 21 December, the former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras, former cabinet member Joaquim Forn, Jordi Sànchez and myself as leaders of civic groups have been refused bail by Spain’s supreme court. The judge ruled that he believed there was a risk of criminal reiteration.
Today, Òmnium Cultural has more than 90,000 members and is the main civic-cultural organisation in Catalonia. It was founded in 1961 by five businessmen to defend Catalan language and culture. The Franco dictatorship banned Òmnium from 1963 to 1967. Forty years later, its president has been imprisoned. From its origins until the present day, Òmnium has had a single objective: to guarantee social cohesion in Catalonia.
We keep our firm commitment to share, from a perspective of mutual respect, this cultural, ideological, religious and social diversity. And under the protection of the universal declaration of human rights, defend the right to the self-determination of Catalonia, always through democratic and peaceful means.
Catalan's deposed vice-president to contest election from prison Read more
European institutions and leaders cannot continue to look the other way, failing to demand that our rights are respected and restored. The founding fathers of the EU built the project on the principles of dialogue, peace and democracy. Those have been clearly violated. The Catalan problem is a European problem. Failing to stand up for these principles could have dire economic, political and social consequences over the short-, medium- and long-term for millions of European citizens.
We proclaim our innocence and our status as prisoners of conscience and insist that the Spanish government free us immediately. We must begin a cooling-off period of dialogue between the parties, in which I promise to dedicate the best efforts of Òmnium Cultural, as we have always done until now.
Catalonia and Spain form part of the EU and everything that occurs from now on will affect the entire union. We are convinced that no one should renounce their responsibility. More than ever the EU must return to its roots: dialogue, peace and democracy. Civic society is calling for this, and it is the duty of political leaders to listen to the petitions of their fellow citizens.
• Jordi Cuixart is the president of Òmnium CulturalCape Town – The generosity of thousands of Capetonians means that many of the city’s homeless will get to spend at least a few nights this winter in a warm bed with food in their stomachs.
This was after the breakfast team on local radio station, Smile 90.4FM, decided to get their listeners to donate to The Haven Night Shelter who, for just R12, will give a warm bed, meal, shower and provide access to a social worker to a homeless person for one night.
The @HavenNapierstr made a cake to show their gratitude for each and everyone who made a donation. pic.twitter.com/Hamlqcb0qS — Smile 90.4 FM (@Smile904FM) May 27, 2016
The initiative, organised by radio presenters Bobby Brown and Lindy Hibbard, started on May 23 with an initial challenge of 9 040 beds in the first 24 hours but the open hearts of Capetonians saw that figure quickly surpassed.
By Friday morning, just five days later, 59 040 beds or R704 480 was donated to the shelter.
The Haven Night Shelter receives a donation of 59 040 beds for homeless people made possible by @Smile904FM listeners. @News24 — n o l a (@nox_mafu) May 27, 2016
@Smile904FM hands over the provisional donation for The Haven Night Shelter. Contributions keep pouring in @News24 pic.twitter.com/xbjeRbqFMM — n o l a (@nox_mafu) May 27, 2016
The Haven has 15 shelters in and around Cape Town, including in Retreat, Wynberg, the CBD and as far as Ceres.
Christina tells her story of overcoming poverty @The Haven Night Shelter. She is now a production assistant @News24 pic.twitter.com/ZjKS8khOuH — n o l a (@nox_mafu) May 27, 2016
To find out more about the shelter, click here.The Union Pacific Big Springs Robbery was a robbery of a Union Pacific train near present-day Big Springs, Nebraska on September 18, 1877. The robbery was perpetrated by a gang of six outlaws led by Sam Bass. Though there were no fatalities, the bandits reportedly stole $60,000 in newly minted $20 gold pieces which was being shipped from the San Francisco Mint to a bank in the eastern United States, among other valuables. Contemporary press coverage of the sensational heist made Bass and his gang of "Black Hills Bandits" instantly famous. It remains the largest single robbery in the history of the Union Pacific Railroad. Several of the gang members were killed in the days following the robbery, but Bass escaped.
Robbery [ edit ]
Late in the evening of Tuesday, September 18, 1877, Union Pacific express train No. 4, carrying passengers and cargo from San Francisco, stopped at a remote water station in what is now the village of Big Springs, in Deuel County, Nebraska. Under cover of night, an outlaw gang known as the "Black Hills Bandits" – including leader Sam Bass, Joel Collins, Jack Davis, Tom Nixon, Bill Heffridge, and Jim Berry – boarded the train at 10:48 PM and proceeded to rob it.
The bandits found $450 in the way safe, used for storing passenger's valuables. After interrogating an attendant as to why the main safe would not open, one of the bandits pistol-whipped the man. While the accomplices did not believe the lock was on a timer, making it impossible to open the safe before the train reached its destination, Bass realized the attendant was not lying[1] and called off his rowdy comrade.
As the gang was walking toward the door—all but empty-handed and ready to flee the scene of the crime—something caught the eye of one: three wooden boxes stacked by the main safe.[1] Opening the boxes, the gang discovered a fortune in "$20 gold pieces headed from the San Francisco Mint to an Eastern bank".[2] Overall, the outlaws made off with "$60,000 [equivalent to $1,411,688 in 2018] in newly minted twenty-dollar gold pieces from the express car and $1,300 plus four gold watches from the passengers",[3] accounting for the "first and greatest robbery of a Union Pacific train" and placing Bass in the midst of a crucial turning point in his life.[4]:195 The bandits were said to have divided their shares of the earnings, split six ways, under an old, prominent cottonwood tree that stood alone on the prairie near the town.[5]
The robbery resulted in no fatalities, but there was one capture — John Barnhart, station-master.[4]:195 Though he made it out alive, others among the gang were not so lucky. Eight days after the robbery, Collins and Heffridge were killed by Sheriff Bardsley and a group of "ten United States Soldiers".[4]:195 Berry, having been wounded during a conflict with law enforcement, died a short distance from his home in Mexico, Missouri; $2,840 in cash was recovered from his person.[4]:195 Nixon presumably escaped home to Canada, while Bass and Davis reportedly drove southbound with their money hidden under the seat of their escape buggy.[2]
Legacy [ edit ]
The Big Springs robbery earned substantial notoriety for the gang; for Bass in particular, it marks his succession to fame. Before the job, the fatherless outlaw had worked as "farmer, teamster, gambler, cowboy, saloon owner, [and later as a] miner"[6] in order to support himself. However, his continual losses on the race track and in the saloons led Bass to criminal activity. After a brief stint of trying to operate a freight line "in the black", Bass turned to stagecoaches. Not turning a profit, Bass rounded up a gang for the train robbery.
Following his Big Springs heist, Bass spent money prolifically, gaining him the title of "Robin Hood". He paid handsomely for services rendered: "payments of twenty dollars for a dozen eggs or a pan of warm biscuits were reported from many directions".[7] Later, owing to his success, a ballad was written about Bass, in which the following lines appear:
On their way back to Texas they robbed the U.P. train,
And then split up in couples and started out again;
Joe Collins and his partner were overtaken soon,
With all their hard-earned money they had to meet their doom.
Only after the Union Pacific job did the law — in the form of freelancers hoping to cash in on a reward — come after the gang.[2] Even with all of that money in his possession, Bass returned to crime a mere four months later. As expressed on the City of Round Rock's website, "Many people have believed that there was no way that he could have spent the money." People[who?] began to think that in his stagecoach-robbing years and up until his robbery of the Union Pacific, Bass robbed for profit. However, after Big Springs, "since it is hard to imagine that Sam could have used up all of his gold before he started train robbing again, it lends credence to the story that Sam robbed for sport more than for profit".[2] With the robbery of the Union Pacific, Bass transformed into a bona fide outlaw, from for-profit to for-pleasure robbery.[citation needed]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Pierce, Michael D. "Sam Bass and Gang." Journal of Southern History 67:2. (2001). p. 475. Expanded Academic ASAP.Oct 20, 2015; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Montreal Canadiens center David Desharnais (51) is checked by St. Louis Blues center Jori Lehtera (12) in front of goalie Jake Allen (34) and right wing Dale Weise (22) during the second period at Bell Centre. Mandatory Credit: Jean-Yves Ahern-USA TODAY Sports
It was a rough night for the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday against the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre. The Habs shut the Blues out for a 3-0 victory in what was supposed to be a “clash of the titans”, the boys in blue simply didn’t play up to par.
They gave up a goal in all three periods, all three goals having a lot in common with each other. Poor play in their own defensive zone, which Montreal pounced on, dug them deeper into the deficit despite some strides towards gaining momentum. Vladimir Tarasenko and Alex Steen both ended the night with team worst minus three each.
The good news is the six game Canadian road trip is over, and the boys head home to Scottrade Center. The bad news is that they have to face the 4-1-1 New York Islanders. Isles captain John Tavares has been heating up and if the Blues are going to win this game they need to shut him down.
There are a lot of similarities in the make-up of both St. Louis and New York and Saturday’s match up should be highly entertaining. Both teams are high flying offense centered around a burgeoning super star, with a healthy mix of young guns and veterans peppered throughout the rest of the lineup.
Blues fans will likely see a familiar face in the opposing net as Jaroslav Halak returns to face his former team. The game Saturday is the tail end of a back-to-back for NYI, they face Boston on Friday which means they will most likely be saving their number one goalie for the tougher match up.
The Blues need to bounce back in a big way, if they want to see themselves as an elite NHL team they need to defeat other top tier teams. They will get a chance to redeem their poor outing against Montreal with a strong game against New York.
There are some factors favoring the injury ridden St. Louis squad, one being possible returning players. Stastny won’t be back any time soon but we could see Shattenkirk and Fabbri back as soon as Saturday. This would be a huge help but they can’t be and won’t be relying on their health.
St. Louis has the major advantage of player depth, in droves, and so far this season the back up players have filled in significantly. With or without Shattenkirk and Fabbri, the Blues should be able to keep up with the Islanders and hopefully pull out a win.
Brian Elliot will likely get the nod as Jake Allen hasn’t gotten off to such a strong start. Elliot has a 4-0 record, with a.918 save percentage and a 2.01 goals against average.
In 17 career games against the Islanders, Alex Steen has racked up 18 points. Taras |
many of the negotiators’ requests were simple: they asked the man to turn down the music — he was listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They asked him to turn his porch lights on and off to let them know he was hearing them.
They also asked him to knock on his window, McIntyre said.
“He was responding with frantic thumping,” she said, adding that she could hear the banging from her house, about a block away.
It was not until shortly before 5 a.m. that the man finally left the home. He was shot with a non-lethal bullet because he was not compliant, Montague said.
Investigators dressed in white plastic suits worked at the scene Sunday. The entire block where the standoff happened, and the alley behind the home, were draped in yellow police tape. At about noon, officials wheeled a stretcher that appeared to be carrying a body draped in fabric into a white van with black tinted windows.
“It’s safe to say we’ll be looking at whether or not mental health played a role in the homicide,” Montague said.
Police have not yet released the name of the victim.
With files from Postmedia and Canadian PressArianna Huffington, founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, has called 2015 the year of the "social star," which means people who aren't famous for being on TV, in magazines, or in political cartoons but, rather, because of their social followings or viral tweets, according to The Washington Post. So, it would make sense that her guest list for the 2015 White House Correspondents Dinner is made up of people whose faces you might not recognize, but you probably know their voices, names, YouTube channels, or general internet fame. One of her chosen guests for the dinner, for example, is Sarah Koenig, This American Life producer and Serial co-creator.
If you were part of the English-speaking world this past fall, you heard about Serial, a podcast that explored the 1999 murder of Woodlawn High School student Hae Min Lee. Prosecutors arrested her ex-boyfriend and fellow student Adnan Syed for the murder, even though their case lacked physical evidence and relied heavily on the testimony of Jay Wilds, Syed's sort-of friend and marijuana dealer. Koenig is such an awesome, determined journalist that when she was forced to do journalism the old way, she did it, no questions asked. She drove to Wilds' house when he didn't respond to email and phone requests for an interview and sat in his living room to try to get his side of the story.
According to The Baltimore Sun, the show has since become the first podcast to win a Peabody Award, and it also landed Koenig on TIME's 100 Most Influential People list. The podcast has been downloaded more than 80 million times, according to TIME's list, and listeners heard Koenig's voice once a week for about three months, so it makes perfect sense that she would be invited to the White House Dinner.
And it's a great reason to be there. Unlike most musicians or TV stars (Lindsay Lohan attended in 2012) on the list this year, Koenig affected the way millions of people think about the criminal justice system, biases against Muslims, and the power of storytelling.
“They were enjoying ( Serial ) in the same way that people enjoy escapist entertainment,” Koenig said at Boston University's Power of the Narrative conference, according to The Boston Globe. “But it wasn’t entertainment; it was journalism. Or maybe it was both.”
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
And that's the great thing about this year's list. Koenig is a great example of the idea that our idea of "famous" means more than reality stars, actors, or sports players. Huffington's guest list — which also includes musician and outspoken Ferguson protester, Killer Mike; blogger and former Mormon, Heather Armstrong; and former president of Facebook, Sean Parker — makes those who speak out on important cultural issues cool. Her invite list and a few lists for news organizations stand in contrast to USA Today's, for example, which only includes actors and musicians, according to The Washington Post.
The shift is an interesting and important one: Speaking up about cultural events such as the Michael Brown shooting or criticizing the Mormon church is just as recognizable and socially worthy as starring in a multi-million dollar action film.
And it's not as if Serial is the only widely-acclaimed piece of work Koenig has produced. Just after she finished her career at The Baltimore Sun, she became a producer for This American Life. During her time there, she co-produced a Peabody Award-winning piece in 2006 called "Habeas Schmabeas," which explored the right to habeas corpus — the idea that the government must explain why it's holding somebody in custody, according to This American Life's website. During the War on Terror, the government allegedly silently did away with that right in a number of cases, especially when it held prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The central, fascinating question behind "Habeas Schmabeas" asked: Is Guantanamo Bay "a camp full of terrorists, or a camp full of mistakes?" She's produced a number of other well-reported, engrossing pieces, according to Refinery29, and they all remark on some important or funny life question.
Cultural nerds and political nerds, who were more interested in the response from feminist bloggers to Kim Kardashian's Paper magazine cover than the actual cover itself, can finally rejoice and feel "in the know." The common response to pop culture that "there are much more important things going on in the world" is represented clearly in Koenig's invite and the social consciousness of the White House Correspondents Dinner list.
Images: Casey Fiesler/Flickr (1); Getty Images (1)A couple of teenagers are peering at a dead body when a crime videographer shows up to record it. Since Booth, Brennan, and Angela are having dinner, Aubrey goes to the scene along with Hodgins and Saroyan. Based on the height of the ear pinna and length of the lobules, Saroyan thinks the victim was a male in his mid to late 40s. As she steps away to make a phone call, Hodgins finds a ringing cell phone with a wire attached. Aubrey immediately realizes it's a bomb and drags Hodgins away, covering him with his body as it blows up.
At the hospital, Saroyan reports that four cops died at the scene. Hodgins hobbles out, shaken up and sore, but alive. Aubrey is in surgery, though. Brennan doesn't think that Booth should take lead on the case since it's his FBI partner who got injured, but he insists. Eventually, Aubrey comes out of the surgery fine.
The Jeffersonian team starts taking on victims to assess damage and try to catch the killer. The jagged bones on the bomb-body's ribs suggest that's where the bomb originated. The killer wanted to use the ribs as shrapnel. Arastoo Vaziri shows up as well; he saw the case on the news and wanted to help out, so Brennan brings him on as a consultant. He immediately notices a glimmer on the lateral aspect of the right femur -- an artificial knee, whose serial number can be tracked. The victim was Thomas Gallo, a DC cop.
Read More: This One Bone Is the Only Skeletal Evidence for Crucifixion in the Ancient World
Miss Julian decides to call in a behavioral analyst to help with the case. Karen Delfs thinks that the killer had a certain level of sophistication to target a cop, and Booth interviews the DC police lieutenant, who puts them on the trail of La Serpiente, an El Salvadorean gun running organization. Gallo had pulled over the head of La Serpiente a few days prior and gotten him on a gun charge. He wasn't seen again after he went out to celebrate with his buddies. The right-hand man of the gang leader, though, admits to putting the gun in the car because he wanted to be in charge instead.
Hodgins finds asbestos on the body, but Saroyan doesn't find any in the lungs, suggesting Gallo was moved after he was dead. Vaziri cleans and separates the remains, then reconstructs the skull. He finds projectile trauma on the parietal that exits at glabella; a small-caliber weapon was used, and there is gunshot residue from it having been fired at close range. The shrapnel from the bomb-body victims, though, suggests a homemade, unsophisticated pipe bomb, and not the kind that La Serpiente would use. Angela uses the DC PD database of gunshots to track where the victim was murdered -- an alley near the bar he was last seen at. Saroyan totters on stilettos but finds blood all over the wall, and Hodgins finds a bullet casing from a small-caliber pistol. The busboy at the bar remembers a bright orange Mustang at the scene.
Booth questions Seth Dirkland, the crime videographer who drives the Mustang. He admits to taking photos and selling them to news agencies but he claims not to have killed Gallo. Angela looks through Dirkland's footage of the alley where Gallo was murdered and finds that he did catch on video the foot of the killer, standing over the victim.
Vaziri finds sharp force trauma on the body of the sternum as well as on the left and right side ribs 3-6. Lack of hemorrhagic staining suggests they were postmortem injuries. They were likely broken to plant the bomb, and some sort of powerful shearing tool was used. A fingerprint on the bullet casing that was found at the scene of Gallo's murder comes back through AFIS as Scott Larette.
Delfs, Aubrey, and Miss Julian discuss the case at the hospital. They find out that Larette had applied for a position with the DC PD but had failed the psych exam due to anger issues. Booth checks out Larette's apartment but thinks he hasn't been home all week. The Jeffersonian staff meanwhile find traces of latex in the bomb-body wound, but pre-processed latex. Only one processing center recently closed down, and it also used asbestos in insulation. That is likely the place that the killer brought Gallo's body to plant the bomb.
Read More: No, the Siberian Ice Maiden Is Not a Man
At the facility, Booth and his team find a body with a holster, and rats crawling all over it. They wait for the bomb squad to check it out, but it is clear. The Jeffersonian squints find that this victim suffered a single gunshot wound to the frontal bone. Based on the posteriorly slanted frontal bone and the angular eye orbits, Vaziri suggests that this victim was a Caucasian male. Based on the stage of larval development, Hodgins puts time of death at 5 days prior. They then find out that the victim is actually Scott Larette. He was hired to work security at the closed processing plant. Chipping at the external edges of the wound show that he was shot at close range, possibly with the gun pressed to his head, with a small-caliber weapon, likely his own. There is microfracturing on the left ulna as well, which is a likely defensive wound. Postmortem tears to the hips and shoulders suggest that two people carried Larette's body into the processing center. More importantly, the depression fracture on the occipital was caused by a wide, flat surface swung into the skull, and traces of wax were found.
Booth remembers that wax was also found on the railing at the processing center, and that the teenagers who claimed to have found Gallo's body had been skateboarding. He thinks they killed Larette with a skateboard and his own gun, and they called in Gallo's body after they'd arranged it so they could see their handiwork. Booth and Aubrey go to the kid's house and find him and his friend making a bomb. There is a gun on the bed, which one of the kids reaches for, but Booth collars him, and Aubrey gets the other one.
At the cafe later, Miss Julian explains that the leader, Alex, has psychopathic tendencies. His father was a cop who died a few years ago. But his dad would beat him and his mom, and he had problems with authority and with cops. The kids got into a scuffle with Larette, the security guard, over skateboarding and killed him.
As the Jeffersonian team goes to leave for the day, Angela screams. Hodgins has collapsed. He is rushed to the hospital, where doctors find that he suffered significant brain swelling from the bomb explosion. There's damage to the venus plexus around his spinal cord, and it took 24 hours for it to show up, especially since he had been taking aspirin. The epidural hematoma compressing his spine means that he is now paralyzed.
Tune in whenever Bones returns in the spring (I don't think a date for that has been announced yet) to see what happens to Hodgins! And if Cam and Arastoo get back together!
Anthropological Comments
Sure thing ears can tell you sex and age. Sure thing.
They want to swab the wounds of bomb-body for particulates. A body that has been killed, then opened up, then stuffed with explosives, then detonated, then defleshed. Swabbed for particulates. Sure thing.
Victim 2's slanted frontal and angular eye orbits? Eh, decidedly not the best way to figure out sex and ancestry.
Radius and ulna laid out on the table at the Jeffersonian are not in standard anatomical position, as usual.
The various traumas to the bodies (gunshots and blunt trauma) were super fakey looking this episode.
Stray Comments
I love that Saroyan is in an alley looking for evidence in the case in 4" heels. At least Brennan is always dressed for the field when she's in the field.
I don't get, though, what video Angela was looking at of the alley. That was supposed to be where Gallo was murdered. But Gallo's body was eventually dragged away and used to make the bomb. So did Dirkland hear the gunshot, check out the scene, and catch just a foot while the killer hid before dragging away the body?
Why didn't the kids just use Larette's body to do the body-bomb? Why did they need an additional body for that, that they had to drag into the processing facility where there was already a dead body?
Rating
Compared to the last episode, which was more plot and less forensics, this episode was pretty heavy on the forensics, with two different bodies of interest. The trauma (gunshot wounds, sharp and blunt trauma) all seemed in order, even if unrealistic looking. And the which-main-character-suffers twist at the end was surprising and gut-wrenching. Good work, Bones team - The Doom in the Boom gets a well-earned A- from me.
Read More Bones Reviews:Jacob Dreyer probes a rolling sci-art project that pictures possible futures for a climate-imperilled city.
The Shanghai Project, Chapter 2: Seeds of Time Shanghai Himalayas Museum, China. Until 30 July.
By 2050, much of central Shanghai will be submerged. By 2116, the city's contours will be unrecognizable. This is the genesis of the Shanghai Project, a collaboration of science and art whose second installation, Seeds of Time, focuses on climate change in China's boomtown — a timely reminder of a disturbing prospect.
Imaginary Geography by Qiu Zhijie envisions a new world. Image: Qiu Zhijie
The project, described as an ideas platform focusing on near-future sustainability, was kick-started in 2016 by the Shanghai Himalayas Museum; Seeds of Time is curated by the museum's executive director, Yongwoo Lee, with Hans Ulbrich Obrist of London's Serpentine Galleries. There is a utopian cast to the wide-ranging research on show, comprising live events, artworks, workshops and publications that collectively imagine a future Shanghai of harmonious coexistence between nature and humanity — a condition known in Chinese as “home garden” or “peach blossom spring”. China has, after all, unique traditions centred on this relationship and stretching back thousands of years.
Yet this is a project that vaults far beyond the local. Joining Chinese artists and scholars including Huang Rui, Qiu Zhijie, Qiu Anxiong and Kaimei Wang are the likes of US physicist Peter Galison and French social philosopher Bruno Latour (lecturing on how we might “reset modernity”). Experiments in how Western thinkers might be inspired by geographic otherness are just part of the cultural interplay in Seeds of Time.
In Route of the Future, artist Qiu Anxiong (perhaps best known for his animated 'woodblock-print' bestiary New Classic of Mountains and Seas; 2006) offers visitors a guided tour through the future city by bus. Science-fiction writer Ken Liu provides the script: a 48-hour itinerary for visiting the drowned metropolis of 2116. Satirizing lifestyle-trend pieces, Liu's text breathlessly describes the nightlife and cuisine for post-apocalyptic tourists, and portrays central Shanghai as a realm in which the elite inhabit underwater bubbles, while much of the population has moved to suburbs. Its optimistic vision of climate adaptation echoes Kim Stanley Robinson's sci-fi novel New York 2140 (Orbit, 2017).
A documentary film, also called Seeds of Time, traces the establishment of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the island of Spitsbergen. Here, the most prized crop varieties from countries around the world are banked in controlled conditions to safeguard them against climate impacts: intertwining the portentous with the pragmatic, the vault might be a monument to our times. (Interestingly, the financial metaphor is not retained in the facility's Chinese name, which translates as “seed research unit”.) Artist Maya Lin's memorial to species extinction, What is Missing? Empty Room, is viewed on optical plates of glass in a darkened room, allowing a digitized, interactive encounter with disappearing habitats and animals. These works are all gripping, but they sit cheek by jowl with opportunistic pieces, as if a celebrity was told, 'Shanghai, ecology — go'.
Recent years have seen China's scientific community gaining ever more international prominence through significant upticks in papers and patent filings, as well as the award of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to pharmaceutical chemist Tu Youyou. The country's technocratic system profoundly values science as it confronts environmental issues from air pollution to rising tides, and the Shanghai Project reflects a growing trend in artistic grappling with these challenges. China is, of course, no stranger to vast human–environmental dramas: the culture is rooted in such titanic interactions, and in technological solutions to them. The legendary first emperor, the Great Yu, was supposedly an engineer who tamed the waters of the Yellow River — an exploit that explicitly inspired twentieth-century leader Mao Zedong in his South–North Water Transport Project and the Three Gorges Dam (see A. Janku Nature 536, 28–29; 2016). China's pioneering status in science and medicine is also renowned. An ancient text on geography and botany (and the inspiration for Qiu Anxiong's piece) was the fourth-century BC Shan Hai Jing, or the Classic of Mountains and Seas. And dating to roughly the same era, the medical textbook Huangdi Neijing, or the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor, is still used for practical applications. (Tu Youyou was famously inspired by ancient medical texts.)
Chinese society is gearing up to save itself, from the experimental architecture schools of Shenzhen to the massive subsidies the Chinese government has announced for sustainable energy — with 2.5 trillion yuan (US$363 billion) to be invested in research, innovation and infrastructure by 2020. The diverse range of visions in the Shanghai Project, whether inspiring or annoying, are never boring. Let's hope that they are another step along the way to a zero-carbon China.
Author information Corresponding author Correspondence to Jacob Dreyer.
Rights and permissions To obtain permission to re-use content from this article visit RightsLink.THE ULTIMATE FESTIVAL NINJA!
Marcus Haney is an undoubtedly cool dude. Someone who has managed to get into festivals without tickets, making fake press passes and somehow ends up on the main stages kicking back with his favourite bands, including scoring some pretty fantastic footage on his camera.
Recently, Noisey interviewed Marcus on his brave and somewhat nutty efforts behind getting into festivals. He’s claimed to have been almost fifty music festivals all over the world, sneaking in, getting past main-stage security, capturing stuff on his cam…and eventually getting kicked out. But all is not in vain, he managed to catch the attention of his favourite bands with his videos – namely Mumford & Sons (who later invited him on their tours).
“Every time i sneak in there’s that moral dilemma, how much fun i have makes up for that.”
Professionally Marcus works for HBO, shooting and creating music videos. Which is probably where the immense interest in festivals come from. According to the interview, he’s snuck into festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury in the craziest way possible, like hand gliding in and sleeping underneath trailers – the guy’s done it all. And what does he do with four years worth of footage? He makes a movie ( aptly titled No Cameras Allowed), the trailer of which looks pretty fucking awesome.
Check it out yourself.The subconscious mind is the powerful secondary system that runs everything in your life. Learning how to stimulate the communication between the conscious and the subconscious minds is a powerful tool on the way to success, happiness and riches.
The subconscious mind is a data-bank for everything which is not in your conscious mind. It stores your beliefs, your previous experience, your memories, your skills. Everything that you have seen, done, or thought is also there.
It is also your guidance system. It constantly monitors the information coming from your senses for dangers and opportunities. And it would communicate that information to the conscious mind, which you want it to communicate (more on that tricky topic – later).
The communication between the subconscious and the conscious mind is bidirectional. Every time when you have an idea or an emotion, a memory or an image from the past, this is the subconscious mind communicating to your conscious mind. The communication in the other way is not so trivial and is achieved using the principle of auto-suggestion.
This article will introduce the powers of the subconscious mind and how they can be used on the way to success. You will learn how to communicate better with your subconscious and how to set it on the track you want it to follow.
Time to read
Time to read: 18 minutes (based on 150 wpm).
What is the subconscious mind?
Have you ever read that humans only use a portion of their brains? Well, this is most of all, because of the subconscious mind. Scientists have never really studied it in depth and we still do not know enough about it. But we do know that it could run and control almost everything we do.
For example, when you meditate and you start controlling your breath, you get the control from the subconscious mind and give it to your conscious mind. You start breading deep and with your stomach. Then you stop controlling it and your subconscious takes over doing it. You do not have to think about it any more. Your breathing will continue to be relaxed until another stimulus changes it (stress for example). Everything is controlled in the back of your head.
Another example of the tasks of the subconscious mind is the information coming from the senses. Your brain is bombarded with hundreds of MB per second of information. It would explode if it had to review and process everything. This is why you have a barrier in between – the subconscious mind. It processes everything and it would only pass this information which is relevant for you in this very moment.
The wild monkey
The best comparison of the subconscious mind is to a wild monkey. It can run rampage the whole day as it does not tire easily. And it can bring random pieces of information to the main part of the brain. Or it could make itself busy with achieving your goals and bringing you the information that you need to succeed (opportunities). The only thing you have to do is it to give this wild monkey a purpose!
Communicating to your subconscious mind
Communicating thoughts from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind is difficult because it should be done with emotions. Only the thoughts that are conveyed with genuine emotions make it to the back of your mind. And only the thoughts that are backed up by a strong emotion stay there.
Unfortunately, this is true both for the negative and the positive emotions. And also unfortunately, the negative emotions are usually stronger than the positive ones. If you are interested in more on the topic of emotions, you can also read this article: Emotional Intelligence – 10 Ways to Improve Your Self Awareness.
Fear and negative self-talk
Your first step in harnessing the power of the subconscious mind is to eliminate the thoughts loaded with negative emotions. You also need to stop the negative self-talk or at least make sure that it is not loaded with emotions.
Your fears often tend to come true, especially when you are very emotional about them. And this is why negative self-talk could produce such harmful effects. Eliminating these negative thoughts, or countering them as soon as possible is very important step towards success.
There is story about the guardian angel that always follows you. When you say to yourself “my life is awful”, it writes down awful life. When you say “my job is boring”, it writes down boring job. And when you say “my body is ugly”, it write down ugly body. And then it goes on and grants you all those wishes, because they are filled with strong emotions (sadness, disappointment, regret, self-loathing). That angel is your subconscious mind.
Stop here and ask yourself: “Can you afford letting negative self-talk enter your mind?”
The countering technique
One of the best practices in reducing negative self-talk is the countering technique. Every time a negative thought comes to your mind, you counter it with the extreme positive counter-thought. For example if you have an important presentation and you think to your self: “I am going to embarrass myself in front of all those people”, immediately counter it with: “NO! I am going to be so good that the audience will applaud me for five minutes”. The truth will often be somewhere in between.
The delete button technique
Another power tool in countering the negative self-talk is the delete button. When a negative thought enters your mind, you press the delete button in your mind and image how the thought, written on a piece of paper, is destroyed. Or you can picture in your mind that you are smashing the negative thought with your fist.
Burning desire
Your subconscious mind will also act on thoughts that are conveyed with desire. Powered by desire, your subconscious mind will do anything in order to obtain the object of the desire. It would also open all available channels to the conscious mind for information on how to do that.
When your goal becomes the consuming obsession of your life and you have the burning desire to see it come true, then you will be successful. When you have set your subconscious mind on the task backed up by that strong emotion, then it would allow you to see the opportunities in life that would lead you to your goal.
The best athletes become the best only because of their burning desire to be number one. There is nothing else that they want from life, except this. This is the dominating dream of their life. They are willing to do what it takes to achieve it:
Stay late after the training session and practice their skills more.
Do what it takes to expand their skill set and become better than the rest.
Set their subconscious mind to look for opportunities to achieve their goals.
How can you cultivate burning desire?
Start with defining your goal. Make it as specific as possible. Make it as realistic as possible. Write it down somewhere and feel it.
More information about setting and achieving your goals here: Fail Your New Year’s Resolution.
The bridge-burning technique
Then, burn your bridges. Destroy any safe boats that you might keep just in case something messes up. Our mind has evolved to help us survive and it is then when it achieves the best results. By burning the bridges, you set your mind in survival mode and the only way left is way ahead – towards the goal.
The small wins (or progress bar) technique
Another very powerful tool is to fill your life with small achievements (that lead you towards the goal). If you want to lose X kg of weight, start each day by looking at the graph of your progress so far. Hopefully, it is going down in general, even if there are small bumps. Put a picture on your desk of someone who has the perfect weight and look at it every day.
More information about this technique here: How to Achieve a Long-term Goal with Small Rewards.
The motivational technique
Last but not least, find what energizes you to work on your goal and use it. It could be positive people that encourage you. Or a motivational video. Or even an energizing song.
In any way, make sure that the burning desire to achieve your goal is part of your every day! Behind the scenes, your subconscious mind will be bombarded with thoughts about your goal, reinforced by the burning desire to achieve it.
Faith and love
The most powerful, positive emotions are faith, love and sex. The first two are more spiritual, the last one is more biological. When all of them are present, they empower any thought and it can easily enter the subconscious mind. Then, it will act on the thought and will translate it into actions, opportunities and ideas.
Faith is a state of mind, which may be induced, or created, by affirmation or repeated instructions to the subconscious mind, through the principle of auto-suggestion.
Faith is different than hope, because when we have faith, we are sure in the outcome. And when we hope, we are merely suggesting to yourself one possible scenario in uncertain circumstances.
The Visualization technique
And the next step towards achieving your goal is to visualize it. It is based on having faith in the outcome. Not hoping that the desired outcome will be true, but believing that it is already true.
One of the most powerful techniques is visualizing your life when your desire is already fulfilled. Set aside several minutes a day to close your eyes and imagine your life after you have achieved your goal. Make it as vivid as possible:
What are you wearing?
How do you act?
How are you feeling?
What are you saying?
What are you doing?
The physical preparation technique
Another tool is a physical preparation. If you want to be famous, then start wearing those brackets to fix your teeth NOW. And if you want a romantic relationship, buy an extra toothbrush and put it in your bathroom.
The detachment technique
And last but not least, let go of your attachment to outcomes. You can never plan how exactly your desire will manifest itself. Do not narrow down on the options that you have at the moment but rather adopt an open mind and have faith in the unfolding of your dreams.
I personally practice detachment during meditation. This is how I learned to detach myself in the real life. More information about this topic here: How to Learn Meditation and Change Your Mind and Body.
Receiving communication from your subconscious mind
As we already established, the communication between the conscious and the subconscious mind is two-way. You give your subconscious mind tasks, desires and goals. And it gives you back information, opportunities and ideas.
Have you ever wondered why there are certain people who easily spot new opportunities? This happens because their subconscious mind feeds them more information on a specific subject, than what the other people usually get.
Have you ever noticed that as soon as you really decide to do something, there soon comes an opportunity that allows you to do it? This is because when you make the decision, you form a thought and imbue it with desire and faith. And you suddenly start receiving the information that you need to achieve it.
Threshold for conscious perception
We have already established that your subconscious mind receives all information that your senses generate. It then filters the information and decides what to pass to the conscious mind. The difference between those two outcomes is called threshold for conscious perception.
This is the difference between spotting an opportunity and missing it. It is only the matter of the mode in which you have set your subconscious mind and the load of tasks you have given it.
When you have a goal, when you have powered it with desire and when you have faith in the outcome, then you will start noticing the opportunities to fulfill that dream. Everything else is filtered out, rejected and stored in your memories. You main gain access to it in the future, when you have other goals, but for the time being it is beyond the reach of the conscious mind.
Auto-suggestion
Nature has given humans an absolute control over the information that enters the subconscious mind, through the five senses. However, this does not mean that everyone exercises this control. Even more, in the majority of cases the average person does not exercise this control. This is why so many people go through life in poverty.
The method of introducing thoughts to the subconscious mind is called auto-suggestion. It comprises all self-administered stimuli which reach one’s mind through the senses. The dominating thoughts that remain in the conscious mind (negative or positive) make their way to the subconscious mind and influence it. A thought dominates if a strong emotion (faith, fear, love and so on) empowers it.
The mantra technique
One of the most powerful techniques is the mantra technique. The essence of that technique is to repeat in your mind (or aloud) a positive mantra that will help you overcome a difficulty or fear. The more you repeat it, the more strong you believe it in, the more faith you put into your words, the better the result.
According to many scientific studies one of the major causes of illness is … hypochondria. This is the art of convincing yourself that you are sick. This is a powerful auto-suggestion mantra powered by negative emotions like fear.
If that is possible, then it should also be possible to convince your mind that you are healthy, happy, good looking or mentally strong.
The reading out load technique
Previously, you received instructions to set a definite goal for your life. Now make sure to write down that goal and reinforce it with the desire to achieve it. Read your goal aloud after waking up and before going to sleep and several times a day. Visualize yourself, already in possession of your desire. See and feel yourself in possession of the desire. Mix emotion when you read and say your goals aloud. Be faithful of the outcome.
Remember that there is a price to be paid in order to be able to influence your subconscious mind. That price is called persistence. You have to keep doing the steps for auto-suggestion, you have to keep repeating your goals aloud and you have to keep having faith in the outcome and the end-result.
The difference between those who succeed and those who fail may just be a few days. Or it could be the availability of a back-up plan. Those who always say: “In case I do not success, I will do this and that” will always do this and that. Because their mind would always keep thinking about the way out.
Source
This article is based on one of the oldest books about self-help: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It offers a set of simple to follow, but difficult to master rules, that anyone can apply towards becoming rich. One of these rules is auto-suggestion. I have adapted the material from the book and I have applied it to the present. And I have provided my approach in learning and applying the methods from the book.
Summary
The subconscious mind is one of the most powerful weapons that you have in your arsenal. It could be the difference between spotting an opportunity or missing it. Or the difference between living a rich and fulfilling or poor and unhappy life. It could give you influence over people or it could enslave you to work for other people.
Auto-suggestion is the way of introducing ideas and thoughts from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind. Using this skill you can influence your subconscious mind to work towards the goals that are important to you. Mastering it can lead to successful life and fulfillment of all your dreams.
See also
The article below is a very good addition to this one. It introduces a different technique for accessing your subconscious mind and explains it using brain-waves: Access Your Subconscious Mind Through Meditation.NEW DELHI: The Army "very recently" destroyed Pakistani military posts in Rajouri with punitive artillery assaults, to give "a befitting reply to the Pakistan military which aids infiltration into the Indian side" in Jammu and Kashmir.India made its assault along the Nowshera sector in Rajouri."With the mercury rising and snow-melting in the valley, the chances of infiltration increase from the Pakistani side. The Army is all geared up to counter such threats," Major General Ashok Narula told reporters in New Delhi."It was part of the plan to proactively dominate the LoC and counter-terrorism operations to curb infiltration," he added.On Saturday, the Army engaged a group of terrorists who were trying to infiltrate and cornered them around the Kisan post in the Naugam sector. The encounter, which lasted more than 24 hours, ended on Sunday evening and left seven people dead, including three soldiers.Transforming industry data
into transparent, useful information.
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Ashtracker currently tracks groundwater at 4,518 monitoring wells distributed among 189 sites across the country. 77 percent of wells have been contaminated above safe levels.Hyderabad: ACB sleuths raided the houses of Khairatabad RTO administrative officer J. Narender and found more than Rs 3 crore worth unaccounted assets, including a room full of silver.
He was earlier arrested by the ACB for accepting a bribe of Rs |
الْأَئِمَّةِ لِتَعَذُّرِ نَقْلِ حَقِيقَةِ مَذْهَبِهِمْ؛ وَعَدَمِ ثُبُوتِهِ حَقَّ الثُّبُوتِ لَا لِأَنَّهُ لَا يُقَلَّدُ
Translation:
“The summary of this is that it is impermissible to follow anyone besides these [four] scholars, due to it being difficult to record their actual views and due to them (views) not being established properly, not because they (the other Mujtahidūn) were not worthy of being followed”
[Al Taqrīr Wal Taḥbīr, volume 2, page 451, (Beirut: Dārul Kutub Al ‘Ilmiyyah, 1999)]
Despite Dr. Brown’s claims that all three scholars were Imāms of a school of Fiqh, in consideration of how Al Qaffāl Al Shāfi’ī’ Raḥimahullah (d.507 AH), Al Mazirī Raḥimahullah (d.536 AH), Al Kākī Raḥimahullah (d.749 AH), Al ‘Aynī Raḥimahullah (d.885 AH), and Imām Muḥammad Al Shawkānī Raḥimahullah (d.1250 AH), have portrayed their views, it is obvious that their schools of Fiqh were not codified properly and their actual views cannot be ascertained with certainty.
The issue of the impermissibility of women leading congregational pray for mixed genders is some-what unique in the sense that three of the four Imāms from the four major schools of thought have explicitly mentioned that it is impermissible.
Imām Mālik Raḥimahullah (d.179) has mentioned as related in Al Mudawwanah in the chapter of Ṣalāh:
لَا تَؤُمُّ الْمَرْأَةُ
Translation:
“A woman shall not be an Imām”
[Al Mudawwanah, volume 1, page 140 (Cairo: Darul Hadith, 2005), ed. ‘Amir Al Hazzār and ‘Abdullah Al Minshāwī]
Imām Muḥammad ibn Al Ḥasan Al Shaybānī Raḥimahullah (d.189 AH) writes in Al Aṣl:
لَا يَنْبَغِيْ لِلْمَرْأَةِ أَنْ تَؤُمَّ الرَّجُلَ
Translation:
“A woman should not be an Imām for a man”
[Al Aṣl, volume 1, page 256, (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2012) ed. Muḥammad Bwenukālin]
Imām Muḥammad ibn Al Ḥasan Al Shaybānī Raḥimahullah (d.189 AH) has not mentioned a difference of opinion over this impermissibility. This ruling of impermissibility is mentioned under the chapter of Ṣalāh. At the beginning of the chapter of Ṣalāh, Imām Muḥammad ibn Al Ḥasan Al Shaybānī Raḥimahullah (d.189 AH) writes:
قَدْ بَيَّنْتُ لَكُمْ قَوْلَ أَبِيْ حَنِيْفَةَ وَأَبِيْ يُوْسُفَ وَقَوْلِيْ وَمَا لَمْ يَكُنْ فِيْهِ اخْتِلَافٌ فَهُوَ قَوْلُنَا جَمِيْعًا
Translation:
“I have narrated (i.e. will narrate) for you the view of Abū Ḥanīfah, Abū Yūsuf, and my view. And wherever there is no difference of opinion [in the book], then it is our collective view”
[Al Aṣl, volume 1, page 5, (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2012) ed. Dr. Muḥammad Bwenukālin]
The phrase ‘should not’ here refers to impermissibility as mentioned by a plethora of Ḥanafī jurists, including Imām Al Qudūrī Raḥimahullah (d.428 AH) who writes in Sharḥ Mukhtaṣar Al Karkhī:
وَالْأَمْرُ بِتَأْخِيْرِهَا نَهْيٌ عَنِ الصَّلَاةِ إِلَى جَانِبِهَا وَخَلْفِهَا
Translation:
“The command of moving them (the women) back [in the rows of Ṣalāh] is a prohibition from performing Ṣalāh next to her or behind her”
[Sharḥ Mukhtaṣar Al Karkhī, أ/ق١٠٥/١, Al Maktabāt Al Hindiyyah]
[Ghāyah Al Bayān, أ/ق٦٥/١, Fayḍullah Effendī]
Shamsul A’immah Al Sarakhsī Raḥimahullah (d.483 AH)[5] writes in Al Mabsūṭ:
الْمَرْأَةُ لَا تَصْلُحُ لِإِمَامَةِ الرِّجَالِ
Translation:
“A woman does not have the capability to be an Imam for men”
[Al Mabsūṭ: volume 1, page 180 (Damascus: Dār Al Nawādir, 2013)]
‘Allāmah ‘Alī ibn Abī Bakr Al Murghīnānī Raḥimahullah (d.593 AH) writes:
وَلَا يَجُوْزُ لِلرٍّجَالِ أَنْ يَقْتَدُوْا بِإِمْرَأَةٍ
Translation:
“It is impermissible for men to perform Ṣalāh behind a woman [as their Imam]”
[Al Hidāyah Sharḥ Bidāyatul Mubtadī, volume 2, page 400, (Multan: Al Maktabah Al Ḥaqqāniyyah, n.a.) – From Al Bināyah Edition]
This is supported by the statement of the master researcher Dr. Muḥammad Bwenukālin who writes:
وَتُسْتَعْمَلُ أَلْفَاظُ "لَا يَنْبَغِيْ" "لَيْسَ يَنْبَغِيْ" بِمَعْنَى عَدْمِ الْجَوَازِ أَوِ الْبُطْلَانِ أَحْيَانًا
Translation:
“The words ‘should not’ ‘it is not appropriate’ are at times used for impermissibility or invalidation”
[Muqaddimah of Al Aṣl, page 257, (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2012) ed. Muḥammad Bwenukālin]
This statement has been reiterated by Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Al Naqīb in his book, Al Madhab Al Ḥanafī. [Al Madhab Al Ḥanafī, volume 1, page 378-379 (Riyad: Maktabah Al Rushd, 1998)]
Imām Al Shāfi’ī’ Raḥimahullah (d.204 AH) said as quoted by Imām Al Muzanī Raḥimahullah in his Al Mukhtaṣar:
وَلَا يَأْتَمُّ رَجُلٌ بِإِمْرَأَةٍ وَلَا بِخُنْثَى فَإِنْ فَعَلَ أَعَادَ
Translation:
“A man shall not perform Ṣalāh behind a woman nor a hermaphrodite, if he does so he shall repeat [the Ṣalāh]”
[Mukhtaṣar Al Muzanī, page 37, (Beirut: Dārul Kutub Al ‘Ilmiyyah, 1997)]
Imām Al Shafi’ī’ Raḥimahullah (d.204 AH) has emphatically written in Al Umm:
وَلَا يَجُوْزُ أَنْ تَكُوْنَ إِمْرَأَةٌ إِمَامَ رَجُلٍ فِيْ صَلَاةٍ بِحَالٍ أَبَدًا
Translation:
“It is not permissible for a woman to be an Imām for a man in Ṣalāh under any circumstance at all”
[Al Umm, volume 2, page 321, (n.a: Dārul Wafā, 2001) ed. Rif’at Fawzī]
This was also the view of Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal Raḥimahullah (d.241 AH). ‘Allāmah Mardāwī Raḥimahullah (d.885 AH) writes:
وَلَا تَصِحُّ إِمَامَةُ الْمَرْأَةِ لِلرَّجُلِ هَذَا الْمَذْهَبُ مُطْلَقًا قَالَ فِي الْمُسْتَوْعَبِ هَذَا الصَّحِيْحُ مِنَ الْمَذْهَبِ وَنَصَرَهُ الْمُصَنِّفُ وَاخْتَارَهُ أَبُو الْخَطَّابِ وَابْنُ عَبْدُوْسٍ فِيْ تَذْكِرَتِهِ وَجَزَمَ بِهِ فِي الْكَافِيْ وَالْمُحَرَّرِ وَالْوَجِيْزِ وَالْمُنَوَّرِ وَالْمُنْتَخَبِ وَتَجْرِيْدِ الْعِنَايَةِ وَالْإِفَادَاتِ وَقَدَّمَهُ فِي الْفُرُوْعِ وَالرِّعَايَتَيْنِ وَالْحَاوِيَيْنِ وَالنَّظَمِ وَمَجْمَعِ الْبَحْرَيْنِ وَالشَّرْحِ وَالْفَائِقِ وَإِدْرَاكِ الْغَايَةِ وَغَيْرِهِمْ وَهُوَ ظَاهِرُ كَلَامِ الْخَرْقِيِّ
Translation:
“And it is invalid for a woman to be an Imām for a man, this is the unconditional view of the Madhab. He has said in Al Mustaw’ab, ‘This is the correct view from the Madhab’, and the author has supported this, and Abul Khattāb has preferred this [as has] Ibn ‘Abdūs in his Al Tadhkirah, and this has been asserted in Al Kāfī and Al Muḥarrar and Al Wajīz and Al Munawwar and Al Muntakhab and Tajrīd Al ‘Ināyah and Ifādat, and he has put it first in Al Furū’ and the two Ri’āyah books and two Al Ḥāwi books and Al Naẓm and Majma’ Al Baḥrain and Al Sharḥ and Al Fāiq and Idrāk Al Ghāyah and others. It is the apparent of the statement of Khārqī”
[Al Inṣāf Fī Ma’rifah Al Rājiḥ Minal Khilāf, volume 2, page 263-264, n.a.: n.a, 1955) ed. Muḥammad Ḥāmid Al Fayqī]
Dr. Brown attempts to validate his stance by stating that “a cadre of Hanbali scholars had allowed women to lead women to lead men and women in the optional nightly prayers in Ramadan (Tarawih) if the women in question were learned in the Qur’an and all the available males ignorant”.
[Misquoting Muhammad by Dr. Jonathan AC Brown, page 193 – Oneworld – ISBN 978-1-78074-420-9]
Although a number of Ḥanbalīs have adopted this view, the view has been considered a weak view in the Ḥanbalī school of Fiqh by Ibn Qudāmah Al Maqdisī Raḥimahullah (d.620 AH). In fact, after a half-a-page discussion on the issue, Ibn Qudāmah Al Maqdisī Raḥimahullah (d.620 AH) concludes:
...تَحَكُّمٌ يُخَالِفُ الْأُصُوْلَ بِغَيْرِ دَلِيْلٍ فَلَا يَجُوْزُ الْمَصِيْرُ إِلَيْهِ
Translation:
“… [It] is a ruling which contradicts the principles without evidence, and thus it is impermissible to turn towards it”
[Al Mughnī, volume 2, page 414, (Cairo: Dārul Ḥadīth, 1995), ed. Muḥammad Sharaf Al Dīn and Muḥammad Al Sayyid]
Although Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Taymiyyah Raḥimahullah (d.728 AH) states that this is a famous narration from Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal Raḥimahullah (d.241 AH), he too does not mention any opposition to the consensus related by Ibn Ḥazm Al Ẓāhirī Raḥimahullah (d.456 AH) of it being impermissible for a woman to lead Ṣalāh in obligatory congregational prayers for mixed genders.
[Naqd Marātib Al Ijmā’, page 290 (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 1998) ed. Ḥasan Aḥmad]
[Majmū’ Al Fatāwā, volume 12, page 140, (Cairo: Dārul Ḥadith, 2006)]
Perhaps not entirely related to our discussion, but in attempting to prove that patriarchy and later scholars negatively influenced women’s rights in Islām, Dr. Brown writes:
“Abu Hanifah concluded that women did not need a male guardian’s permission to marry and this became the main stance on this issue in the Hanafi school.”
[Misquoting Muhammad, page 197-198]
In this passage, Dr. Brown has referenced an article written by Rudolf Peters titled ‘What does it mean to be an official Madhab? Ḥanafism and the Ottoman Empire’
The actual view of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH) was that the marriage of a woman who marries herself to a man who is compatible for her without the permission of her guardian is valid and the guardians do not have a right to annul the marriage. However, if she marries a man who is not compatible for her, then her guardians shall have a right to rescind the marriage.
In Al Asl, the most important book in the Ḥanafī school of Fiqh and the source of its rulings, Imām Abū Ḥanīfah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH)’s opinion has been mentioned:
وَإِذَا زَوَّجَتِ الْمَرْأَةُ بِكْرًا كَانَتْ أَوْ ثَيِّبًا نَفْسَهَا زَوْجًا بِشَاهِدَيْنِ وَهُوَ كُفْؤٌ لَهَا فَهُوَ جَائِزٌ...وَإِنَّمَا يَبْطُلُ النِّكَاحُ إِذَا كَانَ غَيْرَ كُفْءٍ لَهَا
Translation:
“And when a woman, whether she is virgin or not, marries herself to someone and he is compatible for her, then it is permissible…and indeed the marriage shall be annulled [by the guardians] when he is incompatible for her”
[Al Aṣl, volume 10, page 198, (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2012) ed. Muḥammad Bwenukālin]
Peters also affirms this when he quotes Multaqa Al Abhur, as he writes:
“The authoritative rule, ascribed to Abu Hanifah, is that such a woman can validly contract her own marriage and that her marriage guardian can demand recission of the contract by the judge in the event she has married herself to a person who is not her coequal”
By missing out that final crucial statement, Dr. Brown creates the impression that there is a huge difference between the view adopted by Imām Abū Ḥanīfah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH) and the view adopted by one of his students. He then continues:
“But when employing their sultanic right to pick which legal opinion to make state law, the Ottomans had opted for an obscure opinion from a solitary early Hanafi scholar who did require a woman to secure her guardian’s approval”
[Misquoting Muhammad, page 198]
It is unclear from Dr. Brown’s statement ‘a solitary Hanafi scholar’ whether he is referring to the opinion of Imām Muḥammad ibn Al Ḥasan Al Shaybānī Raḥimahullah (d.189 AH) or Imām Ḥasan ibn Ziyād Al Lu’lu’ī’ Raḥimahullah (d.204 AH).
The opinion of Imām Muḥammad ibn Al Ḥasan Al Shaybānī Raḥimahullah (d.189 AH) was that the marriage of a woman who marries without the permission of her guardians shall be suspended upon the permission of her guardians, irrespective of whether the husband is compatible or not. If the guardians allow the marriage, it shall be valid. However, if the husband is compatible and the guardians do not allow the marriage, then the judge shall allow the marriage.
[Sharḥ Mukhtaṣar Al Ṭaḥāwī, volume 4, page 256, (Beirut: Dārul Bashāir Al Islāmiyyah, 2010), ed. Said Bakdash]
According to Peters, this was the view imposed by the Ottoman Sultan. However, it would seem strange for Dr. Brown to refer to Imām Muḥammad ibn Al Ḥasan Al Shaybānī Raḥimahullah (d.189 AH) as ‘a solitary Hanafi scholar’, considering that he was one of, if not the, most celebrated Ḥanafī jurist in Islāmic history.
It seems more probable that Dr. Brown was referring to the view of Imām Ḥasan ibn Ziyād Al Lu’lu’ī’ Raḥimahullah (d.204 AH), a view which, according to Peters, was not the view that the Ottoman Sultan imposed, despite what Dr. Brown has written.
The opinion of Imām Ḥasan ibn Ziyād Al Lu’lu’ī’ Raḥimahullah (d.204 AH) was that the marriage of a woman who marries without the permission of her guardians to a man who is compatible shall be valid. In this case, the guardians shall not have a right to annul the marriage. However, if she marries a man who is incompatible without the permission of her guardians, then her marriage shall be invalid.
Regardless of which of the two opinions Dr. Brown intends, he has labelled the opinion as ‘obscure’ – giving an impression to the innocent reader that the view is an irregular opinion.
We shall present some reasons to show that neither of these opinions are obscure:
1- The opinion of Imām Muḥammad ibn Al Ḥasan Al Shaybānī Raḥimahullah (d.189 AH) is supported by an explicit Ḥadīth. The Prophet Ṣallallāhu ‘Alayhi Wasallam said:
لَا نِكَاحَ إِلَّا بِوَلِيٍّ
Translation:
“There is no marriage except with [the permission of] a guardian”
[Sunan Al Tirmidhī, volume 2, page 568, (Beirut: Dār Al Risālah Al ‘Ālimiyyah, 2010) ed. Shaykh Shu’ayb Al Arnaout]
In fact, the opinion of Imām Muḥammad ibn Al Ḥasan Al Shaybānī Raḥimahullah (d.189 AH) has been explicitly mentioned in Al Aṣl, the most important book in the Ḥanafī school of Fiqh and the source of its rulings:
وَقَالَ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ الْحَسَنِ لَا يَجُوْزُ النِّكَاحُ إِلَّا بِوَلِيٍّ وَإِنْ تَزَوَّجَتْ بِغَيْرِ أَمْرِ الْوَلِيِّ فَالنِّكَاحُ مَوْقُوْفٌ حَتَّى يُجِيْزَهُ الْوَلِيُّ أَوِ الْقَاضِيْ
Translation:
“[Imām] Muḥammad ibn Al Ḥasan says, ‘Marriage is impermissible without [permission of] a guardian, if she marries without [the permission of] a guardian, then her marriage shall be suspended until the guardian allows it or the judge allows it”
[Al Aṣl, volume 10, page 199, (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2012) ed. Dr. Muḥammad Bwenukālin]
2- The opinion of Imām Ḥasan ibn Ziyād Al Lu’lu’ī’ Raḥimahullah (d.204 AH) was not an opinion adopted by the Ottomans alone, Ḥanafī jurists well before the Ottomans such as Ibn Al Hummām Raḥimahullah (d.861 AH) had adopted this opinion
[Fatḥul Qadīr, volume 3, page 157, (Peishawar: Maktabah Al Ḥaqqāniyyah, n.a)]
3- Every opinion of the students of Imām Abū Hanifah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH) was a narration from Imām Abū Hanifah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH) himself.
‘Allāmah ‘Abdul Rashīd Al Walwāljī Raḥimahullah (d. post 540 AH) writes:
قَالَ أَبُوْ يُوْسُفَ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ مَا قُلْتُ قَوْلًا خَالَفْتُ فِيْهِ أَبَا حَنِيْفَةَ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ إِلَّا قَوْلًا قَدْ كَانَ قَالَهُ وَرُوِيَ عَنْ زُفَرَ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ أَنَّهُ قَالَ مَا خَالَفْتُ أَبَا حَنِيْفَةَ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ فِيْ شَيْءٍ إِلَّا قَدْ قَالَهُ ثُمَّ رَجَعَ عَنْهُ
Translation:
“[Imām] Abū Yūsuf, may Allah be pleased with him, said, ‘I have not said a statement in which I have contradicted [Imām] Abū Ḥanīfah, may Allah be pleased with him, except that it was a statement that he himself had said’. It has been narrated from [Imām] Zufar, may Allah be pleased with him that he said, ‘I have not contradicted [Imām] Abū Ḥanīfah, may Allah be pleased with him in anything except that he himself had said and then moved away from it”
[Sharḥ ‘Uqūd Rasmil Muftī, page 371, (Beirut: Dārul Bashāir Al Islamiyyah, 2015), ed. Dr. Ṣalāḥ Abul Ḥāj]
Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Al Ghaznawī Raḥimahullah (d.593 AH) writes:
رُوِيَ عَنْ جَمِيْعِ أَصْحَابِنَا مِنَ الْكِبَارِ كَأَبِيْ يُوْسُفَ وَمُحَمَّدٍ وَزُفَرَ وَالْحَسَنِ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُمْ أَنَّهُمْ قَالُوْا مَا قُلْنَا فِيْ مَسْأَلَةٍ قَوْلًا إِلَّا وَهُوَ رِوَايَتُنَا عَنْ أَبِيْ حَنِيْفَةَ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ وَأَقْسَمُوْا عَلَيْهِ أَيْمَانًا غِلَاظًا
Translation:
“It has been narrated from all our elderly jurists such as [Imām] Abū Yūsuf, [Imām] Muḥammad, [Imām] Zufar, [Imām] Al Ḥasan, may Allah be pleased with them, that they said, ‘We have not held a view in any issue except that it was a narration from [Imām] Abū Ḥanīfah, may Allah be pleased with him’ and they took strong oaths upon this”
[Al Ḥāwī Al Qudsī, volume 2, page 563 (Beirut: Dār Al Nawādir, 2011) ed. Dr. Ṣāliḥ Al ‘Ayli]
Accordingly, the opinions of the students of Imām Abū Hanifah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH) hold a valid stance in the Hanafi school of Fiqh and cannot be labelled as obscure.
An early proof for this is found in the Al Nawāzil of Abū Layth Al Samarqandī (d.373 AH), an influential Ḥanafī jurist. He writes:
Translation:
“Nuṣayr [ibn Yaḥyā] said, ‘I asked Shaddād [ibn Ḥakῑm] during the illness in which he passed away, ‘If something (a Mas’alah) were to come upon us after your demise and we know the view of [Imām] Abū Ḥanῑfah and his students, is it permissible for us to use it and issue Fatwā according to it?’ He replied, ‘Yes’, he (Nuṣayr) asked, ‘and if they have differed amongst themselves?’ He (Shaddād) replied, ‘If you have the capability to choose (you are from the first four categories of Fuqahā), then choose from their statements, and if you do not have the capability to choose (you are not from the first four categories of Fuqahā), then the view of [Imām] Abū Ḥanῑfah is safest for you’”
[Al Nawāzil, ا/ق۲٣٤, Al Maktabāt Al Hindiyyah]
Shaddād ibn Ḥakīm Raḥimahullah (d.210 AH) was a student of Imām Abū Ḥanifah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH) and was 7 years older than Imām Muḥammad ibn Al Ḥasan Raḥimahullah (d.189 AH).
In conclusion, the Ottomans did not issue a Fatwā upon an ‘obscure’ view.
It seems that Dr. Brown’s main purpose in presenting this argument was to show that the later scholars adopted views that were detrimental to the freedom of women, indicating that the same has occurred with the issue of prohibiting women from leading congregational prayer. This argument is flawed for the following reasons:
1- Imām Abū Ḥanīfah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH) also added the stipulation that if a woman marries a man who is not compatible for her, then her guardians shall have a right to rescind the marriage. Thus, in terms of the role of a guardian in the marriage of a woman, there is not a huge difference between the views of Imām Abū Ḥanifah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH), Imām Muḥammad ibn Al Ḥasan Raḥimahullah (d.189 AH), and Imām Ḥasan ibn Ziyād Al Lu’lu’ī’ Raḥimahullah (d.204 AH).
2- There was a reason as to why Imām Abū Ḥanīfah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH)’s opinion was not adopted by the later Ḥanafī jurists. It was not to simply undermine the rights of women. Shamsul A’immah Al Sarakhsī Raḥimahullah (d.483 AH) writes:
وَعَلَى رِوَايَةِ الْحَسَنِ رَحِمَهُ اللهُ تَعَالَى قَالَ إِذَا زَوَّجَتْ نَفْسَهَا مِنْ غَيْرِ كُفْءٍ لَمْ يَجُز النِّكَاحُ أَصْلًا وَهُوَ أَقْرَبُ إِلَى الْإِحْتِيَاطِ فَلَيْسَ كُلُّ وَلِيٍّ يَحْتَسِبُ فِي الْمُرَافَعَةِ إِلَى الْقَاضِيْ وَلَا كُلُّ قَاضٍ يَعْدِلُ
Translation:
“Based upon the narration of Al Ḥasan, may Allah have mercy upon him, he (Imām Abū Ḥanīfah) said, ‘If she marries herself to someone who is incompatible, then the marriage is completely invalid’. This [position] is more precautionary, for indeed, not every guardian can properly raise the issue to a judge and not every judge is just”
[Al Mabsūt, volume 5, page 13 (Damascus: Dār Al Nawādir, 2013)]
Thus, it was due to legitimate impracticalities in following the opinion of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH) that another legitimate opinion in the Ḥanafī school of Fiqh (that was also a narration from Imām Abū Ḥanīfah Raḥimahullah (d.150 AH) himself) was adopted. It had nothing to do with undermining the rights of women.
3- The consensus related on the issue of the impermissibility of women leading congregational prayer has been related by the early scholars as well as we have elaborated above
Concluding Remarks
Although Dr. Brown has in this chapter tried to defend Islām from the attacks of the atheists and secularists, by choosing rare opinions in Sharī’ah, he has done more harm than good. This is because in order to appease the fickle-minded secularists, he has opposed a consensus of the scholars of Islām.
It is evident to anyone who has read the chapter in question that even before writing the chapter, Dr. Brown had a predetermined opinion that he wanted to validate. He then went to great lengths in asserting and defending his predetermined opinion, even ignoring the legitimate criticism of the narration he has used as evidence for his opinion.
Furthermore, Dr. Brown’s methodology is very questionable. When deciding the opinion he intends to base his ruling upon, he chooses the minority (supposed) opinion of three scholars, while ignoring the view of the majority. Yet when applying the laws of legal theory (Uṣūl Al Fiqh), he insists on holding onto the view of the majority. This is the insignia of those who are willing to choose any of the opinions of the scholars in order to justify their position.
Women have undeniably been given their due rights in the religion of Islām. We respect and value our Muslim mothers and sisters who play an immense role in the success of Islām and the Muslims. It is strange that secularists hinge their campaign of ‘feminism in Islām’ upon hopes of gaining credence to allow a woman to lead men in congregational Ṣalāh.
We conclude with the statement of the Prophet Ṣallallāhu ‘Alayhi Wasallam as narrated by Ḥaẓrat Abū Huraryrah Raḍiyallāhu ‘Anhu:
خَيْرُ صُفُوفِ الرِّجَالِ أَوَّلُهَا وَشَرُّهَا آخِرُهَا وَخَيْرُ صُفُوفِ النِّسَاءِ آخِرُهَا وَشَرُّهَا أَوَّلُهَا
Translation:
“The best of the rows of men [in Ṣalāh] are the first ones and the worst are the last ones, and the best of the rows of women [in Ṣalāh] are the last ones and the worst are the first ones”
[Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, volume 2, page 257, (Damascus: Dārul Qalam, 2006)]
As a final note, this article is not intended to be an ad-hominem attack on Dr. Jonathan A.C. Brown. We wish him well. With that being said, the chapter in reference needs to be revised.
Due to a shortage of time, we have been able to provide only a short response. There are other points that Dr. Brown has made in this chapter that are also questionable, however, due to them being subsidiary issues and due to time constraints, we have decided to delay our response to them. Insha’Allah, we shall respond to them in due time.
And Allah Ta’āla Knows Best
Mu’ādh Chati
Student Darul Iftaa
Blackburn, England, UK
Checked and Approved by,
Mufti Ebrahim Desai.I’d like to be clear: my rape did not take place within the context of the film industry.
But the day after it happened, in post-traumatic shock, I dragged myself to Leicester Square, to the red carpet premiere of a film I’d worked on as associate producer. I used concealer to cover my bruises, hoping no one would notice them beneath the gown I’d been lent by a designer.
I found myself drinking themed cocktails, making small talk with the big-name cast and other producers – and nowhere in all this high-gloss celebration could I tell anyone about the truth of what had just happened to me. That my life as I knew it had been destroyed.
Think of the stories that never got told by female film-makers, of the women’s screenplays that never got produced
In many ways, that premiere exemplified my experience of the film industry as a woman: you must hide your injuries beneath a veneer of glamour and confidence, pretending that everything’s fine. This was an industry where, in assisting a director, I’d had to cast Page 3 models for a film production, casually asking agents about their clients’ breast sizes. Where I’d had to give script notes because the “love scene” in a screenplay was essentially a rape and the male writer/director couldn’t see what was wrong with it. Where at Cannes, I’d had to courteously negotiate around a 70-something male film executive’s repeated invitation to his hotel room, while still flattering him because politically this wasn’t someone I could upset.
And then, when I was 29, I was violently raped, and there was no provision in this precarious creative industry for a young woman’s job security after a destructive, destabilising trauma like that. So I left.
I’m hardly the only woman to have left the film industry – or many other types of work. Reading about the Harvey Weinstein scandal, I noticed several female film-makers |
ius to Richmond to West Virginia to Ann Arbor, we’re getting an idea of what Beilein can do at a Big Ten powerhouse. Beilein is the most successful coach at Michigan since the Fab Five days, and he shows little signs of slowing down. He’s signed elite recruits like Mitch McGary and Glenn Robinson III while developing a point guard Ohio State ignored in its own backyard (Trey Burke) into the national player of the year.
11. Shaka Smart, VCU
Record (all at VCU): 117-37 overall (.750), 50-20 Colonial/Atlantic 10 (.714)
NCAA Tournament: 7-3, one Final Four
Smart’s 117 wins through his first four seasons matches Brad Stevens’ record for the most wins in the first four seasons in of a career. If VCU wins 23 games this season, he’ll have the record for most wins in his first five seasons. More than wins, Smart’s teams have an identity based on the havoc defense. The Rams have led the nation in turnover rate the last two seasons, forcing turnovers on more than a quarter of possessions.
12. Bo Ryan, Wisconsin
Record: 321-140
Record at Wisconsin: 291-113 overall (.720), 144-60 Big Ten (.705)
NCAA Tournament: 16-12
The 2013-14 season was further testament that no matter what happens, Bo Ryan will have a top-four team in the Big Ten. Point guard Jordan Taylor moved on, then heir apparent Josh Gasser was lost for the season with a torn ACL in October. No matter, Wisconsin still finished 12-6 in the Big Ten, finishing in the top four in the league ever season under Ryan. Ryan has good reason to be confident in his formula: He’s been able to develop players in his system year in and year out. In 11 seasons at Wisconsin, Ryan’s teams have ranked in the top 10 in Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted defensive efficiency eight times and in the top 30 of offensive efficiency eight times. The only knock, though, is Wisconsin’s bad luck in the NCAA Tournament. The Badgers haven’t advanced beyond the Sweet 16 since 2005.
13. Sean Miller, Arizona
Record: 216-90
Record at Arizona: 96-43 overall (.691), 48-24 Pac-12 (.667)
NCAA Tournament: 11-6
It may be too early to say Sean Miller has returned Arizona to Lute Olson levels, but the Wildcats aren’t too far off. After a 16-15 mark in his first season, Miller has led Arizona to an 80-28 record in the last three, including a trip to the Elite Eight in 2011 and Sweet 16 in 2013. With a star-studded freshman class led by Aaron Gordon, Miller has a team that will contend the Final Four, a milestone the Wildcats haven’t reached since 2001.
14. Jamie Dixon, Pittsburgh
Record (all at Pittsburgh): 262-86 overall (.753), 115-57 (.669) Big East
NCAA Tournament: 11-9
The 2011-12 season turned out to be a blip for Jamie Dixon at Pittsburgh. The Panthers went 5-13 in the Big East and missed the NCAA Tournament for his worst season as Pitt’s head coach. The Panthers quickly rebounded in 2013-14. Overall, a few numbers to consider: Dixon has one more Big East win than Boeheim since Dixon became head coach in 2003-04. Dixon also had 16 more Big East wins than Jim Calhoun from 2003-04 through the UConn coach’s retirement last season. And lastly, Dixon had only three fewer Big East wins (92) than Louisville’s Rick Pitino (95) when both programs were in the league. The only thing that’s missing is postseason success: Dixon has reached the Elite Eight and won Big East Tournament only once each.
15. Mike Montgomery, Cal
Record: 655-304
Record at Cal: 109-59 overall (.649), 59-31 Pac-12 (.656)
NCAA Tournament: 18-16, one Final Four
By going 12-6 in the Pac-12 last season, Montgomery is the first Cal coach to win 10 or more conference games in five consecutive seasons since Pete Newell did it in the ‘50s, a run that included the 1959 national championship. Montgomery may not replicate his run at Stanford, but Cal has proven it will be in the mix for an NCAA Tournament slot each season, no matter the changing personnel.
16. Mark Few, Gonzaga
Record (all at Gonzaga): 374-93 overall (.801), 178-22 West Coast (.890)
NCAA Tournament: 15-14
The West Coast Conference has become more competitive since Few took over in 1999-2000, but the Bulldogs continue to sit atop the league. Only once in his tenure has Gonzaga failed to win neither a West Coast regular season nor tournament title (2011-12). Gonzaga followed that with the best regular season in school history with a 32-3 record, 16-0 league mark and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. That season was spoiled by a round of 32 loss to Wichita State, the fourth consecutive season Gonzaga failed to reach the second weekend of the Tournament.
17. Tom Crean, Indiana
Record: 274-178
Record at Indiana: 84-82 overall (.506), 33-57 Big Ten (.367)
NCAA Tournament: 9-7, one Final Four
Crean has brought Indiana back to national prominence in a way that’s been lacking since the Bob Knight era. Crean reestablished Indiana’s recruiting clout in state, starting with the signing of Cody Zeller and continuing with Yogi Ferrell and Jeremy Hollowell. After a breakthrough season which saw Indiana win only its second post-Knight Big Ten title, it’s time to see if Crean can keep Indiana on top.
18. Buzz Williams, Marquette
Record: 136-71
Record at Marquette: 122-54 overall (.693), 60-30 Big East (.667)
NCAA Tournament: 8-5
Buzz Williams’ name keeps getting thrown out for other major jobs, but the stat-minded Texan is doing just fine in Milwaukee. Marquette is one of only four teams to reach the Sweet 16 in each of the last three seasons, joining Florida, Kansas and Ohio State. And he’s done this without the benefit of McDonald’s All-Americans. And despite the departure of Jae Crowder and Darius Johnson-Odom before last season, Marquette won a share of the Big East title.
19. Bob Huggins, West Virginia
Record: 651-261
Record at West Virginia: 133-75 overall (.635), 60-48 Big East/Big 12 (.556)
NCAA Tournament: 27-20, two Final Fours
West Virginia’s first season in the Big 12 truly was an aberration for Huggin. The 13-19 season was only the second losing season of his career and second losing conference season (the first for both being his first season at Akron in 1984-85). Perhaps Huggins had a mix that simply didn’t jell last season with Deniz Klicli trying to mesh with a handful of transfers and freshmen. Still, Huggins has made things work with wayward souls throughout his career, and he’ll try to do the same in 2013-14. The Mountaineers have regressed each season since reaching the 2010 Final Four, so there’s an element of concern here.
20. Jim Larranaga, Miami
Record: 491-329
Record at Miami: 49-20 overall (.710), 24-10 ACC (.706)
NCAA Tournament: 7-6, one Final Four
When Larranaga left George Mason for Miami, it seemed to be a cushy last job before he retired. Turns out Larranaga had a few more surprises. Seven years after taking George Mason to the Final Four, Larranaga won an ACC Tournament and regular-season title at Miami — the last ACC team other than Duke or North Carolina to do both in the same season was a David Thompson-led NC State team in 1974. Nearly as remarkable: Larranaga has had one losing conference season since 1993-94 while at Bowling Green.
21. Dana Altman, Oregon
Record: 483-280
Record at Oregon: 73-37 overall (.664), 32-22 Pac-12 (.593)
NCAA Tournament: 4-9
Who would've pegged Altman this close to the 500-win club? Odds are the Ducks coach will get there this season. He’s won 20 games in 14 of the last 15 seasons with Oregon and Creighton. Not bad for an interesting start to his tenure. He wasn’t the first choice for the Ducks, but Altman has been a success in Eugene. His teams have changed quite a bit in three seasons due to transfers in and out of the program, but three consecutive 20-win seasons is the best run at Oregon since 1935-39.
22. John Thompson III, Georgetown
Record: 277-131
Record at Georgetown: 209-89 overall (.701), 99-57 (.635)
NCAA Tournament: 8-9, one Final Four
Thompson’s tenure at Georgetown has been marred by early NCAA Tournament exits, but consider three of the last five teams that knocked the Hoyas out of the Tournament: Florida Gulf Coast, a Final Four-bound VCU and a Stephen Curry-led Davidson. Thompson’s career shouldn’t be defined by those exits. Georgetown surprised last season by winning a share of the Big East title, the third time the Hoyas have won the regular-season championship under Thompson.
23. Jay Wright, Villanova
Record: 379-229
Record at Villanova: 257-144 overall (.641), 114-90 Big East (.559)
NCAA Tournament: 12-10, one Final Four
Villanova bounced back from a losing 2011-12 season by going 20-14 overall and 10-8 in the Big East last year. The Wildcats aren't competing at the same level as they were in the late 2000s, but they’re showing signs of getting back. Villanova defeated each of the Big East’s tri-champs (Louisville, Marquette and Georgetown) at least once last season plus Syracuse. Wright also has a point guard in Ryan Arcidiacono who is poised to be one of the league’s breakout stars. After reaching the NCAA Tournament in eight of the last nine seasons, 2011-12 was an aberration.
24. Steve Fisher, San Diego State
Record: 466-252
Record at San Diego State: 281-171 overall (.622), 113-97 MWC (.538)
NCAA Tournament: 23-12, three Final Fours, one national championship
Fisher’s San Diego State tenure alone would give him top honors in the Mountain West. He took over a program that had never won an NCAA Tournament game and turned it into a regular conference contender and top-25 team. The last two seasons ended in disappointment as the Aztecs lost in the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament to double-digit seeds, but Fisher has led San Diego State to a 55-23 league record in the last five seasons while improving the program’s recruiting profile significantly.
25. Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt
Record: 400-239
Record at Vanderbilt: 277-176 overall (.611), 111-115 SEC (.491)
NCAA Tournament: 6-8
Stallings may always wonder how his team with the core of Jeffery Taylor, John Jenkins and Festus Ezeli never made it out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Now, the Commodores are in a rebuilding phase after those three left school with school’s first SEC Tournament title in 61 years. The overall record isn’t flashy, but Stallings has built a consistent program at Vanderbilt, not an easy feat. He’s one win a way from tying Roy Skinner for the most wins in program history.
26. Gregg Marshall, Wichita State
Record: 333-153
Record at Wichita State: 139-70 overall (.665), 66-42 Missouri Valley (.611)
NCAA Tournament: 5-9, one Final Four
Marshall perhaps went underappreciated nationally before taking Wichita State to the Final Four last season, but perhaps more should have seen a breakout coming for the Shockers. Marshall increased his win total each season in Wichita and improved the Shockers’ postseason results each season. Before Wichita State, Marshall led Winthrop to the NCAA Tournament in seven of nine seasons.
27. Leonard Hamilton, Florida State
Record: 419-353
Record at Florida State: 219-143 overall (.605), 89-89 ACC (.500)
NCAA Tournament: 6-7
Hamilton knows something about degree of difficulty: He has won a share of the Big East regular-season title at Miami and an ACC Tournament title at Florida State. After losing seasons in ACC play in five of his first six years at FSU, Hamilton has gone 52-30 in the conference in the last four seasons. The defensive-minded Hamilton turned FSU into a factor in the ACC after more than a decade of irrelevance.
28. Matt Painter, Purdue
Record: 201-100
Record at Purdue: 176-95 overall (.649), 84-56 Big Ten (.600)
NCAA Tournament: 8-7
Painter knew he would be rebuilding after the Robbie Hummel, JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore class left campus. The Boilermakers performed admirably under the circumstances in a loaded Big Ten last season, finishing 8-10. This could be a key season for Painter, though, as his program enters the second season of the post-Hummel era.
29. Mike Brey, Notre Dame
Record: 384-194
Record at Notre Dame: 285-142 overall (.667), 136-79 Big East (.633)
NCAA Tournament: 6-11
Stability is the name of the game here as Notre Dame has won 20 games in each of the last seven seasons, reached in the NCAA Tournament in six of the last seven years and protected its homecourt. Still, Notre Dame has not reached the second weekend of the NCAA since Brey’s third season in 2003.
30. Lon Kruger, Oklahoma
Record: 514-332
Record at Oklahoma: 35-28 overall (.556), 16-20 Big 12 (.444)
NCAA Tournament: 14-14, one Final Four
Oklahoma knew what it would get when it hired Kruger, and the well-traveled coach delivered. No coach is more reliable at taking over a tough situation and putting the program on the right track. Kruger went 11-7 in the Big 12 in his second season at OU and became the first coach to take five different teams to the NCAA Tournament (Kansas State, Florida, Illinois and UNLV were the others). Kruger has done his work with a minimal amount of flash — he’s never coached a consensus All-American, hasn’t won a regular-season conference title since 1998 and hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2008. But programs don’t hire Kruger expecting John Calipari.
31. Tad Boyle, Colorado
Record: 121-80
Record at Colorado: 69-38 overall (.645), 29-23 Big 12/Pac-12 (.558)
NCAA Tournament: 1-2
Colorado is one of the lucky basketball programs that has seen conference realignment work in its favor. The Buffaloes are 21-15 in the Pac-12 with back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time since 1962-63. Boyle, who also laid the groundwork at Northern Colorado, has restored interest in basketball in Boulder, both from fans and aspiring NBA Draft picks.
32. Fran Dunphy, Temple
Record: 468-238
Record at Temple: 158-75 overall (.678), 80-32 Atlantic 10 (.714)
NCAA Tournament: 3-15
A staple of Philadelphia’s Big 5, Dunphy is as consistent as they come. In the last 24 seasons at Penn and Temple, Dunphy has finished outside of the top three of the conference standings only twice. While he has a reputation as a good defensive coach, he’ll adjust: His 2010 team, for example, was a slow-it-down team that excelled in defensive efficiency. With Khalif Wyatt the last two seasons and with Dionte Christmas early in his tenure, his teams have pushed the tempo (relatively speaking) and have been stronger on the offensive end. With a young group in a new league, Dunphy will have to find a new formula for 2013-14.
33. Tony Bennett, Virginia
Record: 145-86
Record at Virginia: 76-53 overall (.589), 32-34 ACC (.485)
NCAA Tournament: 3-3
Bennett’s preferred style of play isn’t the most exciting, but it is effective. He’s reversed the fortunes of Washington State and Virginia while making stars of Klay Thompson, Mike Smith and Joe Harris. The Cavaliers went 11-7 in the ACC last season, but this could be a breakout season for program that hasn’t reached the Sweet 16 since 1995.
34. Dave Rose, BYU
Record (all at BYU): 209-66 overall (.760), 100-28 Mountain West/West Coast (.781)
NCAA Tournament: 4-6
BYU’s two-year tenure in the West Coast Conference hasn’t been as impressive as the Jimmer Fredette-led seasons in the Mountain West, but that could change this season with Tyler Haws returning. Still, Rose has never failed to win 20 games in his eight seasons as a head coach. Last season was the first under Rose in which BYU lost double-digit games.
35. Bob McKillop, Davidson
Record (all at Davidson): 452-279 overall (.618), 275-103 Big South/Southern (.728)
NCAA Tournament: 3-7
If you thought Davidson and Bob McKillop was just the Stephen Curry, you’d be sorely mistaken. True, Davidson and McKillop were never better than when Curry brought the Wildcats to the brink of the Final Four, but this has been one of the most consistent mid-majors in the country. Davidson has gone 51-16 the last two seasons with a pair of SoCon regular season and tournament titles.
36. Rick Byrd, Belmont
Record (all at Belmont): 273-165 overall (.623), 167-57 Atlantic Sun/Ohio Valley (.746)
NCAA Tournament: 0-6
The 273 wins there doesn’t list Byrd’s victories at the NAIA level, which brings him up to 663. In only 13 years as a Division I program, Byrd has made Belmont one of top mid-majors. The Bruins have reached the NCAA Tournament in three consecutive seasons, including a 30-5 year in 2010-11.
37. Fran McCaffery, Iowa
Record: 305-227
Record at Iowa: 54-50 overall (.519), 21-33 Big Ten (.389)
NCAA Tournament: 2-5
McCaffery resurrected Iowa to NIT status the last two seasons, and he should have the Hawkeyes in contention for their first NCAA Tournament since 2006. If Iowa reaches the Tourney, it will be the fourth reclamation job McCaffery has led to the Big Dance, joining Lehigh, UNC Greensboro and Siena.
38. Fred Hoiberg, Iowa State
Record (all at Iowa State): 62-39 overall (.614), 26-26 in the Big 12 (.500)
NCAA Tournament: 2-2
Only Iowa State could have hired “The Mayor,” who spent more time in NBA front offices than on the coaches’ bench at any level. Hoiberg returned to Ames to make his alma mater competitive, going 23-13 in the Big 12 in the last two seasons. Iowa State needs to be creative to stay competitive, and that’s what it got in Hoiberg. He’s succeeded with Division I transfers in Royce White, Korie Lucious, Will Clyburn, Chris Babb and now DeAndre Kane. And Hoiberg has been among the best in applying advanced statistical analysis and scouting to his program. The Cyclones led the Big 12 in points per possession and effective field goal percentage last year.
39. Frank Martin, South Carolina
Record: 131-72
Record at South Carolina: 14-18 overall (.438), 4-14 SEC (.222)
NCAA Tournament: 6-4
Martin’s intense coaching style isn’t for everyone. South Carolina’s exodus of transfers may be an indication of that. If he can replicate what he did at Kansas State, Martin will have a formidable program at South Carolina. The Wildcats reached the NCAA Tournament three times in four seasons under Martin, including the Elite Eight in 2011.
40. Larry Brown, SMU
Record: 192-78
Record at SMU: 15-17 overall (.469), 5-11 Conference USA (.312)
NCAA Tournament: 19-6, three Final Fours, one national championship
Here’s a dilemma: Where should Larry Brown rank as SMU’s coach? His past credentials are impeccable with a national title at Kansas and a Final Four at UCLA (both were in the 1980s), plus an NBA championship and NBA coach of the year with two different franchises. Coaching in college and coaching in the NBA require different skill sets. Moreover, coaching in college in 1988 requires a different skill set than in 2013. Can Brown be as good a program CEO as Fran Dunphy, who we have listed ahead of him? We don't know right now. Brown's debut season at SMU was unimpressive, but the Mustangs were building for their new conference. Brown has brought in a slew of transfers and a major recruit in Keith Frazier. With better personnel against tougher competition in the American Athletic Conference, Brown will have a better gauge of what his third stint as a college coach will bring.
41. Mick Cronin, Cincinnati
Record: 204-124
Record at Cincinnati: 135-100 overall (.574), 57-67 Big East (.460)
NCAA Tournament: 3-5
Cronin doesn’t have look of an intimidating coach, but the Cincinnati native successfully whipped his alma mater back in shape. In the last three seasons, Cincinnati went 32-22 in the Big East, reached the NCAA Tournament each year and upset No. 3 seed Florida State to reach the Sweet 16 in 2012. The recruiting connections Cronin has built into New York and New Jersey will be tested as the American Athletic Conference is geographically separated from the area.
42. Chris Mack, Xavier
Record (all at Xavier): 90-44 overall (.672), 48-16 Atlantic 10 (.750)
NCAA Tournament: 4-3
This could be a critical season for Mack’s momentum at Xavier. A Cincinnati and Xavier product through and through, Mack led Xavier to A-10 titles in his first two seasons and to the Sweet 16 twice in his first three seasons. With a depleted roster, Xavier slipped to 17-14 last season. The Musketeers have a potential All-American in sophomore Semaj Christon, so Mack should expect to return to form in his fifth season.
43. Steve Lavin, St. John’s
Record: 196-125
Record at St. John’s: 51-47 overall (.520), 26-28 Big East (.481)
NCAA Tournament: 11-7
Lavin’s record technically includes the majority of the 2011-12 season when he missed all but the first four games while recovering from successful treatment for prostate cancer. The Red Storm’s record with Lavin on the bench is 20-17 in the Big East. Beyond the record, Lavin has brought momentum back to St. John’s. Lavin took a veteran team to the NCAA Tournament in 2011, but he has replenished the program with standout recruiting classes in recent years. St. John’s should be a consistent contender in the new Big East.
44. Lorenzo Romar, Washington
Record: 330-217
Record at Washington: 237-129 overall (.648), 118-82 Pac-12 (.590)
NCAA Tournament: 8-7
Washington’s sixth-place finish in the Pac-12 was the Huskies’ lowest in the league since 2007-08, prompting Romar to clean house on his staff. Romar has had little trouble bringing talent to Washington over the last decade, but the Huskies haven’t always had consistent results. Washington has missed the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons, but the Huskies won either the Pac-12 regular season or tournament title in four consecutive seasons from 2009-12.
45. Randy Bennett, Saint Mary’s
Record (all at Saint Mary’s): 263-125 overall (.678), 117-55 West Coast (.682)
NCAA Tournament: 3-5
Saint Mary’s has become a regular challenger for Gonzaga in the WCC, finally breaking the Bulldogs’ stranglehold on the league with a regular season and a conference tournament title in 2012. This is a remarkable feat for a program that went 2-27 the year before Bennett arrived in 2001-02. Bennett has rebuilt the program thanks to an unorthodox pipeline to Australia that has brought point guards like Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova to Moraga. The Gaels have averaged 26.8 wins the last six seasons.
46. Josh Pastner, Memphis
Record (all at Memphis): 106-34 overall (.757), 52-12 Conference USA (.813)
NCAA Tournament: 1-3
Pastner had the unenviable task of following John Calipari at a pressure situation at Memphis. By his fourth season, Pastner turned in his best year at Memphis, winning 31 games, going undefeated in Conference USA and defeating Saint Mary’s in the NCAA Tournament. Pastner’s record against ranked teams and major conference competition isn’t great, but he’s about to get a few more chances to show his mettle against teams like Louisville, UConn, Temple and Cincinnati. With Pastner's recruiting prowess, Memphis should have the talent to go toe-to-toe with this programs on a regular basis.
47. Larry Eustachy, Colorado State
Record: 428-267
Record at Colorado State: 26-9 overall (.743), 11-5 MWC (.688)
NCAA Tournament: 4-5
Eustachy took over a veteran team in Fort Collins and did what everyone expected by taking his fourth program to the NCAA Tournament. Now that the seniors are gone, there’s little doubt he can maintain the momentum here. Eustachy revived a dormant Southern Miss program and led Iowa State to national prominence before landing in the Mountain West.
48. Steve Alford, UCLA
Record: 385-206
Record at UCLA: First season
NCAA Tournament: 5-7
Is Alford a better coach than predecessor Ben Howland? Maybe not, but UCLA hopes he’s a better coach for UCLA than Howland was at the end of his tenure. Alford led New Mexico to its best seasons since the late ‘90s, winning the Mountain West regular season and tournament titles in each of his last two seasons. Just as relevant to UCLA, Alford did so with a recruiting pipeline to Southern California. Here’s the catch: Alford’s teams have been seeded third in the NCAA Tournament three times in his last four trips only to lose before the second weekend.
49. Steve Donahue, Boston College
Record: 192-190
Record at Boston College: 46-52 (.469), 20-30 ACC (.400)
NCAA Tournament: 2-3
Donahue is building Boston College in a similar fashion as he did at Cornell — from the ground up. Donahue reached the NIT in his first season at BC, but he’s had one of the nation’s youngest rosters the last two years, and it’s shown. This season could be the turning point after BC went from 4-12 to 7-11 in the ACC a year ago. By his eighth season at Cornell, Donahue began a run where he led the Big Red to three consecutive Ivy League titles and the Sweet 16 in 2010.
50. Stew Morrill, Utah State
Record: 584-267
Record at Utah State: 366-129 overall (.739), 186-62 Big West/WAC (.750)
NCAA Tournament: 1-9
Before the last two seasons, Utah State was about as automatic as any program in the WAC. The Aggies won four consecutive regular season titles from 2008-11. He’s essentially college basketball’s Bill Snyder, recruiting junior college prospects at a high level and avoiding tough non-conference competition. Morrill’s peers rate him as one of the best Xs and Os coaches, according to a poll by ESPN, but his program will be tested in a tougher Mountain West.As Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport looks to add a Concourse G and eventually even more concourses, it is launching a $307 million project to shorten wait times for the Plane Train people-mover and add capacity.
The Plane Train extends from the domestic terminal to the international terminal and all of the concourses in between, including T, A, B, C, D, E and F.
But during busy travel periods, the people-mover stations can get crowded and some travelers end up jostling to get on the train.
As the world's busiest airport grows even more, there will be even greater demand on the Plane Train system.
The people-mover train inside the terminal has been chugging along for about 36 years, since its inception in 1980. Hartsfield-Jackson has invested millions in an upgrade of the people-mover to reduce downtime from outages.
Now, as part of the airport's $6 billion master plan, it is adding a "turn-back" area for trains that will help increase the capacity of the tracks.
As it stands now, a train arriving at the domestic baggage claim station at the end of the line must wait for any train there to depart, before pulling into the station. That's because there's no separate area for trains to move to when another train is arriving.
But Hartsfield-Jackson plans to extend the tracks to allow space for trains to turn back, allowing a shorter interval between trains. The interval between trains is currently 108 seconds, and the extension will shave 13 seconds off, making it 95 seconds between trains when the project is complete, according to the airport.
Unfortunately, the extension won't add any new and exciting destinations for passengers taking the people-mover train.
But the addition of the turn-back area will allow 11 more cars to be added to the people-mover system -- allowing it to carry more passengers as the airport expands.
The track extension will require building a 600-foot tunnel, along with evacuation stairways. First would come a design phase. Construction would start in spring 2018 and is expected to be complete in 2019.
The tunnel will go underneath the existing MARTA station and Sky Train station. (The SkyTrain is Hartsfield-Jackson's other people-mover, which as the name implies goes above ground to the Georgia International Convention Center and the airport's rental car center.)
"This isn’t like digging a tunnel underneath normal existing structures," said Hartsfield-Jackson spokesman Reese McCranie. "We’re talking about lots of complex moving parts," with other construction projects to occur simultaneously, including construction of an InterContinental hotel next to the terminal.
"There’s a lot of complexity around this project, and this is just one part of it," McCranie said.
As it prepares to tackle the engineering feat, the airport is in search of construction firms specializing in transportation tunnels, inviting tunneling contractors to an informational meeting Sept. 20.The Campbell Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance to identify two men involved in an assault at a restaurant last month that left a victim’s jaw broken.
Police say the assault occurred on Oct. 9 at Taco Bravo, located at 1950 S. Bascom Ave., when two men behind a man in line kicked and punched him to the ground before leaving the scene.
According to Capt. Gary Berg, the department’s public information officer, the man was hospitalized for a broken jaw, a fractured rib and a few lacerations.
Police describe the two men as being in their mid-20s, standing 6 feet to 6 feet, 2 inches tall, and weighing 180 to 200 pounds. One suspect seen on surveillance footage has dark short hair and possibly a mustache.
Police say the other suspect is white with blond hair.
Anyone with information about the attack is encouraged to call the Campbell Police Department Investigation Unit at 408.871.5190.You don’t have to be likeable to everyone to be a great entrepreneur, just to the people who count. Of course, we can all point to apparent exceptions, like Ted Turner or Larry Ellison, who are sometimes seen as lions, downright predators, or even jerks. Yet I’m told that even these guys are considered quite likable by an intimate group of business and personal associates.
So likability is an elusive quality. It doesn’t mean always being perky and bright and constantly being happy. What makes each of us likable is distinct to us, and to some degree it’s in the mind of the beholder. But the basic drivers of likability are the same for most of us, and Michelle Tillis Lederman, in her new book “The 11 Laws of Likability” has summarized these nicely:
Be your authentic self. Don’t try to be someone that you are not. Other people quickly see through this façade, and lose respect. Find the good in difficult situations or personalities. Work on improving the real you, rather than building a better façade. You have to like yourself first. Don’t expect others to like you if you have a bad self-image. Practice positive self-talk using genuine accomplishments to pave the way for authentic productivity and success. Absorb the new approach and make it real. Perception is reality. How you perceive others is your reality about them, and the same is true for them of you. It is far easier to make a good first impression than to change a bad one. Likability is leaving people with positive perceptions. Exude energy in all your actions. What you give off is what you get back, and your own output can energize other people or deflate them. Channel your authentic energy to be genuine and likable, even when faced with difficulties and challenges. Curiosity never killed a conversation. Showing genuine curiosity about a person’s job, life, interests, opinions, or needs is the best way to start a conversation, keep it going, and make you likable. Check for matching needs for help rather than demanding help. Practice listening to understand. If you want others to understand and like you, you have to understand them by truly listening to what they are communicating. Don’t forget that good listening is done with you eyes and other body language, as well as your ears. Show people how you are like them. Look for common interests and backgrounds, shared experiences and beliefs, to find similarities that can help you build connections with other people. People like people who are like them. Create positive mood memories for other people. People are more apt to remember how you made them feel than what you said. It’s hard to be likeable when you intimidate people, practice insensitivity, or otherwise make them feel uncomfortable. Stay in touch and remember connections. Showing genuine curiosity about a person’s job, life, interests, opinions, or needs is the best way to start a conversation, keep it going, and make you likable. Stay in someone’s mind to make them comfortable. Give something without expecting a return. There are countless ways to give freely to others, including making introductions, sharing resources, doing favors, and giving advice. What goes around comes around. Have patience, don’t expect benefits from every contact. Likeable people don’t demand value from every interaction. Stay open to the possibility that results may take time, and come in ways not obvious today.
An old Harvard Business Review article, “Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools, and the Formation of Social Networks,” looks at how people choose those they work with. It shows that people choose who they partner with at the office according to two criteria. One is job competence (Does Joe know what he’s doing?). The other is likability (Is Joe enjoyable to work with?).
In many cases, likability actually trumps competence. So unless you already have the money and position of one of the lions mentioned earlier, it’s worth your time to focus on both likability and relevant business skills, as well as relationships. Likeability is everyone’s business, and people do business with people they like. How high would you score on the likability scale?Photo via Instagram
Remember when JD Era was signed to Raekwon's ICEH20 label in 2012? Some thought that the partnership was put into place so that the Wu-Tang Clan member could cash in on Canada's grant system, which awards money to Canadian acts and labels who operate in the Great White North. JD Era expressed concern that the co-sign was a "double edged sword," and that although he put in a lot of work, he "didn’t feel like it hit where it needed to hit."
Well now it appears that JD Era's frustration has become aggression, as he took shots at his former boss in a new freestyle video. Rapping alongside Raz Fresco and Sese in front of a shoe display to promote KOTD, JD Era laid out all of his concerns in a couple of bars, even taking a shot at Raekwon's last project Fly International Luxurious Art. "Don't ask about no Raekwon homie, the past is the past / went from legendary to just money hungry for cash / I hope Donald Trump wins and he deports that ass / and between me and you that last album was trash."
We'll see if Raekwon decides to respond to these barbs through a song of his own.Buzzfeed has a lengthy article and interview with Juanita Broaddrick, who has accused Bill Clinton of rape, Juanita Broaddrick Wants To Be Believed. It’s well worth the |
also suggests that Trump sold fund assets to raise as much as $7 million in cash and individual securities to raise up to $9 million more.
The apparent increase in debt and securities sales raises questions about the amount of cash Trump has on hand.
“If he is swimming in so much cash for all his holdings, why is he selling this stuff to raise cash?” asked another ultra-high-net-worth individual who also reviewed the filings and declined to be identified by name to avoid Trump’s wrath.
Trump’s tax returns could clarify a great deal about his actual income. But Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, said in an interview with The Huffington Post last week that he would be “surprised” if Trump ever releases the returns, which is not required but which every major presidential candidate has done since 1976.
Trump attributes the refusal to ongoing audits. But there is no prohibition on individuals releasing returns under scrutiny by the IRS. The refusal has led to rampant speculation among Wall Street executives who have done deals with Trump that his returns would show surprisingly low income.
There is no dispute that Trump owns many valuable properties that contribute to a high net worth. But there is a great deal of dispute about how high that worth actually is. The financial disclosure form lists assets worth at least $1.5 billion, but the ranges included are far too wide for an observer to determine anything close to a precise figure.
“Trump has a tendency to value his brand at a very high amount, but these are usually intangible valuations just pulled out of thin air,” said Steve Stanganelli, a certified financial planner at Clear View Wealth Advisors. “And he appears to be reporting gross revenue. There is a huge difference between that and net income. What really matters is what you put in the bank.”
Estimates of Trump’s net worth range from a low of $150 million to $250 million asserted by journalist Timothy O’Brien in a 2005 book that earned him a libel lawsuit from Trump that was eventually dismissed. O’Brien saw Trump’s tax returns as part of the discovery in that suit but the records were sealed by the court and O’Brien is not allowed to discuss them in any detail.
One revelation made public as part of the suit was that Trump’s valuation of himself and his empire fluctuates based on his own “feelings.” Fortune magazine earlier this month estimated Trump’s net worth at $3.92 billion based on the latest financial disclosure.
A big chunk of Trump’s net worth figure comes from high valuations he bestows on his golf course properties. Trump values nine of his golf properties at “over $50 million” for a total of at least $450 million. He values at least four more at up to $25 million and a fifth at up to $50 million. But golf course valuation experts say there is nothing in the report to support these lofty figures.
“Unless we really know what the income and expenses for the clubs are, it’s impossible to even guess at what the value would be,” said Larry Hirsh, a founder of the Society of Golf Appraisers and the president of Golf Property Analysts. “He’s a classic example of a guy that, when he wants to get a loan or tell you how wealthy he is, he’ll tell you something is worth a bazillion dollars. But when he wants to get taxes reduced, he’ll tell you it’s worth $2.95.”
In fact, a New York state political official accuses Trump of doing exactly that.
On his disclosure report, Trump lists the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester Country, New York, as worth over $50 million. But ABC News and The Guardian newspaper reported earlier this month that for tax purposes, Trump’s attorneys at first argued the property was worth just $1.35 million before increasing the figure to $9 million.
A golf property’s valuation can be much lower for tax purposes than the price it might bring in a sale. Tax authorities don’t take into account what the underlying land might be used for by another owner, along with other variables.
But in this case, this difference was far too great, according to Dana Levenberg, the supervisor for Ossining, New York, which oversees the property. Levenberg argues that Trump’s undervaluation of the property is taking money away from children in the local Briarcliff School District.
“We have somebody on the one hand who has lawyers saying the value is less than $2 million while at the same time he’s claiming it’s worth over $50 million,” Levenberg said in an interview. “And we have seen no revenue or expense forms. It can’t be that he is making all this money but saying he doesn’t have to pay taxes on it. That’s less money for the children in school, less money for learning.”
Trump’s valuations of his golf properties are much higher than recent golf property sales would appear to support. According to Bloomberg, Orlando-based CNL Lifestyle Properties in 2015 sold 48 golf courses, with $158 million in revenue in 2013, for $320 million. Dallas-based ClubCorp Holdings last year agreed to pay $265 million for 50 golf courses with about $100 million in total annual revenue, according to Bloomberg.
Trump also claims high revenues at many of his golf properties.
The biggest revenue generator listed on Trump’s report is Trump National Doral in Miami at $132 million. In total, 14 golf properties listed on the disclosure form provided at least $300 million in revenue, more than half of Trump’s total claimed income, for an average of about $21 million per property.
That is far higher than the revenue typical of many golf courses. But several of Trump’s properties, including Doral, feature multiple courses and revenue-producing resorts, making the numbers somewhat less outlandish. “I would use 23 as the number of courses,” said Steven Ekovich, managing director for the Leisure Investment Properties Group at Marcus & Millichap, who has sold golf properties to Trump and said the revenues “comport with some other high-end clubs.”
Regardless of revenue, Ekovich said, it’s difficult to use any standard revenue-multiple model to evaluate the ultimate worth for golf properties. “It’s really an art form in pricing golf assets because each one is so unique.”
That art form is expected to come under relentless scrutiny from Democrats in a general election campaign that is expected to pit Trump against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Clinton campaign wants to portray Trump’s business empire as a Potemkin village, showy on the surface, but with little underneath.
People familiar with the matter say Democrats have leading forensic accountants poring over all of Trump’s public records and disclosures with a plan to release whatever they find to support this narrative as the campaign shifts into general election mode this summer and fall.
“Some of the stuff is supposedly dynamite,” one senior Democratic operative with ties to the Clinton campaign said. “They are very confident about the opposition research. But I wouldn't expect anything cataclysmic until the fall.”
Clinton supporters have been taunting Trump on Twitter with the #PoorDonald hashtag and Clinton herself has questioned the mogul’s statements about his wealth. “We’ve got to get below the hype,” Clinton said recently on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I think we’re beginning to find out, but I don’t think we know enough, and that’s why he should release his tax returns.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has emerged as a high-profile Democratic surrogate prosecuting the case that Trump might not be as rich as he says he is. “We don’t know what Trump pays in taxes because he is the first presidential nominee in 40 years to refuse to disclose his tax returns,” Warren said in a fiery speech last week, followed by an extended Twitter war with the presumptive GOP nominee. “Maybe he’s just a lousy businessman who doesn’t want you to find out that he’s worth a lot less money than he claims.”
Thus far, Trump has proved impervious to this line of argument, backing up claims from Manafort and others that voters simply don’t care about Trump’s tax returns and believe that he is the fabulously successful titan he says he is.
But if anything could damage the Trump brand, some analysts say, it would be persistent revelations about his business record and personal riches. “By any stretch, Trump is rich. But the perception now is that he is richer and huger and better than everyone,” said Stanganelli. “What happens if that perception changes?”What is a big baby?
The medical term for big baby is macrosomia, which literally means “big body.” Some researchers consider a baby to be big when it weighs 4,000 grams (8 lbs., 13 oz.) or more at birth, and others say a baby is big if it weighs 4,500 grams (9 lbs., 15 oz.) or more (Rouse et al. 1996). Babies are called “extremely large” if they are born weighing more than 5,000 grams (11 lbs.) (Hehir et al. 2015).
A baby is also called “large for gestational age” if its weight is greater than the 90th percentile at birth, in other words, if it is bigger than 90% of all other babies born at that same gestational age (Rouse et al. 1996).
In this Evidence Based Birth® article, we will cover the evidence on induction or C-section for big babies.
How common are big babies?
About one in ten babies is born big in the United States (U.S.). Overall, 8.7% of all babies born at 39 weeks or later weigh between 8 lbs., 13 oz., and 9 lbs., 15 oz., and 1.7% are born weighing 9 lbs., 15 oz. or more (U.S. Vital Statistics). In the table below you can see the percentages listed separately for women who are not diabetic, those who have gestational diabetes, and those who have Type I or Type II diabetes.
Among women with gestational diabetes, researchers have found that the higher your blood sugar when you’re first diagnosed with gestational diabetes, the more likely you are to have a baby who is large for gestational age (Metzger et al. 2008). However, women who manage their gestational diabetes through diet, exercise, or medication, bring down their chances of having a big baby to normal levels (7%) (Landon et al. 2009).
The most detailed evidence we have on typical care for big babies comes from the U.S. Listening to Mothers Survey. Although only one in ten babies is born large, researchers found that two out of three American women had an ultrasound at the end of pregnancy to determine the baby’s size, and one out of three women in the entire study were told that their babies were too big. In the end, the average birth weight of these suspected “big babies” was only 7 lbs., 13 oz. (Declercq, Sakala et al. 2013).
What is routine care for suspected big babies?
Of the women who were told that their baby was getting big, two out of three said their care provider discussed inducing labor because of the suspected big baby, and one out of three said their care provider talked about planning a C-section because of the big baby.
Most of the women whose care providers talked about induction for big baby ended up being medically induced (67%), and the rest tried to self-induce labor with natural methods (37%). Nearly one in five women said they were not offered a choice when it came to induction—in other words, they were told that they must be induced for their suspected big baby.
When care providers brought up planning a C-section for a suspected big baby, one in three women ended up having a planned Cesarean. Two out of five women said that the discussion was framed as if there were no other options—that they must have a Cesarean for their suspected big baby.
In the end, care provider concerns about a suspected big baby were the fourth most common reason for an induction (16% of all inductions), and the fifth most common reason for a C-section (9% of all C-sections). More than half of all mothers (57%) believed that an induction is medically necessary if a care provider suspects a big baby.
So in the U.S., most women have an ultrasound at the end of pregnancy to estimate the baby’s size, and if the baby appears large, their care provider will usually recommend either an induction or an elective C-section. Is this approach evidence-based?
This approach is based on five major assumptions:
Big babies are at higher risk for shoulders getting stuck (also known as shoulder dystocia). Big babies are at higher risk for other birth problems. We can accurately tell if a baby will be big. Induction keeps the baby from getting any bigger, which lowers the risk of C-section. Elective Cesareans for big baby are only beneficial; that is, they don’t have major risks that could outweigh the benefits
Reality #1: While it is true that 7-15% of big babies have difficulty with the birth of their shoulders, most of these cases are handled by the care provider without any harmful consequences for the baby. Permanent nerve injuries due to stuck shoulders are less common: they happen in 1 out of every 555 babies who weigh between 8 lbs., 13 oz. and 9 lbs., 15 oz., and 1 out of every 175 babies who weigh 9 lbs., 15 oz. or greater.
One of the main concerns with big babies is shoulder dystocia (“dis toh shah”), which is defined as when shoulders are stuck enough that the care provider has to take extra physical action(s) to help get the baby out.
Researchers frequently refer to shoulder dystocia as the “obstetrician’s greatest nightmare” (Chauhan 2014). The fear with shoulder dystocia is that it is possible that the baby might not get enough oxygen if the head is out but the body does not come out shortly afterwards. There is also a risk that the baby will experience a permanent nerve injury to the shoulders.
One of the reasons that care providers have a fear of shoulder dystocia is because if the baby experiences an injury, this type of injury is a common cause of litigation. In a recent study at the University of Michigan, researchers found that half of all parents whose children were being treated for shoulder dystocia-related injuries were pursuing litigation (Domino et al. 2014).
How often does shoulder dystocia occur? One high-quality study showed that in in non-diabetic women, shoulder dystocia happened to 0.65% of babies who weighed less than 8 lbs., 13 oz. (6.5 cases out of 1,000 births), 6.7% of babies who weighed between 8 lbs., 13 oz. and 9 lbs., 15 oz. (60 out of 1,000), and 14.5% of babies who weighed 9 lbs., 15 oz. or greater (145 out of 1,000) (Rouse et al. 1996).
Rates of shoulder dystocia were much higher in big babies whose mothers had Type I and Type II diabetes (2.2% of babies that weigh less than 8 lbs., 15 oz., 13.9% of babies that weighed between 8 lb., 15 oz. and 9 lb., 13 oz., and 52.5% of babies that weighed more than 9 lb., 13 oz.) (Rouse et al. 1996).
I was not able to find exact numbers for the percentage of women with gestational diabetes who had a baby with shoulder dystocia, as the rates change depending on each woman’s blood sugar level. However, we have strong evidence that treatment for gestational diabetes drastically lowers the chance of having a big baby and shoulder dystocia (To read more, click here).
Although big babies are at higher risk for shoulder dystocia, at least half of all cases of shoulder dystocia happen in smaller or normal sized babies (Morrison et al. 1992; Nath et al. 2015). This is because overall, there are more small and normal size babies born than big babies. In other words, the rate of shoulder dystocia is higher in bigger babies, but the absolute numbers are about the same with bigger and smaller babies. Unfortunately, researchers have found that it is impossible to predict exactly who will have shoulder dystocia and who will not (Foster et al. 2011).
Because at least half of shoulder dystocia cases occur in babies that are not big, and we can’t predict who will have a shoulder dystocia, this means that shoulder dystocia will always be a possibility during childbirth, unless women are not allowed any vaginal births and all babies are born by Cesarean. Because requiring everyone to have a Cesarean is unethical and impractical, it is important for health care providers to train for the possibility of a shoulder dystocia.
Other resources on resolving shoulder dystocia:
Brachial plexus palsy
A shoulder dystocia by itself is not considered a “bad outcome.” It’s only a bad outcome if an injury occurs along with the shoulder dystocia (Personal communication, Emilio Chavirez, MD, FACOG, FSMFM). Although most cases of shoulder dystocia can be safely managed by a care provider during the birth, some can result in a nerve injury in the baby called brachial plexus palsy.
Brachial plexus palsy, which lead to weakness or paralysis of the arm, shoulder, or hand, happen in about 1.3 out of every 1,000 vaginal births in the U.S. and other countries. A baby does not have to have shoulder dystocia in order to experience a brachial plexus palsy—in fact, 48%-72% of brachial plexus palsy cases happen without shoulder dystocia. When a brachial plexus palsy happens at the same time as shoulder dystocia, however, it is more likely to end up in a lawsuit than a brachial plexus palsy that did not occur with a shoulder dystocia (Chauhan et al. 2014).
Although rare, brachial plexus palsy can also happen to babies born by Cesarean. In one study that looked at 387 children who experienced brachial plexus palsy, 92% were born vaginally and 8% were born by Cesarean (Chang et al. 2016). Other researchers have found that brachial plexus palsy happens in about 3 per 10,000 Cesarean births (Chauhan et al. 2014).
Some infants who have a brachial plexus palsy (about 10%-18%) will end up with a permanent injury, defined as arm or shoulder weakness that persists for more than a year after birth. It’s estimated that there are anywhere from 35,000 to 63,000 people living with permanent brachial plexus injuries in the U.S. (Chauhan et al. 2014). For a blog article about what it’s like to grow up with a brachial plexus palsy, read Nicola’s story.
In a recent study of infants who were all extremely large at birth (>5000 g, or >11 lbs.), 17 of 120 infants born vaginally had shoulder dystocia, and three of those 17 had temporary brachial plexus palsy that healed within six months—for an overall rate of about 1 brachial plexus palsy cases per 40 vaginally-born, extremely large babies (Hehir et al. 2015).
In 1996, Rouse et al. published rates of shoulder dystocia and brachial plexus palsy by infant weight. Using the more current numbers of permanent disability published by Chauhan et al. in 2014, I created a table below that helps show the difference between the weight groups.
Importantly, research has shown that when health care professionals undergo annual inter-professional training (this means, doctors, nurses, and midwives training together as a team) on how to handle shoulder dystocia, they can lower—and in some cases eliminate—brachial plexus palsy among babies who experience shoulder dystocia (Crofts et al. 2016). Doctors have been trying to take this successful training (called “PROMPT”) from the United Kingdom and implement it in the U.S. Results at the University of Kansas showed a decline and then eventual elimination of permanent cases of brachial plexus palsy with PROMPT annual trainings (Weiner et al. 2015).
To watch a news video about the PROMPT training, click here. To visit the PROMPT foundation website.
Can a baby die from shoulder dystocia?
Deaths from shoulder dystocia are possible but rare. In 1996, researchers looked at all the studies so far that had reported the rate of death due to shoulder dystocia. In 15 studies, there were 1,100 cases of shoulder dystocia and no deaths (a death rate of 0%). In two other studies, the rates of infant death were 1% (one baby out of 101 “died at delivery,” possibly due to the dystocia) and 2.5% (one infant died out of 40 cases of shoulder dystocia) (Rouse et al. 1996).
In a study published by Hoffman et al. in 2011, researchers looked at 132,098 women who gave birth at term to a live baby in head-first position. About 1.5% of the babies had a shoulder dystocia (2,018 cases), and of those, 101 newborns were injured. Most of the injuries were brachial plexus palsy or collar bone fractures. Out of the 101 injured infants, there were zero deaths and six cases of brain damage due to lack of oxygen. With the six brain-damaged infants, it took an average of 11 minutes between the birth of the head and the body.
[Trigger warning: Read Jennifer’s story].
Assumption #2 Big babies can lead to a higher risk of other health problems in either the mother or baby.
Reality #2 It’s possible that giving birth to a big baby can increase the risk of certain health problems for both the mother and the baby. However, the care provider’s “suspicion” of a big baby carries its own set of risks.
Perineal Tears
It is possible that women who give birth to big babies are more likely to have severe perineal tears (3rd or 4th degree). However, research studies have found conflicting results. For example, one large study found no difference in 3rd and 4th degree perineal tears between women who had big babies and those who had normal size babies (Weissmann-Brenner et al. 2012). By contrast, another study of hospital births in California between 1995 and 1999 found a higher rate of 4th degree tears in big babies who were born vaginally (Stotland et al. 2004). However, 4th degree tear rates in this particular study were very high, even among normal weight babies (1.5%), and the authors did not describe how many women had episiotomies, which is a leading cause of severe tears.
Although having a big baby may be a risk factor for severe tears, it may be helpful to compare this risk to other situations that can also increase the risk of tears. For example, one large study found that the risk of a severe tear with a big baby ranged from 0.2% to 0.6% (Weissmann-Brenner et al. 2012), while other researchers have found that a vacuum delivery increases the risk of a severe tear by 11 times (so if your baseline risk was 0.2%, it would increase to 2.2%), and the use of forceps increases the risk of a severe tear by 39 times (from 0.2% to 7.8%) (Sheiner et al. 2005).
Postpartum Hemorrhage
Women who give birth to big babies may be at higher risk for postpartum hemorrhage. In one large study, researchers found that women who gave birth to babies weighing more than 9 lbs., 15 oz. were more likely to have a postpartum hemorrhage (1.7%) compared to women who had average size babies (0.3%) (Weissmann-Brenner et al. 2012). However, it is not clear whether this higher rate of postpartum hemorrhage is due to the big baby itself or the inductions and Cesareans that care providers often recommend for a big baby (Fuchs et al. 2013)—as both these procedures can increase the risk of postpartum hemorrhage (Magann et al. 2005).
Newborn complications
One study compared 2,766 large babies born to non-diabetic mothers with 2,766 infants who had normal birth weights (Linder et al. 2014). They found that big babies were more likely to have low blood sugar after birth (1.2% vs. 0.5%), temporary rapid breathing (also known as “transient tachypnea” or “wet lung,” 1.5% vs. 0.5%), high temperature (0.6% vs. 0.1%), and birth trauma (2% vs. 0.7%).
The researchers did not say whether care providers suspected that the babies were large before labor began, or if their care was managed differently. More large infants in this study were born by Cesarean (33% vs. 15%), which could have played a role in the higher rates of breathing problems, since breathing problems are more common with Cesarean-born babies.
Stillbirth
Some doctors recommend Cesareans for big babies because they believe there is a higher risk of stillbirth. I have only been able to find one research study that covered this topic.
In 2014, researchers published a study where they looked back in time at 784,576 births that took place in Scotland between the years 1992 and 2008. They included all babies who were born at term or post-term (between 37 and 43 weeks). They did not include multiples or any babies who died from congenital anomalies (Moraitis et al. 2014).
Babies in this study were grouped according to their size for gestational age—4th to 10th percentile, 11th to 20th percentile, 21st to 80th percentile (considered the normal group), 81st to 90th percentile, 91st to 97th percentile, and 98th to 100th percentile. The gestational age of each baby was confirmed by ultrasounds that took place in the first half of pregnancy.
In this study, there were 1,157 stillbirths, and the risk of stillbirth was highest in the groups with the smallest babies (1st to 3rd and 4th to 10th percentiles). The third highest risk of stillbirth death was seen in the babies who were in the 98th to 100th percentiles for weight (extremely large for gestational age). Using the American Academy of Pediatrics growth curve for gestational age, the 98th to 100th percentiles would be roughly equivalent to a baby who is born weighing 9 lbs., 15 oz. or greater at 41 weeks.
Meanwhile, the lowest rates of stillbirth were in babies who were in the 91st to 97th percentiles. The increase in stillbirth risk in the largest group (98th to 100th percentile) was partly explained by maternal diabetes; however, there was also a higher risk of unexplained stillbirth for babies in the 98th to 100th percentile. Overall, the absolute risk of an extremely large for gestational age baby (98th to 100th percentile) experiencing stillbirth between 37 and 43 weeks was about 1 in 500, compared to 1 in 1,000 for babies who are in the 91st to 97th percentile.
The risk of stillbirth has historically been higher in women with Type I or Type II diabetes. However, in recent years the stillbirth rate for women with Type I or Type II diabetes has drastically declined due to improvements in how we manage diabetes during pregnancy (Gabbe et al. 2012). As far as gestational diabetes goes, the largest study ever done on gestational diabetes found no link between gestational diabetes and stillbirth (Metzger et al. 2008).
Is it Harmful to Suspect a Big Baby?
When a big baby is suspected, women are more likely to experience a change in how their care providers see and manage labor and delivery. This leads to a higher Cesarean rate and a higher rate of women inaccurately being told that labor is taking too long or the baby does not “fit.”
In fact, research has consistently shown that the care provider’s perception that a baby is big can be more harmful than an actual big baby by itself.
Overall, a total of nine different studies from 1992 to 2015 have all shown that it is the suspicion of a big baby—not big babies themselves—that leads to higher induction rates, higher Cesarean rates, and higher diagnoses of stalled labor (Levine et al. 1992; Weeks et al. 1995; Parry et al. 2000; Weiner et al. 2002; Sadeh-Mestechkin et al. 2008; Blackwell et al. 2009; Melamed et al. 2010; Little et al. 2012; Peleg et al. 2015).
In one study, researchers compared what happened to women who were suspected of having a big baby (>8 lbs., 13 oz.) to what happened to women who were not suspected of having a big baby—but who ended up having one (Sadeh-Mestechkin et al. 2008).
The end results were astonishing. Women who were suspected of having a big baby (and actually ended up having one) had triple the induction rate; more than triple the Cesarean rate, and a quadrupling of the maternal complication rate, compared to women who were not suspected of having a big baby but had one anyway.
Complications were most often due to Cesareans and included bleeding (hemorrhage), wound infection, wound separation, fever, and need for antibiotics. There were no differences in shoulder dystocia between the two groups. In other words, when a care provider “suspected” a big baby (as compared to not knowing the baby was going to be big), this tripled the Cesarean rates and made mothers more likely to experience complications, without affecting the rate of shoulder dystocia (Sadeh-Mestechkin et al. 2008).
These results were confirmed by another study published by Peleg et al. in 2015. At their hospital, physicians had a policy to counsel all women with suspected big babies (suspected of being 8 lbs., 13 oz. and higher (≥4,000 grams) about the “risks” of big babies. Elective Cesareans were not encouraged, but they were performed if the mother requested one after the discussion. There were 238 women who had suspected big babies (that ended up truly being large at birth) and were counseled, and 205 women who had unsuspected big babies (that ended up being truly large at birth) who were not counseled.
Despite the fact that the babies were all about the same size, only 52% of women in the suspected big baby group had a vaginal birth, compared to 91% of women in the non-suspected big baby group. This increase in Cesarean rate in the suspected big baby group was primarily due to an increase in the mothers requesting elective Cesareans after the “counseling” session about big babies. There was only one case of shoulder dystocia in the unsuspected big baby group, and two cases in the suspected big baby group. None of these babies experienced injuries. There was no difference in severe maternal tears between the two groups. The authors concluded that obstetricians should NOT be counseling women about the risks of big babies thought to be 8 lbs 13 oz or higher, because it leads to an increase in the number of unnecessary Cesareans without any benefit to the mother or baby. They suggested that researchers should study using a higher weight cut-off (such as 9 lbs., 15 oz.) to trigger counseling.
Other researchers have found that when a first-time mom is incorrectly suspected of having a big baby, care providers have less patience with labor and are more likely to recommend a Cesarean for stalled labor. In this study, researchers followed 340 first-time moms who were all induced at term. They compared the ultrasound estimate of the baby’s weight with the actual birth weight. When the ultrasound incorrectly said the baby was going to weigh more than 15% higher than it actually ended up weighing at birth, physicians were more than twice as likely to diagnose “stalled labor” and perform a Cesarean for that reason (35%) than if there was no overestimation of weight (13%) (Blackwell et al. 2009b).
It’s not surprising that physicians are more likely to turn to Cesarean in these situations, given the cultural fear of big babies. In a recent medical journal editorial, an obstetrician with a clear bias towards Cesarean for big babies said that, “Flagging up all cases of predicted fetal macrosomia is vitally important, so that the attendants in the labor suite will recommend Cesarean if there is any delay in cervical dilatation or arrest of head rotation or descent. Cesarean should also be the preferred option if an abnormal fetal heart tracing develops” (Campbell 2014).
So in summary, although big babies are at higher risk for some problems, the care provider’s perception that there is a big baby carries its own set of risks. This perception—whether it is true or false—changes the way the care provider behaves and how they talk to women about their ability to give birth, which, in turn, increases the chance of Cesarean.
Assumption #3: We can tell which babies will be big at birth.
Reality #3: Both physical exams and ultrasounds are equally bad at predicting whether a baby will be big at birth.
Time and time again, researchers have found that it is very difficult to predict a baby’s size before it is born. Although two out of three U.S. women receive an ultrasound at the end of pregnancy (Declercq et al. 2013) to “estimate the baby’s size,” both the care provider’s estimate of the baby’s size and ultrasound results are very unreliable.
In 2005, researchers looked at all of the studies that had ever been done on ultrasound and estimating the baby’s weight at the end of pregnancy. They found 14 studies that looked at ultrasound and its ability to predict that a baby would weigh more than 8 lbs., 13 oz. Ultrasound was accurate 17% to 79% of the time, with most studies showing that the accuracy (“post-test probability”) was less than 50%. This means that for every ten babies that ultrasound predicts will weigh more than 8 lbs., 13 oz., five babies will weigh more than that and the other five will weigh less (Chauhan et al. 2005).
Ultrasound is even worse at trying to predict babies who will be born weighing 9 lbs., 15 oz. or greater. In five studies that were done, the accuracy of ultrasounds to predict extra-large babies was only 20 to 30%. This means that for every ten babies the ultrasound identified as weighing more than 9 lbs., 15 oz., only two to three babies actually weighed more, while the other seven to eight babies weighed less (Chauhan et al. 2005).
The researchers found four studies that looked at the ability of ultrasound to predict big babies in women with diabetes. The accuracy of these ultrasounds was 61 to 63%, which means that for every ten babies of diabetic women who are thought to weigh more than 8 lbs., 13 oz., six will weigh more and four will weigh less. The ultrasound test probably performs better in diabetic women simply because diabetic women are more likely to have big babies. In other words, it’s easier to predict a big baby in someone who is much more likely to have a big baby to begin with.
Compared to using ultrasound, care providers are equally inaccurate when it comes to using a physical exam to estimate the size of the baby. When a care provider estimates that a baby is going to weigh more than 8 lbs., 13 oz., the overall accuracy is only 40-53%. This means that out of all the babies that are thought to weigh more than 8 lbs., 13 oz., half will weigh more than 8 lbs., 13 oz. and half will weigh less.
The care provider’s accuracy goes up if the woman has diabetes or is post-term, again, probably because the chance of having a big baby is higher among these women. Unfortunately, all of the studies that looked at diabetes and the accuracy of ultrasound lumped women with gestational diabetes and those with Type I or Type II diabetes into the same groups, limiting our ability to interpret these results.
A recent systematic review concluded that there is “no clear consensus with regard to the prenatal identification, prediction, and management of macrosomia.” The authors stated that the main problem with big babies is that it is very difficult to diagnose macrosomia before birth—it’s a diagnosis that can only be made after birth (Rossi et al. 2013).
Even the “best” way to predict a big baby is going to have problems identifying actual big babies. In a 2010 study (Rosati et al. 2010), researchers tested different ultrasound “formulas” to figure out an infant’s estimated weight. The best formula for predicting birth weight was the “Warsof2” formula, which is based solely on the baby’s abdominal measurement. The results of this formula came within 15% of the baby’s actual weight in 98% of cases. As an example, if your baby’s actual weight was 8 lbs. (3,629 grams), the ultrasound could estimate the baby’s weight to be anywhere between 6 lbs., 13 oz. (3,090 grams) and 9 lbs., 3 oz. (4,450 grams).
Assumption #4: Induction allows the baby to be born at a smaller weight, which helps avoid shoulder dystocia and reduces the risk of Cesarean.
Reality #4: There is conflicting evidence about whether induction for suspected big babies can improve the health of mothers and babies.
We will talk about three main pieces of evidence in this section:
A 2016 Cochrane review (when |
gun, a weapon which fires a blast of alchemical fury- a flaming bolt of blazing energy. Ironbreakers who show an aptitude with the Drakegun are further trained and formed into new units. When confronted with a foe capable of breaking through, the Ironbreakers will open their ranks to allow the Irondrakes to file past and unleash their molten blasts.
- Longbeards
Unless slain in battle or laid low by mishap, Dwarfs live to a great age. The relative length and fullness of a Dwarf’s beard indicates how old, and therefore wise, he is. Longbeards have fought in more wars, beaten more enemies, and endured greater hardships than any beardling can possibly imagine. As the Greenskins are the sworn enemy of the Dwarfs, the Longbeards can often be heard grumbling about how today’s Goblins are far smaller and weedier then they used to be and how nothing is as well made as it was in their day. A Longbeard unit is likened to a reliable bulwark that stands fast and supports the other formations.
- Slayers
Slayers are the strangest and most deadly of all Dwarfs. In times of battle they arrive from the wilderness to join a throng, lending their considerable combat skills to the Dwarf cause. Their oath is to seek out and destroy, with unwavering determination, the largest foe they can find. As Slayers spurn armour or shields, those who live on become heavily scarred and fearless monster killers; bitter fighters that band together to seek their doom, yet are incapable of deliberately fighting to lose.
- Gyrocopter (Steam Gun)
Gyrocopters are flying machines whose rotor blades are propelled by an ingenious lightweight steam engine. They can both take off and land vertically as well as hover in position. The main armament of a gyrocopter is a steam gun. When the valve is released, a blast of super-heated steam from the engine blasts out of the barrel with a hissing scream. Over the years, the Gyrocopter’s firepower has been augmented with explosives. Originally the pilot was responsible for lighting the fuse and throwing a bomb overboard while trying to fly and dodge enemy arrows. More recently, the Gyrocopter’s small payload has been fitted into the craft’s stabilisers.
- Flame Cannon
There are few weapons that can put fear into the heart of a foe quite like the Flame Cannon. A volatile concoction of hot oil and molten tar is mixed within the Flame Cannon before air is pumped into the barrel; soon the pressure inside is tremendous and the barrel is almost ready to burst. Enemies struck by Flame Cannons have their flesh melted off them in a slough, leaving only scorched bones and a foul smelling liquid.
Unit Roster
Note that Legendary Lords, Lords and Heroes can be ‘Melee’, ‘Ranged’, ‘Caster’ or a hybrid mix of types. This indicates their ideal role on the battlefield.
Legendary Lords:
High King Thorgrim Grudgebearer – Melee (Race Leader)
o Faction-wide trait: ‘Age of Retribution’ – Progressive, for a Dwarf, Grudgebearer’s fame in striking out entries in the Book of Grudges is the toast of drinking halls the length of the Worlds Edge Mountains. As a result his armies are easier to fill with eager Dwarfen Warriors of all types.
Ungrim Ironfist – Melee
o Faction-wide trait: ‘Oathbound’ – Ungrim’s tireless search for the ultimate foe inspires other Slayers to join him in his quest for glorious death, making vast units of them easier to recruit and maintain.
Lords:
- Lord – Melee
Heroes:
- Master Engineer – Ranged
- Thane - Melee
- Runesmith
Mounts:
- Throne of Power (Thorgrim Only)
Melee Infantry:
- Dwarf Warriors
- Dwarf Warriors (Great Weapons)
- Hammerers
- Ironbreakers
- Longbeards
- Longbeards (Great Weapons)
- Miners
- Miners (Blasting Charges)
- Slayers
Missile Infantry:
- Quarrellers
- Quarrellers (Great Axes)
- Thunderers
- Irondrakes
- Irondrakes (Trollhammer Torpedo)
Vehicles:
- Gyrocopter (Steam Gun)
- Gyrocopter (Brimstone Gun)
- Gyrobomber
Artillery:
- Cannon
- Flame Cannon
- Grudge Thrower
- Organ Gun'Dissident video shoot' interrupted BelfastTelegraph.co.uk Police in the Republic are investigating a video shoot by suspected dissident terrorists in a remote forest. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/dissident-video-shoot-interrupted-29123512.html
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Police in the Republic are investigating a video shoot by suspected dissident terrorists in a remote forest.
Two trained rescue volunteers stumbled upon the gang while searching for a missing dog. The gang of four men and two women were all dressed in paramilitary uniforms and had tripods, camera gear and lighting equipment.
Peter Brown, from the Donegal Mountain Rescue Team, was out training his search dog Buddy when the incident happened.
"It was a suspicious set of circumstances," Mr Brown said.
"I had a colleague with me and Buddy went missing. He's trained to track down people and he just disappeared into the forest. One man suddenly appeared and threatened my colleague to stay out of the forest."
The incident happened in the Muff area of Co Donegal late on the night of Saturday, March 2.
"I have no idea what those people were up to and I can't say for certain what they were doing, but they were dressed in camouflage gear and had filming equipment," Mr Brown said.
The dog was found unharmed. several hours later.
A Garda spokesman said officers are investigating the incident. One officer said the fact the rescue workers were threatened made it "all the more alarming".
Belfast TelegraphHead of English at Shelford Girls' Grammar Daniela Ouzecky said this section was more conservative than the previous year's unseen text analysis, which included a cartoon of a giant watermelon that confused some students. "The visual in this one is basically a mountain of rubbish," she said. "That is the image they want students to be able to see but it still offers an opportunity for stronger kids if they talk about it being an apocalyptic image. It looks like the end of the world." Fitzroy High School VCE team leader John Hinman said the best students would have contrasted the school's logo of a tree with the image of the garbage. They would have also pointed out that the newsletter was delivered to its audience in an environmentally friendly online format, which backed up the principal's argument. But the talking point for students was fictional principal Denise Walker's hatred of tomato sauce containers, which she fumed were "lethal if flipped in your eye".
This spawned dozens of memes on social media and a video of one VCE student squirting the condiment onto his face. Collingwood College VCE programs leader Euan Morton said the exam was relatively straight-forward. "There are no surprises...the best kids are going take this and smash it," he said. Finishing the exam was a little anti-climactic for Fitzroy High School student Stella Bridie. "You spend the whole year building up to one day," she said.
"Then you go out [of the exam] and there's all this stuff in your brain that you're never going to have to think about." The 18-year-old wrote about how social inequality between men and women manifested itself in characters in The Thing Around Your Neck, a collection of short stories by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Her classmate Josh Van Eymeren said the exam was long and difficult. "It's a task, that's for sure," he said. Relief for the year 12 students of Our Lady of Mercy College in Heidelberg after Wednesday's VCE English exam. Credit:Jason South Collingwood College student Caleb Williams Jackson said he had prepared for most questions. "I was lucky," he said.
"It's hard because of how much you write in a small amount of time. But the prompts were easy." At Our Lady of Mercy College in Heidelberg, relieved students poured out of their exam room just after 12.15pm. "I forgot to analyse the picture!," exclaimed one girl, referencing the image of garbage bags.. "I can't wait to see the memes," said another, while checking Facebook to see if anyone had posted on social media about the exam yet. Co-captain Lucy Bandiera, 18, said her friends were planning a bonfire ceremony to burn their text but she planned to keep hers.
"I did enjoy the texts but probably all the practice essays will get burned," she said. The prompts for the text analysis took her by surprise. Her text was Selected Poems by John Donne. "I was looking for the key word 'love' but it wasn't there. So I panicked a little bit," she said. Charlotte Fernandes, 17, said parts of the exam took her off guard but she still thought she did OK. "The prompts were not really something that we talked about much in class. But after you think about it for a while you can get there."By Mohammad Humayun Kabir and Amamah Ahmad
In order to understand the complexity of China’s strategic situation, one needs to take into account its remarkable economic growth over the last decades. In just over a single decade, China’s foreign trade went from $289 billion dollars to an astounding $2.560 trillion in 2005 (Eshel 2011).However, one main commodity that Beijing lacks is oil. Today, the country is the second largest global oil consumer.
In order to sustain its economic growth, China’s strategic priorities are to find reliable oil supplies and secure unencumbered SLOCs. These expanding economic and strategic interests may cause the PLAN to operate out of area in order to safeguard investments and SLOCs. This explains China’s focus on military facilities along the SLOCs from China to the Persian Gulf (Eshel 2011). Below table gives us a better idea of China’s presence in the littoral nations.
As other powers shift their focus, Beijing is also focusing on its “Look South” approach. In 2013, President Xi Jinping suggested two initiatives, the Continental Silk Route and the Maritime Silk Route. The initiatives would extend China’s influence in two belts: The Bangladesh–China–India– Myanmar Forum for Regional Cooperation (BCIM), which would also connect China’s Yunnan province to the Bay of Bengal (BOB) and the China-Pakistan Silk Road Economic Belt, which is a railway project that would connect China’s Kashgar to the Gwadar port in Pakistan (Jia 2014). These initiatives would fulfill the purpose of greater connectivity in the region for Beijing.
The qualitative analysis of China’s outward investment strategy reveals three kinds of big projects:
(1) Those that very clearly serve an economic purpose;
(2) Those that do not serve an economic purpose and are more likely to buy influence with the host country’s government; and
(3) Those that serve economic and geopolitical interests.
The Chinese banks that finance these projects and the Chinese firms that work on them are almost uniformly state-owned enterprises, and the workers and materials used in these projects are often exclusively Chinese. Thus, economic and geopolitical considerations seem to motivate China’s investment in projects.
Chart Attribute: China’s Share of Exports from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, 2003-2011. China’s Increased Trade and Investment in South Asia (Spoiler Alert: It’s The Economy) Prepared for the U.S. Government Office of South Asia Policy, 2013
In addition to Beijing’s quest for energy and connectivity, this orientation has been also triggered by China’s uneasiness of the US “ Re-balancing ” strategy. In response, China has continued its naval build-up which has seen an exorbitant 500% rise since 2000 (Jha 2014). Re-balancing
Consequently, current Chinese maritime policies are intended as a warning, especially to the US, not to intervene in Chinese affairs, especially in the South China Sea (SCS). Parallels can be made here to the US Monroe doctrine, declared in 1823 to deter European powers from meddling in seas the US considered as its natural sphere of influence (Yoon 2014).
Chart Attribute: Error Terms for Trade Flows between Focus Countries and China / Source: China’s Increased Trade and Investment in South Asia (Spoiler Alert: It’s The Economy) Prepared for the U.S. Government Office of South Asia Policy, 2013
Interestingly, China is playing two different games in two different seas. In the SCS, where China is a littoral nation, there is a strategic competition with the US and rival Asian nations – China is allegedly defying the international law of the sea by continuing to patrol and police near ASEAN countries (CNAS 2009). This tense geo-strategic area is China’s foreign policy priority, as conflicts here are mainly related to its territorial sovereignty.
Very recently, president Xi Jinping officially declared China’s intention to strengthen its frontier defences on land and sea. He also called for the country to boost its military into a force that can “win battles” (Daily Star 2014). As a result, the People’s Republic of China has adopted a strategic approach that includes land, maritime, economic and energy security components (Rajan 2014). The naval build-up has added a new dimension to the PLAN’s capabilities– going from that of conducting coastal defence activities to the potential of high sea defence.
For a long time, China had given primacy to land security. In the 1980s when China began opening up, new economic linkages were complemented by greater dependence on sea lanes for export and import of goods and oil respectively (Bedford 2009). Additionally, with the fall of the Soviet Union, China could stop focusing on its land border and turn its attention toward the sea.
Securing SLOCs has become one of its main objectives and a way to address the "Malacca Dilemma" and reduce its reliance on the Malacca strait through which about 80% of its energy import is transported. This makes Beijing’s energy security vulnerable because of the US’ objective to control the Strait and because of pirate attacks. China is therefore exploring other options, which would allow it to bypass the Strait, by transporting resources through roads and sea from the BoB (Stratrisk 2013).The Chinese-built gas pipeline from Kyaukpyu in Myanmar to Kunming, which became operational in 2013, with a parallel crude oil pipeline, is one such project (Samaranayake 2014).
"Sri Lanka" Factor:
The Hambantota Deep seaport has received a great deal of attention in the media, and a number of Indian security analysts have voiced concern over the port’s close proximity to India (Bajaj 2010). However, economic and geopolitical concerns are not always mutually exclusive. The Hambantota Deep Seaport may be an example of China acting with its economic and geopolitical goals in unison.
Located on strategic Asian and European sea lanes, it can serve as a refueling station for commercial as well as military vessels. Moreover, the ability to dock, repair, and refuel strengthens China’s logistical capabilities to ship oil from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, thereby increasing China’s energy security. The port also further facilitates trade with a country that is increasing its imports from China, and it is in China’s economic interest to have further commercial access not just to Sri Lanka, but to other surrounding countries as well. Finally, the Sri Lankan president has stated publicly that the port is intended for commercial purposes only and will remain so (Kostecka 2010).
Other projects, such as the Mahinda Rajapaksa Cricket Stadium and the Lotus Pond Theatre seem more designed to curry favor with the Sri Lankan government. These projects offer little economic utility to China and mirror projects that China has funded in other countries as part of its diplomacy-through-aid strategy. For example, China also built cricket stadiums for Dominica, Grenada, and St. Lucia following their switch in diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the mainland (Lum 2008). China gifted the Lotus Pond Theater to Sri Lanka.
The theater offers no economic returns, although Chinese workers constructed the theater using Chinese materials (Sunday Times 2011). Instead of purchasing an economic opportunity, these projects are better explained as being used to purchase positive relations with Sri Lanka.
"Bangladesh" Factor:
The Chittagong port directly borders Northeast India and, like the Hambantota Deep Seaport in Sri Lanka, has raised suspicions in India that China is trying to encircle India and increase its ability to project military power into the region. (Bajaj 2010). Like the Hambantota Deep Seaport, these suspicions can neither be confirmed nor rejected. China has markedly increased its trade with Bangladesh and has a vested economic interest in gaining further commercial access to Bangladeshi markets. Additionally, Bangladesh’s president has publically stated that the port is intended solely for commercial purposes (Kostecka 2010).
Image Attribute: Bangabandhu International Conference Center, Dhaka, Bangladesh
The eight so-called “friendship bridges” China has built throughout Bangladesh do not seem to offer much economic utility to China. China funded these bridges to celebrate improved diplomatic relations with Bangladesh; Chinese state media say their construction is “to express the Chinese people’s friendship to the Bangladeshi people.” (People’s Daily 2012). Likewise, the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (also known as the “Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Center”) does not seem to provide many economic returns to China. Therefore, “dollar diplomacy” likely explains this project better than sound economic investment.
"Myanmar" Factor:
Map Attribute: Sino-Myanmar Energy Pipeline Map
Myanmar’s Nay Pyi Taw holds great strategic importance for China due to its energy endowments. The pipelines through Myanmar have the potential to help China reduce its heavy dependence on the Strait of Malacca for the transportation of energy. This, of course, has strategic implications against the backdrop of the United States’ rebalancing in Asia and the on-going maritime disputes in the SCS. The successful building of the pipelines through Myanmar could reduce China’s dependence on the Strait of Malacca by 30% (Melkulangara 2013).
Conclusion:
Finally, be it energy needs or strategic motivations, China’s commercial and infrastructure investment in the region have been astonishing. It has offered the BoB nations billions of dollars in loans for the construction of ports and roads and for other infrastructure projects, ensuring its influence in and around the Bay (Samaranayake 2014).
For instance, Beijing has been deeply involved in countries like Sri Lanka, where it has contributed approximately $4 billion in loans, grants and aid since the end of the civil war in 2009 and is responsible for almost 70% of the country’s infrastructure projects (Columbage 2014). Currently, China and Bangladesh are also in talks over the $9.03 billion worth of financial support that the latter requested from Beijing (mostly for infrastructure development projects over a period of five years) (Kabir 2014). On the regional scale, in November 2014, China offered $20 billion in preferential and special loans to develop infrastructure and increase cooperation with its South East Asian neighbours (Shannon 2014). All these examples reflect the Asian Giant’s stronghold over the sub regions.
As China seeks and materialize the port access agreements with littoral countries of the Bay of Bengal, India is also extending its sphere of influence east and west on land and at sea, there is a possibility that it will ‘bump heads’ with China which is protecting its interests and is expanding its reach in the region.
About The Authors:
Mohammad Humayun Kabir is Senior Research Director at the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and head of its Foreign Policy and Security Studies Division. He studied International Law in Kiev State University, Ukraine, and International Relations at Oxford University, UK.
Amamah Ahmad is a Research Associate at the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Science and a Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. She has research interests in Geopolitics, International Security and Transboundary issues.
Publication Details
Citation Information: Croatian International Relations Review. Volume 21, Issue 72, Pages 199–238, ISSN (Online) 1848-5782, DOI: 10.1515/cirr-2015-0007, March 2015.
© 2015. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)But Democrats who try to portray Mr. Mourdock, a two-term state treasurer, as Christine O’Donnell in a necktie may fall short. He is a far more seasoned politician than Ms. O’Donnell, whose Tea Party candidacy cost Republicans a Senate seat in Delaware in 2010. He has run for office numerous times, including three races for the House; easily won his last election; and methodically campaigned to oust Mr. Lugar, who a year ago seemed untouchable.
A more apt comparison may be Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a conservative Republican who picked off Robert F. Bennett in the 2010 primary with the heft of grass-roots supporters. Mr. Mourdock said Mr. Lee, though young enough, at 40, to be his son, was his role model in the Senate.
Mr. Mourdock, whose Democratic opponent is Representative Joe Donnelly, is decidedly to the right of the man he bested. He is strongly opposed to the Dream Act, for instance, a measure that would pave a path to citizenship for some immigrants brought to the United States illegally as minors, and one that Mr. Lugar once supported. Nor would he have supported the bank bailout, which Mr. Lugar voted for, or given nods to judges Mr. Lugar helped confirm.
He constantly attacked Mr. Lugar’s willingness to work with Democrats on foreign policy and other matters.
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“I’ve said it many times,” Mr. Mourdock said. “This is a historic time, and the most powerful people in both parties are so opposed to one another that one side simply has to win out over the other.”
That sort of talk has Democrats seething. “He says there’s a problem, Mourdock does, of too much bipartisanship and he can be counted on to obstruct,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said on Tuesday. “Well, there are a lot of things wrong in Washington, but too much compromise is certainly not one of them.”
Mr. Mourdock said a pair of his earliest memories from his childhood in Ohio involved episodes that presaged his two careers. “I used to dig around the sandbox and pull out pieces of coal and show them to my mother,” he said, “and she used to say that’s how I must have known I was going to be a geologist.” The second, he said, was going to an elementary school in 1956 with his mother, “who held my hand and took me into a booth and pulled a lever for the president,” sparking an interest in politics.
He moved to Indiana for graduate school, and after receiving his master’s of science degree at Ball State University in 1975, he pursued geology, rising to vice president at the Koester Companies, a mining business in Evansville. But his interest in politics could not be contained.
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Mr. Mourdock ran for the House in 1988, 1990 and 1992; he also failed in his 2002 bid for the nomination for Indiana secretary of state and in a 2004 race for the Vanderburgh County Council, the county’s fiscal body. He did get elected to the Vanderburgh County Commission, the executive branch, in 1994 and 1998, and won the state treasurer’s job in 2006. He was re-elected in 2010.
His name entered the national Republican discussion in 2009 when he became the country’s only government official to push back against the Obama administration’s auto bailout in court. Secured bondholders were forced to accept 29 cents on the dollar for their investments, which outraged Mr. Mourdock because three state funds — two managed by him — owned $42.5 million in Chrysler bonds.
Many lawmakers and business owners, some of them Republican, saw the challenge as folly since Indiana has so many autoworkers, the legal action was costly and a federal bankruptcy court and an appeals court rejected it.
Does he regret it now? “Absolutely not,” Mr. Mourdock said. “The law matters. And the fact was our retirees and teachers had their property stolen.”A SHOPLIFTER had a £20,000 crown court trial over claims a stolen joint of beef reminded him of his dead grandmother.
John Casey was caught on Asda’s shop camera hiding a £12 roast in a rucksack at the Washington Galleries store last October and arrested for theft.
John Casey, 51, from Washington, Tyne and Wear, had a �20,000 Crown Court trial over claims he concealed a stolen �12 joint of beef because it reminded him of his dead grandmother
But the 51-year-old denied he was being dishonest and said he had moved the meat out of sight as it was giving him “flashbacks” about his grandma, who died of a blood clot when he was a child.
Casey, of Lumley Close, Oxclose, Washington, was tried over two days by a jury at Newcastle Crown Court.
The unemployed dad-of-eight denied the theft charge throughout.
The estimated cost per day of a trial per day is £10,000 and the case was heard before John Milford QC, one of the north’s top judges.
After just over an hour deliberation Casey, who has never shoplifted in the past but has other convictions, was found guilty.
At the end of the case Judge Milford said: “Ordinarily this is a case that would be dealt with in the lower court but he has elected trial.
“He has the right to be tried by a jury and he has been.”
The judge sentenced Casey to a conditional discharge for two years and told him: “You have caused a huge amount of unnecessary expense to be incurred by electing trial and you have got no means from which you can cover the costs of this expensive trial.
“If you come in front of me again I will be a lot less sympathetic.”
The trial started before a jury of three women and nine men mid Tuesday morning.
It concluded this afternoon.
Prosecutor Michael Hodson told the court at the start of the case: “The defendant accepts placing the joint of beef in his bag deliberately.
“He says he did so because he was experiencing a flashback to his grandmother’s traumatic death, which had been triggered by the sight of the joint of beef.
“He says it was necessary to conceal the beef in order to control the effects of the flashback.
“Such flashbacks are very disturbing says the defendant, who takes medication for depression and anxiety.
“His grandmother passed away when the defendant was a child.”
Mr Hodson told jurors: “It will be up to you to judge how the meat effected his state of mind.
“He was interviewed by the police twice.
“At no time in those interviews did he ever mention anything about his grandmother, flashbacks or having to hide the meat because it was such a horrific sight for him.”
Jurors were shown the CCTV footage of Casey putting grocery items, including bread and soup, on to the top of a rucksack which was lying down flat in his trolley.
After a few seconds out of sight of the camera he appeared again, this time
with the rucksack propped up, the shopping in the trolley and no meat in sight.
It was at this point he was stopped by store security, who alerted the police.
Casey told jurors during his evidence he had been only seven or eight when he witnessed his grandmother’ death.
He said: “After I picked the meat up and was walking around the shop it was the blood in the bag that was bringing it on.
“Every day my grandmother is with me, I remember her, but this was not like any other.
“I was re-living it, it was like I was there with her again.
“The blood in the bag was bringing it on, it was like I was there, like it was living it.
“The more I was looking at the blood, the more it was real, surreal.”
Casey said he was not trying to steal the meat and told jurors: “I would never have walked out without paying for it, that’s a dead cert.”
During his evidence Casey said he could not remember actually putting the beef in his bag.• Antonio Conte worked with striker at Juventus during 2013-14 season • Michy Batshuayi, signed from Marseille in summer, could go out on loan
Chelsea are hoping to sign the Swansea striker Fernando Llorente in January. The Spaniard played for Antonio Conte at Juventus during the 2013-14 season and the Chelsea manager sees the striker as the ideal replacement for Diego Costa should he be injured or suspended.
Transfer window watch: Keep up with the latest moves with our chatbot Read more
Chelsea are interested in securing him on loan or on a permanent basis but are aware that they face a struggle to convince Swansea to part company with a striker who has scored six goals this season.
The 31-year-old Llorente joined Swansea from Sevilla last summer and the Welsh club’s new manager, Paul Clement, only has Borja Bastón – the club record signing who has scored only once in 12 games – and the 20-year-old Oliver McBurnie to lead the line and is highly unlikely to sanction a sale or a loan deal for Llorente unless another striker is signed.
Conte has Michy Batshuayi, who cost Chelsea £33.2m in the summer, available but has used him sparingly and, indeed, left him on the bench when Costa was suspended for the game against Bournemouth on Boxing Day, to play Eden Hazard up front. Chelsea won the game 3-0.
Transfer window January 2017: every deal in England, Spain, Germany, France and Italy Read more
It is understood Chelsea would consider loaning out Batshuayi if they manage to sign Llorente.How far along are we down the road of distributed databases and data management systems?
Usually, when you say “database person,” you precede it by “grumpy, old.” We’re famous for looking at a lot of systems work and saying, “Yeah, we’ve been doing that for 20 years, 30 years.” Even, frankly, if you look at MapReduce — inside of any parallel database system like Teradata, like IBM’s parallel edition, like Oracle’s RAC, inside there is a MapReduce engine. Those techniques have been known for many years. So grumpy, old database people really did figure out a lot of things in the past.
That being said, I do think as a database person that things have really fundamentally changed. Probably, things have changed the most since the adoption of the relational model back in ‘80s. The big data ecosystem is really fundamentally different in many ways than traditional data management. In particular, people like to talk about scalability, because the big in big data means you have lots of data.
But again, scale-out techniques have been known for quite some time. They’re a little different now because of some different systems assumptions and so on, and maybe whereas before somebody might think that a thousand-node system was a big system, now it’s easy to talk about 10,000 nodes.
“Compared to a lot of grumpy, old database people … I believe that things have fundamentally changed and they’re not going to change back. I think we’re really at the beginning of a new era.”
To me, what’s really fundamentally different about this new-generation data management isn’t really isn’t just scalability, but it’s really flexibility. If you look at the ability to store data first and then impose structure on it later — sometimes this is called schema on read or schema on need — that’s a complete game changer.
Because the way things used to work if you wanted to do a data management project is you’d say, “OK, step number 1: Figure out every piece of data that you might want to ever store in your system, what it looks like, how it’s organized, and then how it’s related to all the other pieces of data that you might ever want to store in your database system. Then step 2 is get your hands on some real data,. And then step 3 was try to make the real data conform to this model that you would create in step 1.”
Many projects never made it that far, and back when people were first starting to do things like data warehousing, the literature was just full of horror stories where people would throw millions and billions of dollars into these systems and they never get them to work.
In this new regime, where you store the data first and then figure out what to do with it, it’s completely changed it. Now you can collect all the technical data you can think about collecting. Yes, you have to do some extra work when you go to use it; and, yes, you might take a little bit of a performance hit because you don’t have the storage completely optimized; and, yes, there may be some consistency problems that you need to understand. But by and large, the friction of getting your data-management system put together now has just decreased dramatically.
“The real breakthrough [of the relational model] was the separation of the logical view you have of the data and how you want to work with it, from the physical reality of how the data is actually stored.”
If you look at elastic computing, through cloud computing, and some of the mechanisms that are in Hadoop MapReduce and then things like Spark, just the ability to add more resources and have the system gracefully absorb those resources is something that didn’t exist before. And it’s not just the ability to grow your system, but it’s the ability to expand your system as you need it and then shrink it back down when you don’t need it anymore.
Again, this completely reduces the friction. It used to be that you would have to build your datacenter or your system for the biggest problem you would ever imagine that you’d have to solve, and now you don’t have to do that anymore. Now you can build your system for what you think you’re going to need, and then you can surge with cloud resources when you need to do that, or you can just do the whole thing in the cloud in the first place.
That has changed things pretty fundamentally.
Then this ability to move smoothly between languages like SQL for querying, languages like R for doing statistical processing, graph processing — the things that you can do easily in Spark. That’s completely different, so you no longer have to commit to a single paradigm for working with your data. You can store the data in the system and then you can do the things that make sense with your graph system using that, the things that make sense with relational query processing using that, the things that make sense for statistical processing using that. And you can mix and match them.
So compared to a lot of grumpy, old database people you might talk to, I believe that things have fundamentally changed and they’re not going to change back. I think we’re really at the beginning of a new era. Sure, just like the beginning of the relational revolution, there’s a lot of work to do to make systems more robust, there’s a lot of work you have to do to make systems more performant, there’s a lot of work you have to do to make systems easier to use. But we’re just at the start of that journey.
“Even as Hadoop was getting more popular … many of my colleagues and I were just waiting until people realized that writing MapReduce programs directly is a real pain and that there were languages, in particular SQL, that had been designed to solve many of these problems.”
You mentioned SQL. Did you think, as you watched Hadoop and Spark get popular, that SQL would be the focus of so much attention on those systems?
I think I can say without fibbing too much that, yes, even as Hadoop was getting more popular and people were getting more excited about it, many of my colleagues and I were just waiting until people realized that writing MapReduce programs directly is a real pain and that there were languages, in particular SQL, that had been designed to solve many of these problems. I was pretty sure SQL was going to play a big role in these systems.
I guess maybe you could see it coming as far back as Hive.
You don’t even have to go to Hive. This is exactly why database systems caught on in many ways. It’s because it’s just too hard to write that stuff directly. Furthermore, you don’t want to, because the thing that a lot of people don’t realize about the relational model and systems like SQL is that the real breakthrough there wasn’t the language. The language is just sort of an artifact.
The real breakthrough was the separation of the logical view you have of the data and how you want to work with it, from the physical reality of how the data is actually stored. And built into the relational model is that the vision, it’s called data independence. What that lets you do is it lets you change the layout of your data and the organization of your data and the systems that you’re using and the machines that you’re using without having to rewrite your applications every time you change something.
Likewise, it lets you write the application in a way that you’re not really too concerned about how the data is organized at any particular minute. That flexibility is absolutely vital for data-oriented systems because once you collect data, you tend to keep it. Applications that you write tend not to go away. You need that ability to evolve the physical layout of the data, and you need that ability to protect developers — even though they may not want to be protected — from those sorts of changes.
Anybody that worked with database systems for any amount could see this happening because Hadoop was basically breaking all those rules, and that was a lesson that had been learned decades earlier.CEO Ron Johnson might be the captain of a sinking ship. But he was handed the Titanic when the dining room was already under water.
Reuters
"The Worst Quarter In Retail |
QED
"We had a lot of private capital looking to come in and build these systems," he says. "And I used to get several calls a week asking me about the different technologies and about the different companies. And today I get almost none."
Digesters A 'Tough Sell' In California
Dusault says dairy states like Wisconsin and New York are building digesters at a much faster rate than California because those states don't face the same regulations. He says to get things moving again, affordable pollution control technology will need to be developed.
Fiscalini agrees that until that happens, the business case for a dairy digester is a tough sell.
"I really believe it is the right thing to do," Fiscalini says. "It simply needs to be made more available to the masses. The current series of laws that we have don't make digesters profitable."
California state air officials are now taking a look at how dairy digesters are regulated.A monstrous-looking sea creature that experts are unable to identify has washed up on a tourist beach in Mexico.
The strange 4-meter (13-foot-long) beast was found by beach-goers on Bonfil Beach, in the city of Acapulco, in the south-west Mexican state of Guerrero.
Stunned spectators gathered around and took photos, which they shared on social media, speculating about the possible species of the creature.
Mysterious: An unidentified sea animal washed up on the popular Bonfil Beach in Acapulco, Mexico. The floating body was brought to shore by strong currents that have been affecting that part of the Mexican coast
The floating body was brought to the shore by strong currents that have been affecting that particular part of the Mexican coast.
Although the coordinator of the Civil Guard and Fire Brigade, Rosa Camacho, believes the animal had not been dead for a long time, it still seemed to have rapidly started to decay.
'We have no idea what type of animal this is, but I do know that it does not smell bad or have a fetid aroma,' Camacho stated.
'It is four meters long and was found on Bonfil Beach.'
The many photos of the strange creature have been seen and shared online thousands of times and have provoked a debate about what kind of animal it is.
Some have suggested that the creature might be a type of giant squid and others a whale.When August ends, summer comes to a close and back to school season begins. But don't panic if you put off your Japanese studies all summer. Instead, take a look at some new Japanese learning resources to get back in the student-groove.
That's right, it's time again for a new batch of Japanese learning resources to help you learn, study, or improve your Japanese language skills.
This month we have killer Japanese apps, one of the best games you'll play this decade, and some adorable discussions you can use to test your listening skills.
TangoRisto
Kicking off this month, we have an amazing little app called TangoRisto that helps you read news and learn language in context.
Pulling material from both NHK News and Hukumusume, it allows users to make the most of their reading experience with unique features, customizable vocabulary lists, and easy Japanese dictionary lookup.
When you open the app, you're given a few options to choose from:
NHK News Easy Top NHK News Hukumusume
NHK News Easy is Japanese news written for kids – think of it as "Baby's First Newspaper." Hukumusume is a site with folktales and spooky stories aimed at Japanese children.
When you choose an article, it's presented in text format, though you can look at the original web version (it's not pretty, don't do it). You can also choose to view all the vocabulary words with their readings, English meanings, and the number of times they appear in that article.
While reading the article you have a few other options too:
Show furigana based on JLPT level (or none at all)
level (or none at all) Underline and color content based on JLPT level
level Adjust text size
Translate with Google Translate
Bookmark article
Clicking on a word in the text will highlight it in pink, bring up a Japanese dictionary from the bottom of the screen, and include the JLPT level. All other instances of the word are also highlighted in a lighter pink.
When browsing the articles, a color breakdown of the JLPT levels is presented in a bar on the left side of the title:
More orange = more N5 level content = easier read
More pink and green = intermediate content = more difficult read
Words can be explored even further, showing parts of speech. There's even external linking from the word to other dictionaries like Jisho.org and Tangorin, plus good old Google Search, Google Image Search (very useful!), and Japanese Stack Exchange. These words can then be added to a "Saved Words" list, which you can either study at your leisure or add to a third-party SRS tool like Anki.
Warning: TangoRisto gathers its information (text, dictionary entries, JLPT levels, etc.) automatically from various sources, so there are issues. Many vocabulary words lack JLPT level classifications (even super simple words like お 寺 （ てら ） or イベント). This isn't completely the fault of the app – the Japan Foundation hasn't released "official" JLPT lists since their revamp of the test in 2010.
Also, if you click on a person's name, the app has trouble. For example, trying to get a definition for a name like ウサイン・ボルト (Usain Bolt) gives you nothing for ウサイン and "volt, bolt" for ボルト. For native Japanese names, instead you get individual kanji definitions and no indication that the word you're looking at is, in fact, someone's last name. This is a really common problem with automated apps – so while it isn't a huge drawback, it is a bit disappointing.
All in all, TangoRisto a fun app that can make learning with sites like NHK easier. But it does have some flaws, that will hopefully be improved upon with time.
Platform: iOS and Android
Cost: Free!
Product Link
夏休み子ども科学電話相談
夏休み （ なつやす ） 子ども （ こ ） 科学 （ かがく ） 電話 （ でんわ ） 相談 （ そうだん ）, which can be translated literally to "Summer Kids Science Phone Discussions" is a show produced by NHK every summer where Japanese kids call professional scientists and ask their science questions. This summer's episodes have just ended and they're available online for free!
While the show itself isn't new, there were 64 new conversations recorded this year. These recordings are fantastic for late-beginner and intermediate learners for a few different reasons:
Children are asking the questions. That means the language is simple. You're getting a professional answer presented in a way that's easier for kids and new language learners to understand. Topics are science-based, which means they cover things like bugs, animals, space, nature, emotions, and the human body. A lot of the vocabulary you learn early on in your Japanese studies probably falls into these categories. All those noun lists you've been memorizing can be put into practice here. Discussions are short, usually around five minutes. This makes them easier to grasp. And listening to short recordings a few times over is interesting instead of time-consuming or stressful. These are real kids asking real questions. None of the conversations are scripted, so you can hear how people really speak. It's nice to listen to carefully paced, simple Japanese when you start out, but it's important to graduate to real conversations as soon as you can. This series is a gentle door into the world of using real Japanese.
The content itself is entertaining enough, and they're all basic questions you've probably heard if you have younger siblings or kids, or spend a lot of time around children. Things like:
どうして、水は冷たいのですか？
Why is water cold?
オウムや九官鳥は、どうしてしゃべることができるの？ しゃべっていることを理解しているの？
Why can parrots and mynah birds talk? Can they understand what they're saying?
どうして、パンツははかないといけないのですか？
Why do I have to wear underpants?
なぜ、地球には酸素があるのに、火星や他の星には酸素がないの？
Why does Earth have oxygen when Mars and other planets don't?
セミの抜け殻は食べられますか？
Can you eat cicada shells?
These recordings are fantastic for late-beginner and intermediate learners.
Younger kids, usually those around five years old, ask cute, sometimes funny questions (like the underpants one) while older kids ask more complicated questions about space, weather, and robotics. But all the questions are interesting and legitimate in their own right. If you're in Japan and someone asks, 「どうして、パンツははかないといけないのですか？」 you better have a good answer.
Unfortunately, there are no transcripts available (at the time of this writing) so you'll have to rely on your listening skills only. But that can be a major boost to your studies, because you can't cheat. You can't trick yourself into thinking you understand the audio by looking at the English answers. You have to rely on your own listening skills.
And if you're working with a Japanese professor, tutor, or have some native friends, try to ask them questions about each episode in Japanese instead of English. It's a great opportunity to start listening and speaking sooner rather than later.
Platform: Website
Cost: Free!
Product Link
Undertale: Japanese
Playing a game in Japanese that's localized from English instead of a straight-up native Japanese game is a much easier task for the Japanese learner.
By now, you've probably heard of the phenomenon that is Undertale. If you haven't, please do yourself a favor and go buy it and don't look up any information on it before you've played through the entire thing.
…
Did… did you beat it?
Okay good. We can continue.
Undertale is an amazing game. So amazing that when people don't like it, every single fan dies a little inside and has to fight the urge to tell/teach/scream at them about how they can't possibly feel that way.
But I digress.
Not only is the game now available on PS4 and PSVita, but both those versions, as well as the original Steam (PC) version, have a Japanese localization. Just go into your settings, switch to 日本語 （ にほんご ） and voila! You get a carefully supervised (by the creator) Japanese language version of a character, dialogue, and joke heavy game.
Playing games in Japanese isn't just fun, it's great for your reading ability. Everything you read gives you insight into what you can and should do, and your choices are literally the most important catalyst in the world of Undertale. Understanding what you're reading is key.
If you've already made your way through the Legends of Localization series of books (which we reviewed in February and July), this is a perfect next step.
If you've played Undertale before, you can think back to situations and conversations from the English version and how they do or don't change in Japanese.
And if you've never played the game before, you'll have to change your language back to English (or look it up online) if you really can't figure something out the old-fashioned dictionary way.
But all in all, playing a game in Japanese that's localized from English instead of a straight-up native Japanese game is a much easier task for the Japanese learner, especially if your goal is to play Japanese games. And no matter what, Undertale is a great game. Some of the localization changes are really interesting and fun. What better way to replay or introduce yourself to the game?
Platform: Steam, PS4 and PSVita
Cost: $9.99 (Steam), $25.00 (PS4/Vita - Standard Edition)
Product Link
Sometimes we learn about an update to an old resource or just discover something new about one we've already covered. In addition to this month's selections, here are two updates to previous resources that may tickle your Japanese learning fancy.
Japanese v4
There are tons of Japanese reference and learning apps out there, so if this one looks familiar to you, don't worry. That's because it isn't new at all. It's been around on iOS since 2008.
But Japanese has undergone some major changes recently and is now the shiny, new version 4!
This app has a ton of new content:
Built-in Japanese-English dictionary with keyboard, touch handwriting, and radical lookup support.
Dictionary entries with furigana, romaji, English meanings, parts of speech, kanji breakdown, example sentences, common compounds, JLPT level, and the ability to add your own notes to (pretty much) everything.
level, and the ability to add your own notes to (pretty much) everything. Text section for looking up longer selections of text, which then links to the built-in dictionary.
Reference pages to help you learn: Hiragana Katakana Kanji Radicals Parts of Speech Classifications JLPT Kanji Kentei
Lists showing your browsing history (what did I just look up?) as well as your own notes.
The ability to turn any piece of info into a flashcard! No Anki needed.
So what's new about it? The entire back end, which makes the app faster and smarter. The handwriting search feature and text reader tools were introduced with this version. And they've improved their SRS algorithm too, making it similar to Anki. You can read more about the changes on the Japanese blog.
Basically, the app continues to be a one stop shop for all your basic Japanese study needs – it could potentially replace two or three apps you currently use. Pretty convenient!
Platform: iOS and Android
Cost: Free!
Product Link
KLC Graded Reading Set 4
Remember a month ago when we were super excited for the first three in a set of graded readers in the popular Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course? Well hold onto your butts, because Volume 4 is already out as of this month!
I won't go into too much detail since you can just read our opinions on the first three. I'll just sum up the good stuff here:
The graded reading sets are meant for people already using the KLC book.
Graded readers only increase the difficulty +1 of what you already know.
Vol. 4 covers kanji 401–700 (way more than any of the others so far).
Each sentence explains new grammar and gives pages from popular Japanese grammar resources for additional reading.
As a bonus, here's an example of what an entry looks like:
If you haven't yet jumped on the KLC train, remember the entire first Volume is available as a free Japanese learning PDF. You can check it out, decide if it's right for you, and commit after learning the usage and context for 100 kanji. Nice.
Platform: iBooks (iOS epub and Amazon Kindle mobi)
Cost: $9.99
Product Link
And that about wraps it up. Don't worry, we'll be back again next month with another batch of cool, new resources for you to check out. Can't wait that long? Found something you think we should add? Want to say nice things to us for no reason? Send us all that good stuff to us on Facebook, Twitter (@tofugu), or old-fashioned email at hello@tofugu.com. If we think what you sent is extra neat we'll give you a shout-out! Until then, いってきまーす！First they took my father. I remember the day well. I was still very small, enjoying the cool autumn air. The leaves had long since turned from green to blaze orange and blood red. Most were now brown, crisp and dry. I loved to hear them crunch under my feet when I ran and played. We had not yet had our first snowfall of the season, but with the passing of each day we knew there would soon be ice on the water and snow in the fields.
The sky was just growing dark, and I heard a wild commotion in the distance. I thought I heard my mother cry out. At that moment I should have sped right home, sprinting as fast as my two legs could carry me. But I was young, innocent and selfish. I was more interested in playing outside and enjoying myself than investigating what was surely a bad situation.
When I finally returned home later that night, mother was alone. She didn’t speak about what happened to father, even when I pressed her about it. From that day forward she was much more quiet, much more withdrawn than she had been before.
Just two years later my mother disappeared. I was a bit older and wiser in the ways of the world, but nothing could have prepared me for that day. I searched for her everywhere. I contacted her closest friends. Millie, from the small farm on Acorn Street told me she was fine and that I "shouldn't worry my little head about it." Nannie, whose house abutted the old dry riverbed tried to reassure me. “She can take care of herself,” she promised and I believed her, at least for a time. Now, outfitted with the wisdom of age, I suspect that mother's friends knew what happened all along. They simply decided it was easier to lie than it was to tell the truth; to tell someone so young that he had lost the last of his family.
Autumn is a beautiful season, but every year my heart grows heavy with the turning of the leaves. The fall reminds me of the family that has left me behind, alone and cold, in this big uncertain world. Once again I begin to ponder my mortality, as I do frequently when the weather turns sharp and the winds grow intense.
It's rough being a turkey in November.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
The body of a 5-year-old San Gabriel Valley boy who was reported missing in April was found in the area of a lake in Santa Barbara County Friday, the same day as his father's extradition from Las Vegas following his arrest there, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officials announced.
Aramazd “Piqui” Andressian Jr.’s remains were found after several previous searches in and around Lake Cachuma, a mountainous area about 15 miles northwest of the city of Santa Barbara.
Homicide detectives returned to the area Friday "based on additional leads" and discovered the boy's body, according to a sheriff's department news release issued Saturday.
No further details about the discovery are expected to be released Saturday.
The boy’s mother reported her son missing when the boy and his father didn’t arrive for a custody exchange in San Marino in April.
About that same time, Aramazd Andressian Sr., 35, was discovered unresponsive next to his BMW in South Pasadena's Arroyo Park.
The car was doused in gasoline and Andressian Sr. had taken prescription drugs, according to sheriff’s investigators.
After a brief hospitalization, Andressian Sr. gave convoluted and contradictory statements to investigators on the whereabouts of his son and was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment and child abduction. He was later released because of lack of evidence.
Andressian Sr. was arrested again on June 23 in Las Vegas, where he apparently fled shortly after being released from custody. Investigators said he was considered a flight risk and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office had filed a "no-body murder charge" against the suspect.
During an appearance in a Las Vegas courtroom Tuesday, Andressian laughed and joked with the judge. He arrived at the Long Beach Airport midday Friday after being extradited.
Andressian Sr. is expected to be arraigned Monday at the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
He faces a possible maximum sentence of 25 years to life in state prison if convicted.
His attorney, Ambrosio Rodriguez, met with Andressian Sr. in jail on Saturday and later released a statement saying, "This is a sad and solemn day for the Andressian family, one they all hoped would never come... The family mourns the death of Ara, Jr. and are in seclusion grieving."
Earlier, before the child's body was found, Rodriguez released a statement saying the arrest of his client was "a perfect example of mob mentality and rush to judgment by the sheriff's department."
Daniel A. Nardoni, who had previously represented Andressian Sr., on Saturday said he was no longer involved in the case and offered condolences to the boy’s family following the discovery of the remains.
“Words are inadequate to express the sadness that I feel upon learning of today’s heartbreaking news,” Nardoni said in a statement. “I hope that your beautiful memories of little Ara bring you some comfort and peace. My prayers are with you during this very difficult time.”
Andressian Sr. and the boy’s mother, Ana Estevez, were sharing custody as they went through a divorce. She last saw her son in person on April 15, when she took him to Baldwin Park Police Department to hand him over to his namesake father.
Estevez saw her son on video during an April 18 Skype call, but a scheduled April 20 Skype call didn’t occur. The following day, the father took his son to Disneyland. They left the Anaheim park after midnight, and apparently at some point traveled to Lake Cachuma the following day. Detectives repeatedly searched that area but had previously found no evidence that the boy was there.
Reached by text Saturday, Estevez responded with three broken heart emojis. She added that her son "always" captured people's hearts.
South Pasadena police and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’’s Department’s Homicide Division had been working the case together.
In a tweet Saturday, the South Pasadena Police Department said they were "heartbroken" with the news of Aramazd Andressian Jr.’s body being found.
"Our staff assisted @LASDHQ investigation everyday with the prayers Aramazd Jr. would be found safe," the tweet said.
@SoPasPD is heartbroken with this news. Our staff assisted @LASDHQ investigation everyday with the prayers Aramazd Jr. would be found safe. https://t.co/WZzvusQ503 — South Pasadena PD (@SoPasPD) July 1, 2017
KTLA's Mary Beth McDade and CNN Wire contributed to this story.
Please enable Javascript to watch this videoApplicative do-notation
This is a proposal to add support to GHC for desugaring do-notation into Applicative expressions where possible.
It's described in some detail in the paper: Desugaring Haskell’s do-notation Into Applicative Operations (ICFP'16).
An implementation was merged for GHC8: https://github.com/ghc/ghc/commit/8ecf6d8f7dfee9e5b1844cd196f83f00f3b6b879.
See also RecursiveDo
Tickets
Use Keyword = ApplicativeDo to ensure that a ticket ends up on these lists.
Open Tickets:
#10892 ApplicativeDo should use *> and <* #10976 Applicative Comprehensions #11982 Typechecking fails for parallel monad comprehensions with polymorphic let (GHC 7.10.3 through 8.6.3) #13309 Use liftA2 in ApplicativeDo #13511 ApplicativeDo return case doesn't handle lets #13905 ApplicativeDo is too strict with newtype patterns #13906 ApplicativeDo doesn't handle existentials as well as it could #14252 ApplicativeDo: Add compiler message about irrefutable pattern matches and Monad constraints #14700 ApplicativeDo in MonadComprehensions #15016 Referencing a do-bound variable in a rec block with ApplicativeDo results in variable not in scope during type checking #15100 `ApplicativeDo` needlessly uses `join` too much #15344 ApplicativeDo seems to prevent the fail method from being used #16135 Panic with ExistentialQuantification and ApplicativeDo #16171 "ApplicativeDo" disables -Wunused-do-binds?
Closed Tickets:
#11607 ApplicativeDo easily foiled with `pure` #11612 Bug in ApplicativeDo #11835 ApplicativeDo failed to desugar last line with pure $ <expr> #12143 ApplicativeDo Fails to Desugar'return True' #12490 With RebindableSyntax, ApplicativeDo should eliminate return/pure #13242 Panic "StgCmmEnv: variable not found" with ApplicativeDo and ExistentialQuantification #13648 ApplicativeDo selects "GHC.Base.Monad.return" when actions are used without patterns. #13875 ApplicativeDo desugaring is lazier than standard desugaring #14105 ApplicativeDo causes GHC panic on irrefutable list pattern match #14163 Stack Overflow with ApplicativeDo #14249 ApplicativeDo: Pattern matching on a bind forces a Monad constraint #14471 Certain do blocks cause TH to barf when ApplicativeDo is enabled #14670 -XRebindableSyntax needs return? #15422 GHCi debugger doesn't see free variables when using ApplicativeDo
Summary
ApplicativeDo is a language extension enabled in the usual way via
{-# LANGUAGE ApplicativeDo #-}
When ApplicativeDo is turned on, GHC will use a different method for desugaring do -notation, which attempts to use the Applicative operator <*> as far as possible, along with fmap and join.
ApplicativeDo makes it possible to use do -notation for types that are Applicative but not Monad. (See examples below).
For a type that is a Monad, ApplicativeDo implements the same semantics as the standard do -notation desugaring, provided <*> = ap for this type.
ApplicativeDo respects RebindableSyntax : it will pick up whatever <*>, fmap, and join are in scope when RebindableSyntax is on.
Motivation
Some Monads have the property that Applicative bind is more efficient than Monad bind. Sometimes this is really important, such as when the Applicative bind is concurrent whereas the Monad bind is sequential (c.f. Haxl). For these monads we would like the do-notation to desugar to Applicative bind where possible, to take advantage of the improved behaviour but without forcing the user to explicitly choose.
Applicative syntax can be a bit obscure and hard to write. Do-notation is more natural, so we would like to be able to write Applicative composition in do-notation where possible. For example: (\x y z -> x*y + y*z + z*x) <$> expr1 <*> expr2 <*> expr3 vs. do x <- expr1; y <- expr2; z <- expr3; return (x*y + y*z + z*x)
Example 1
do x <- a y <- b return (f x y)
This translates to
(\x y -> f x y) <$> a <*> b
Here we noticed that the statements x <- a and y <- b are independent, so we can make an Applicative expression. Note that the desugared version uses the operators <$> and <*>, so its inferred type will mention Applicative only rather than Monad. Therefore this do block will work for a type that is Applicative but not Monad.
Example 2
If the final statement does not have a return, then we need to use join :
do x <- a y <- b f x y
Translates to
join ((\x y -> f x y) <$> a <*> b)
Since join is a Monad operation, this expression requires Monad.
Example 3
do x1 <- A x2 <- B x3 <- C x1 x4 <- D x2 return (x1,x2,x3,x4)
Here we can do A and B together, and C and D together. We could do it like this:
do (x1,x2) <- (,) <$> A <*> B (\x3 x4 -> (x1,x2,x3,x4)) <$> C x1 <*> D x2
But it is slightly more elegant like this:
join ((\x1 x2 -> (\x3 x4 -> (x1,x2,x3,x4)) <$> C x1 <*> D x2)) <$> A <*> B)
because we avoid the intermediate tuple.
Example 4
do x <- A y <- B x z <- C return (f x y z)
Now we have a dependency: y depends on x, but there is still an opportunity to use Applicative since z does not depend on x or y. In this case we end up with:
(\(x,y) z -> f x y z) <$> (do x <- A; y <- B x; return (x,y)) <*> C
Note that we had to introduce a tuple to return both the values of x and y from the inner do expression
It's important that we keep the original ordering. For example, we don't want this:
do (x,z) <- (,) <$> A <*> C y <- B x return (f x y z)
because this has a different semantics from the standard 'do' desugaring; a Monad that cares about ordering will expose the difference.
Another wrong result would be:
do x <- A (\y z -> f x y z) <$> B x <*> C
Because this version has less parallelism than the first result, in which A and B could be performed at the same time as C.
Example 5
In general, ApplicativeDo might have to build a complicated nested Applicative expression.
do x1 <- a x2 <- b x3 <- c x1 x4 <- d return (x2,x3,x4)
Here we can do a/b/d in parallel, but c depends on x1, which makes things a bit tricky: remember that we have to retain the semantics of standard do desugaring, so we can't move the call to c after the call to d.
This translates to
(\(x2,x3) x4 -> (x2, x3, x4)) <$> join ((\x1 x2 -> do x3 <- c x1 return (x2,x3)) <$> a <*> b) <*> d)
We can write this expression in a simpler way using | for applicative composition (like parallel composition) and ; for monadic composition (like sequential composition): ((a | b) ; c) | d.
Note that this isn't the only good way to translate this expression, this is also possible: (a ; (b | c)) | d. It's not possible to know which is better. ApplicativeDo makes a best-effort attempt to use parallel composition where possible while retaining the semantics of the standard 'do' desugaring.
Syntax & spec
There's a toy implementation which includes the syntax, desugaring, transformation and some examples here: https://github.com/simonmar/ado/blob/52ba028cad68af578bcdfb3f1c5b905f5b9c5617/adosim.hs
Syntax:
expr ::=... | do {stmt_1;..; stmt_n} expr |... stmt ::= pat <- expr | (arg_1 |... | arg_n) -- applicative composition, n>=1 |... -- other kinds of statement (e.g. let) arg ::= pat <- expr | {stmt_1;..; stmt_n} {var_1..var_n}
Desugaring for do stmts :
dsDo {} expr = expr dsDo {pat <- rhs; stmts} expr = rhs >>= \pat -> dsDo stmts expr dsDo {(arg_1 |... | arg_n)} (return expr) = (\argpat (arg_1).. argpat(arg_n) -> expr) <$> argexpr(arg_1) <*>... <*> argexpr(arg_n) dsDo {(arg_1 |... | arg_n); stmts} expr = join (\argpat (arg_1).. argpat(arg_n) -> dsDo stmts expr) <$> argexpr(arg_1) <*>... <*> argexpr(arg_n)
where
argpat (pat <- expr) = pat argpat ({stmt_1;..; stmt_n} {var_1..var_n}) = (var_1,.., var_n) argexpr (pat <- expr) = expr argexpr ({stmt_1;..; stmt_n} {var_1..var_n}) = dsDo {stmt_1;..; stmt_n; return (var_1,..., var_n)}
Transformation
ado {} tail = tail ado {pat <- expr} {return expr'} = (mkArg(pat <- expr)); return expr' ado {one} tail = one : tail ado stmts tail | n == 1 = ado before (ado after tail) where (before,after) = split(stmts_1) | n > 1 = (mkArg(stmts_1) |... | mkArg(stmts_n)); tail where {stmts_1.. stmts_n} = segments(stmts) segments(stmts) = -- divide stmts into segments with no interdependencies mkArg({pat <- expr}) = (pat <- expr) mkArg({stmt_1;...; stmt_n}) = {stmt_1;...; stmt_n} {vars(stmt_1) u.. u vars(stmt_n)} split({stmt_1;..; stmt_n) = ({stmt_1;..; stmt_i}, {stmt_i+1;..; stmt_n}) -- 1 <= i <= n -- i is a good place to insert a bind
Differences from the actual implementation
The final expr in a "do" is a LastStmt, instead of being carried around separately.
there is no stripping of "return" during desugaring, it is handled earlier in the renamer instead.
arg has an optional "return", for the same reason as (2)
(2) and (3) are so that we can typecheck the syntax without having to desugar it first.
The syntax and desugaring rules are:
expr ::=... | do {stmt_1;..; stmt_n} |... stmt ::= expr -- last stmt in a "do" must be this | pat <- expr | (arg_1 |... | arg_n) | join (arg_1 |... | arg_n) |... arg ::= pat <- expr | {stmt_1..stmt_n} {var_1..var_n} maybe_return maybe_return ::= return | ()
dsDo {expr} = expr dsDo {pat <- rhs; stmts} = rhs >>= \pat -> dsDo stmts dsDo {(arg_1 |... | arg_n); stmts} = (\argpat (arg_1).. argpat(arg_n) -> dsDo stmts) <$> argexpr(arg_1) <*>... <*> argexpr(arg_n) dsDo {join (arg_1 |... | arg_n); stmts} = join (\argpat (arg_1).. argpat(arg_n) -> dsDo stmts) <$> argexpr(arg_1) <*>... <*> argexpr(arg_n)
where
argpat (pat <- expr) = pat argpat ({stmt_1..stmt_n} {var_1..var_n} _) = (var_1,.., var_n) argexpr (pat <- expr) = expr argexpr ({stmt_1..stmt_n} {var_1..var_n} ()) = dsDo {stmt_1;..; stmt_n; (var_1,..., var_n)} argexpr ({stmt_1..stmt_n} {var_1..var_n} return) = dsDo {stmt_1;..; stmt_n; return (var_1,..., var_n)}
Note that there's no matching on "return" during desugaring, the "return" has already been removed.
Related proposals
Implementation
The implementation is tricky, because we want to do a transformation that affects type checking (and renaming, because we might be using RebindableSyntax ), but we still want type errors in terms of the original source code. Therefore we calculate everything necessary to do the transformation during renaming, but leave enough information behind to reconstruct the original source code for the purposes of error messages.
See comments in https://phabricator.haskell.org/D729 for more details.
Tricky case
do { x <- A ; y <- B ; z <- C x ; return (z+y) }
Then we could do A ; (B | C) or (A | B) ; C.
If tA + (max( tB, tC )) < max( tA, tB ) + tC, then first is best, otherwise second.
If A is smaller than B and C, first is best. If C is smaller than A and B then second is best.Angry Boys is an Australian television mockumentary series written by and starring Chris Lilley, continuing the mockumentary style of his previous series. In Angry Boys, Lilley plays multiple characters: S.mouse, an American rapper; Jen, a manipulative Japanese mother; Blake Oakfield, a champion surfer; Ruth "Gran" Sims, a guard at a juvenile detention facility; and her teenage grandsons, South Australian twins Daniel and Nathan Sims.
The series is a co-production between the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and US cable channel HBO, with a pre-sale to BBC Three in the United Kingdom.[2] Filmed in Melbourne, Los Angeles and Tokyo, Angry Boys premièred on 11 May 2011 at 9:00 pm on ABC1.
Production [ edit ]
Development [ edit ]
Executive producers Chris Lilley and Laura Waters brought together the same team of collaborators from Summer Heights High and We Can Be Heroes to create six characters for the series.[2] This included the casting director, director of photography, camera operators, art department, costume designer, make-up artist, location scout, 1st assistant director, composer and editor.[2] On 25 August 2009, The Daily Telegraph reported that Lilley had planned to release a follow-up series to Summer Heights High, after years of working on the format.[3] A casting call was held on 30 September 2009 for roles of an African-American female (aged 18–25) to play a model called LaFonda, an African-American male, (aged 50–65) to play a character called Carter, and a male Japanese-American professional skateboarder, (aged 16–20) to play Corey.[4][5] On 2 October 2009, it was revealed that Lilley was searching for several American actors to appear in the series.[5] The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) also released details about the series, confirming that it would be called Angry Boys, and that it would be co-produced by the ABC and American network HBO.[6]
More than 3,500 people auditioned for roles, both actors and non-actors from Australia and overseas to find a wide range of looks, attitudes, races and |
even ASSASSINATE American citizens on U.S. SOIL — NO RIGHT TO A TRIAL, NO ACCESS TO A LAWYER, and the government need only ACCUSE you of being anti-government or connected to TERRORISM for this to apply to you. Is there a pattern going on here? Does this seem okay to you? Do you need to start questioning these things? It’s weird that the government is trying to censor the Internet and declare U.S. soil a war-zone allowing mass arrests of people for expressing opinions, and that that the government is giving army supplies for free to police departments. The day our constitutional amendments mean nothing — which seems more like reality as the sun sets — I do not want to hear anyone who didn’t stand up with the Occupy movement or any protest of government power over its people complain, because by sitting back and not doing anything about this, you are allowing this to happen. It angers me when people are more interested in listening to horrible music than to educate themselves on important things like the SOPA/NO IP Act and the NDAA that will change our lives completely and for the next generations to come. Occupy your minds and stop being a slave to corporate media and entertainment. I mean in America, you’re supposed to be able to criticize your own government without saying you’re un-American – Ron Paul Whatever happened to? “I do not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It feels like a militarized war zone, it doesn’t feel like New York. — RT journalist interviewed who got hit by a police baton as she was trying to film the protests. So let me ask one final question: Do you need to leave your second-grade classroom to find out what is really happening? Or are you just going to wait around until someone picks you up? var linkwithin_site_id = 557381; linkwithin_text=’Related Articles:’Retired Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) heavyweight Pat Barry will make his first appearance for the GLORY kickboxing promotion when he throws hands against Zack Mwekassa inside the 1STBANK Center in Broomfield, Colorado, on Saturday, May 3, 2014.
And for the first time in years, "HD" doesn't have to worry about the ground game.
Barry (15-5-1) is no stranger to kickboxing, having competed on the K-1 circuit for more than two years between 2005 to 2007 before making the jump to mixed martial arts (MMA) in mid-2008, where he finished 8-7, with four of those seven losses coming by way of knockout or technical knockout.
And Mwekassa (10-1) has nine finishes to his name.
GLORY 16: "Denver" will also feature a welterweight world championship title fight between Nieky Holzken and Marc de Bonteand, as well as a one-night, four-man heavyweight contender tournament, which airs live on Spike TV starting at 8 p.m. ET.
Here is the current GLORY 16 fight card and line up:
Tournament Final Bout C: Semifinal Bout A Winner vs. Semifinal Bout B Winner
Welterweight World Title Bout: Nieky Holzken vs. Marc de Bonte
Tournament Reserve Bout: Pat Barry vs. Zack Mwekassa
Tournament Semifinal Bout B: Anderson Silva vs. Sergey Kharitonov
Tournament Semifinal Bout A: Ben Edwards vs. Errol Zimmerman
Any fight fans out there think Barry can find his winning ways now that he's back where he started?Adam Sandler is one of the few actors in Hollywood who can still demand a paycheck north of $15 million. That's great for his bank account but not always so great for the studios that employ him. A string of recent misfires lands the funny man at the top of our most overpaid list.
The two biggest offenders on Sandler's resume: Jack & Jill, in which he played both halves of a brother-sister twin set, and That's My Boy, in which Sandler (47) played the father of Andy Samberg (35). Jack & Jill grossed $150 million but the film cost an estimated $80 million to make. Considering studios take home about half of box office receipts, that means only about $70 million flowed to Sony, which also had to pay to advertise the stinker. That kind of return didn't justify Sandler's large upfront pay.
That's My Boy did even worse. With an estimated budget of $70 million, the film brought in only $57 million at the box office worldwide. In other words, it was a major bomb. We estimate that for every dollar Sandler was paid on his last three movies, the films returned an average of $3.40.
Of course when a Sandler movie hits, his pay can be justified. The problem for Hollywood is that telling a hit from a miss before the movie is made is almost impossible. But with someone like Sandler, you have to pay up hoping that the movie will do big business at the box office. Sony won that bet with Grown Ups 2. That movie grossed $246 million on an estimated $80 million budget, making it one of Sandler's best performing films. Our research for this list comes from our Celebrity 100 work though so we are only counting movie that came out before June. Grown Ups 2 hit theaters in July.
Still, one has to wonder if it's worth continuing to pay Sandler's huge upfront fees in the hopes that his next film will be a hit when it seems audiences might be getting tired of Sandler's shtick. Don't be surprised if studios start asking him to take less upfront in favor of a heftier chunk of the back end if the film is a hit, or if the actor starts trying to do more animated work. The cartoon Hotel Transylvania was the biggest hit of his career, grossing $358 million at the box office worldwide.
To compile our list we looked at the last three movies each actor starred in over the three years to June 1. Actors don't make as many films as they used to so that first criteria eliminated a lot of folks right away. Drew Barrymore, who has appeared on our overpaid list in past years, was disqualified this year because she didn't have enough films in our time frame.
Looking at pay, movie budgets and expenses, we calculated a return on investment number for each star and then averaged those numbers to get an overall return.
Close behind Sandler in second place is Katherine Heigl. For every dollar she was paid Heigl returned an average of $3.50. After films like 27 Dresses Heigl was heralded as the new queen of romantic comedies. She started demanding a big upfront fee and studios were willing to pay it... until flops like Killers and One for the Money.
Reese Witherspoon ranks third with an average $3.90 return for every $1 she gets paid. Witherspoon is currently reinventing her career. She's been smartly buying up hot, female-centric books for her production company. We will see more of Witherspoon behind the scenes in the coming years although she's starring in Wild, the best-selling book about Cheryl Strayed's 1,000 mile solo hike. Expect Witherspoon to take a huge pay cut for her own movies.
Kevin James make our list for the first time in fifth place. The actor actually ranked on our Best Actors for the Buck list last year with an average return of $22.40 for every dollar he was paid. This year his return falls to $6.10 because of Here Comes the Boom. The film, about a teacher who tries to become a mixed martial arts fighter to raise money for his school, grossed only $73 million at the box office worldwide.
Another new comer to our list this year is Steve Carell. The comedian had a major misfire with The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. The film grossed just $22 million at the box office worldwide. We estimate that for for every dollar he was paid Carell returned an average $10, ranking him seventh on our list.
Follow me on Twitter at DorothyatForbes.Date: 28th May, 2011 The latest announcement from Jersey Jack Pinball has revealed a monochrome sampler of the first piece of artwork from their upcoming The Wizard of Oz game.
The sample backglass and monitor artwork The picture shows how the backglass frame will surround a composite image which will be displayed on the 26-inch LCD monitor mounted in the game's backbox. Although this sample is in black-and-white, the final version will be in full colour. The monitor image depicts many elements from the movie, with the Wicked Witch the largest of the characters. Combined with the stormy skyline, the bare trees and the axe-wielding Tin Man, the artwork conveys the darker side of the movie while managing to contrast it with the central cheery image of Dorothy and Toto.
The sample monitor image These two pieces of artwork are part of the hand-painted seven-piece set created by Jerry Vandersteldt. Jerry said, "The cabinet sides, backbox sides, front coin door panel, backglass art and backbox glass insert are seven different works of art and will complete the story-telling treatment I have in mind for the entire exterior art package, but for now, enjoy this first glimpse into the backglass design of Jersey Jack's very own, 'The Wizard of Oz' pinball machine!" Jack Guarnieri said about the artwork, "If you know any of Jerry's works, you better be ready to see an awesome finished art package like none ever produced for a pinball machine before. When this takes life through color and depth, everyone will be blown away." Different treatments of the monitor image will be displayed on the LCD monitor at different times during the gameplay and also in attract mode. The remaining pieces of Jerry's artwork will be printed using UV inks onto high-grade vinyl, before being applied to the cabinet front and sides, and the backbox sides.
Keep checking Pinball News for all the very latest news on Jersey Jack Pinball's The Wizard of Oz game.
Back to the News page Back to the front page
© Pinball News 2011In news that will surely make your National Enquirer circa 1989-reading head explode, ex-spouses Madonna and Sean Penn, who have gone down remarkably different paths with regard to their respective abilities for physical self-preservation (moisturize, Sean), are spending a lot of time together again. They've been divorced for nearly 25 years, but the couple have supposedly remained friends (to some degree, anyway) ever since. Then last year, Penn was spotted at Madonna's LA concert, his appearance accompanied by a bevy of paparazzi photos that showed him looking wistful and forlorn (or maybe just pensively compiling his grocery list for the week), and reports that he was audibly drooling over his ex-wife's MILF status. A couple months ago, Penn popped up again at the premiere of Madonna's Secret Project Revolution art film. And this week he invited Madonna to tour the work being done by J/P Haitian Relief Organization, the earthquake relief group he founded. Madonna obliged, and she and her son Rocco (by second husband, filmmaker Guy Ritchie) have been documenting their visit via Instagram.
J/P Haitian Relief Organization included this photo of the exes in Haiti alongside a press release about the visit that is currently hosted on Madonna's official website.
Madonna's 13-year old son Rocco shared on his Instagram this photo with Penn, the guy who, if things had worked out differently, could have been responsible for his Y chromosome. In like, a way.
Now on one hand, these recent rendezvous are the latest in a long line of small, slightly-more-than-civil gestures that the two have paid to each other over the years: from Madonna's admission in her tour documentary Truth or Dare that Penn was the "love of her life" (one of the few candid moments in what is otherwise an extraordinarily entertaining 110-minute performance of tongue-in-cheek imperiousness), to Penn's decision to make Madonna his first text after he "popped his cherry kissing a guy" (James Franco) while making the movie Milk. Earlier this year Madonna' BFF, actress Debi Mazar, also referred to Penn as Madonna's "true love" during an interview with Andy Cohen: which sort of felt like the celebrity version of asking your friend to "accidentally" spill in gym class who she hopes will ask her to prom. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.Bo Wallace's EMCC Highlights
East Mississippi Community College quarterback Bo Wallace, a Junior College All-American (sound familiar?), committed to Ole Miss today per OMSpirit's Ben Garrett. Wallace, a 6'5" 215 pound prospect, threw for 4,400+ yards and 50+ touchdowns on the season as he led EMCC to a Junior College national championship.
Coming out of Pulaski, Tennessee, Wallace originally signed with Arkansas State where he was coached by then-OC Hugh Freeze. He sat behind Sun Belt offensive player of the year Ryan Alpin at quarterback, though, which prompted his transfer to junior college. After this past season's junior college successes, Wallace was recruited by Mississippi State, Baylor, Nebraska, and Texas along with our Ole Miss.
If you listened to this week's Red Cup Radio, you heard a discussion about where we project Bo Wallace in next fall's depth chart. Simply, we think he's a shoe-in to start for the Rebels due to his size, experience, and familiarity with Hugh Freeze's offensive scheme.September 24, 2017
CR Sunday Interview: Noah Van Sciver Talks To Peter Bagge
*****
I'm a huge fan of Weirdo editor to the creator of Neat Stuff and Hate, to his magazine journalism and comics-essay making, to this new batch of biographies.
Both Van Sciver (as an exhibitor) and Bagge (as special guest) will appear at this year's
*****
NOAH VAN SCIVER: When you were a teenager did you ever try to paint and draw in a representational style?
PETER BAGGE: Yes, though usually in an art class, doing what we were assigned: draw a lamp, a curtain, some trees, and later nude models. I recently found some life drawings I did while at
VAN SCIVER: Back in the early '80s you had to hustle a lot to find any kind of work as an illustrator; do you think that a young, unknown artist would have a tougher time trying to find work now compared to back then?
BAGGE: I imagine it'd be much easier thanks to the Internet. Just give someone your web site address, rather than actually trying to meet up with them and make sure they look at your work.
VAN SCIVER: Art Spiegelman helped you find work early on, didn't he? When he was working with Topps bubblegum he asked you to write Bazooka Joe comics? What was that like?
BAGGE: The only work I ever got from Art was writing some Bazooka Joe jokes. How's that for an odd gig! The ones I wrote were illustrated by Howard Cruse. They looked pretty different from the original ones. They were trying to "update" the series or some such.
VAN SCIVER: Whatever happened to those Bazooka Joe comics? Have they been reprinted anywhere? I'd love to see those!
BAGGE: Well, they appeared with the gum back in 1982! But I think they went back to the original strips after a while. No one really liked the updated version.
VAN SCIVER: One thing I notice about the work you're doing now compared to the issues of Neat Stuff or the early issues of HATE is that your style has become refined and even simplified. You don't do a lot of crosshatching anymore. Was that a conscious decision on your part or is that something that happens as you master a drawing style?
BAGGE: I stopped crosshatching mainly because it's very difficult to color over it via Photoshop, and I was doing more color via computer work by that point. I occasionally did some cross hatching since then, but I don't think it added anything to the story anymore. It felt unnecessary.
VAN SCIVER: Harvey Kurtzman was one of your teachers for the few semesters you spent at SVA. What did he think of the comic work you were doing?
BAGGE: I never took his class, just sat in on it on occasion. He was friendly to me when I spoke to him, but I wasn't really on his radar, not being his student and all. His mind also seemed to be going in and out by then too.
VAN SCIVER: Fantagraphics is celebrating their 40th year [2016]. What were they like when you first became involved with them? Were they still located in Connecticut at that time?
BAGGE: Yes, they were in the 'burbs, living in a 'hood just like the one I'd recently ran away from! I was surprised they wanted to live and work in that environment, but I guess it was cheaper, just cramming everyone and everything into a four bedroom, split level house. They moved to LA -- and a few years after that, to Seattle -- soon enough, though.
VAN SCIVER: Did you ever feel like a prisoner of your own style? Like you see other artist's work and just think "Damn, if only I could start drawing like that..."
BAGGE: Occasionally, when I was younger. I didn't always feel that I could pull off some of my story ideas on my own. That's the main reason I used to collaborate with other artists on occasion.
Now I feel I can pull off any kind of a story, though I still struggle drawing certain things -- mainly animals.
VAN SCIVER: Do you think that you can joke about anything, or are there some things that should be off-limits?
BAGGE: Meaning me personally? Or anyone in general? I don't think anything should be off-limits. You just have to make it work: think abut how to do it, and why you ought to do it, etc.
VAN SCIVER: Is there any time from your life that you feel nostalgic for?
BAGGE: If I had to pick any one era it'd be the 1990s. That was a pretty good time for all kinds of reasons. But that's not to say I'm miserable now or anything! Life is still pretty darn good!
VAN SCIVER: It's interesting that you were so connected with the Seattle grunge music scene because I can't imagine you putting a Mudhoney CD on in your car. The bands you've played in have been more pop influenced, right? How long have you been playing in bands? Were the Action Suits the first?
BAGGE: I liked some grunge bands -- including Mudhoney -- but you're right that it isn't my favorite genre. I do prefer more pop stuff. I was in a band between the ages of 12 and 15 or so. Just me and some friends goofing off, and pretending to know how to play something. After a while my friends got very accomplished on their instruments so I got pushed out.
I drummed for Eric Reynolds' band The Action Suits off and on between '95 and... '05? We made some good records, though, I think. And I'm still officially in a band called Can You Imagine? Going on eight years or so. We have two CDs out that I'm super proud of. Too bad we don't really have any fans!
VAN SCIVER: When you look at the comics you did for Neat Stuff do you remember where you were when you drew each page?
BAGGE: Occasionally! I remember starting the first strip in Neat Stuff #1 while still in Hoboken NJ, and it has a few Hoboken landmarks in it -- sleazy bars and such. I finished it in the basement of my in-laws' brand new house in suburban Seattle, where the strip suddenly felt very alien and out of place. A few other early pieces were done in Hoboken as well.
Living in the very antiseptic suburb of Redmond, WA for 18 months really inspired me, story-wise. I got a lot of material out of that short stay, due entirely to my alienation, as well as viewing the natives in a way that they clearly didn't see themselves.
VAN SCIVER: You've been around for the domination of the graphic novel over the comic book. Was that a difficult shift, to go from doing standalone short stories and serialized comics, to now graphic novels?
BAGGE: Yes, mainly because I vastly preferred the comic book format to the book format aesthetically, and I also liked having the option of doing a short story if and when I felt like it, which works way better with the old "floppy" format, where filler pieces fit in naturally. The book format is too goddamned "official," with its hoity-toity yet pointless end papers, and the indicia being given its own stupid page and all. So much wasted space, all in an attempt to give the content more weight than it most likely deserves.
VAN SCIVER: Do you miss doing comics that were an "anything goes" kind of package like Neat Stuff?
BAGGE: Not really. While this may sound contradictory to my answer above, I primarily think in longer stories now, and have for a while, so that even with HATE each issue was built around an at least 15-page story.
VAN SCIVER: Was Gary Groth pretty tough about deadlines while you were working on Neat Stuff and Hate?
BAGGE: Not too tough -- though I usually dealt with Kim [Thompson] on any production-related issues back then. We'd agree on a deadline, but being a month or so late was acceptable. Any later than that and they might begin to grumble.
VAN SCIVER: Do you still get excited when you see your work in print somewhere for the first time?
BAGGE: Only if I'm happy with the way it looks, which tends to more likely be the case as I get older. I usually wanted to kill myself when a new issue of Neat Stuff or HATE came out. I'd always think my art looked atrocious, and that I must be blind or something.
VAN SCIVER: I read in an older interview with you that you listened to Perry Como. Is that still true?
BAGGE: Not actively, but if one of his songs comes on the radio I'll turn it up. He had a nice singing voice.
VAN SCIVER: Do you ever hear from Robert Crumb these days?
BAGGE: Never. He stayed at my house for a week about 14 years ago, and I haven't heard from him since. I wrote him a fan letter re: the Genesis book a while ago, but he didn't respond to it.
VAN SCIVER: You just recently moved from Seattle to Tacoma after living in Seattle for 37 years. Was it just getting too depressing to watch your beloved city change so much?
BAGGE: Change and growth are inevitable, but how the city's government is dealing with that change is criminal. They're destroying the city's quality of life for reasons that I can mostly only speculate on, but there's no good justification for any of it. Most of their policies are cloaked in feel-good "progressive" rationales, where appearing to "care" trumps everything, including sanity. It's also how they keep getting re-elected, though you'd think the public would have woken up to it by now.
*****
* Fire!!: The Zora Neale Hurston Story, Peter Bagge, Drawn And Quarterly, hardcover, 104 pages, 9781770462694, March 2017, $21.95.
*****
* Hurston by Bagge
* old Bagge illustration ad
* Bagge drawing the rare animal
* Action Suits record sleeve cover by Bagge
* Neat Stuff #1
* "Caffy" a Crumb/Bagge Collaboration
* Studs Kirby, one of the great characters Bagge created for Neat Stuff (below)
*****
*****
*****
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*****I'm a huge fan of Peter Bagge and enjoy the output from all phases of his career:editor to the creator ofand, to his magazine journalism and comics-essay making, to this new batch of biographies. Fire!! from Drawn and Quarterly is his latest; it's a biographical treatment of the great writer Zora Neale Hurston Noah Van Sciver told me he had an interview with Bagge that had been orphaned, so I bought it (I do that sometimes, inquire first). I like Van Sciver's mix of questions and they all seem shamelessly motivated by the specifics of his own interest in the alt-comics veteran.Both Van Sciver (as an exhibitor) and Bagge (as special guest) will appear at this year's Cartoon Crossroads Columbus. Bagge like to draw before and at shows. I've hit him up for a sketch already, and Without further ado, here's one of the most promising post-alternative cartoonists talking to great figure in American comics and American humor. Thanks, Noah. -- Tom Spurgeon*****Yes, though usually in an art class, doing what we were assigned: draw a lamp, a curtain, some trees, and later nude models. I recently found some life drawings I did while at SVA. They weren't bad! But man did I find it boring, drawing "realistically."I imagine it'd be much easier thanks to the Internet. Just give someone your web site address, rather than actually trying to meet up with them and make sure they look at your work.The only work I ever got from Art was writing some Bazooka Joe jokes. How's that for an odd gig! The ones I wrote were illustrated by Howard Cruse. They looked pretty different from the original ones. They were trying to "update" the series or some such.Well, they appeared with the gum back in 1982! But I think they went back to the original strips after a while. No one really liked the updated version.Neat StuffHATEI stopped crosshatching mainly because it's very difficult to color over it via Photoshop, and I was doing more color via computer work by that point. I occasionally did some cross hatching since then, but I don't think it added anything to the story anymore. It felt unnecessary.I never took his class, just sat in on it on occasion. He was friendly to me when I spoke to him, but I wasn't really on his radar, not being his student and all. His mind also seemed to be going in and out by then too.Yes, they were in the 'burbs, living in a 'hood just like the one I'd recently ran away from! I was surprised they wanted to live and work in that environment, but I guess it was cheaper, just cramming everyone and everything into a four bedroom, split level house. They moved to LA -- and a few years after that, to Seattle -- soon enough, though.Occasionally, when I was younger. I didn't always feel that I could pull off some of my story ideas on my own. That's the main reason I used to collaborate with other artists on occasion.Now I feel I can pull off any kind of a story, though I still struggle drawing certain things -- mainly animals.Meaning me personally? Or anyone in general? I don't think anything should be off-limits. You just have to make it work: think abutto do it, and why you ought to do it, etc.If I had to pick any one era it'd be the 1990s. That was a pretty good time for all kinds of reasons. But that's not to say I'm miserable now or anything! Life is still pretty darn good!I liked some grunge bands -- including Mudhoney -- but you're right that it isn't my favorite genre. I do prefer more pop stuff. I was in a band between the ages of 12 and 15 or so. Just me and some friends goofing off, and pretending to know how to play something. After a while my friends got very accomplished on their instruments so I got pushed out.I drummed for Eric Reynolds' band The Action Suits off and on between '95 and... '05? We made some good records, though, I think. And I'm still officially in a band called Can You Imagine? Going on eight years or so. We have two CDs out that I'm super proud of. Too bad we don't really have any fans!Neat StuffOccasionally! I remember starting the first strip in#1 while still in Hoboken NJ, and it has a few Hoboken landmarks in it -- sleazy bars and such. I finished it in the basement of my in-laws' brand new house in suburban Seattle, where the strip suddenly felt very alien and out of place. A few other early pieces were done in Hoboken as well.Living in the very antiseptic suburb of Redmond, WA for 18 months really inspired me, story-wise. I got a lot of material out of that short stay, due entirely to my alienation, as well as viewing the natives in a way that they clearly didn't see themselves.Yes, mainly because I vastly preferred the comic book format to the book format aesthetically, and I also liked having the option of doing a short story if and when I felt like it, which works way better with the old "floppy" format, where filler pieces fit in naturally. The book format is too goddamned "official," with its hoity-toity yet pointless end papers, and the indicia being given its own stupid page and all. So much wasted space, all in an attempt to give the content more weight than it most likely deserves.Neat StuffNot really. While this may sound contradictory to my answer above, I primarily think in longer stories now, and have for a while, so that even witheach issue was built around an at least 15-page story.Neat StuffHateNot too tough -- though I usually dealt with Kim [Thompson] on any production-related issues back then. We'd agree on a deadline, but being a month or so late was acceptable. Any later than that and they might begin to grumble.Only if I'm happy with the way it looks, which tends to more likely be the case as I get older. I usually wanted to kill myself when a new issue oforcame out. I'd always think my art looked atrocious, and that I must be blind or something.Not actively, but if one of his songs comes on the radio I'll turn it up. He had a nice singing voice.Never. He stayed at my house for a week about 14 years ago, and I haven't heard from him since. I wrote him a fan letter re: thebook a while ago, but he didn't respond to it.Change and growth are inevitable, but how the city's government is dealing with that change is criminal. They're destroying the city's quality of life for reasons that I can mostly only speculate on, but there's no good justification for any of it. Most of their policies are cloaked in feel-good "progressive" rationales, where appearing to "care" trumps everything, including sanity. It's also how they keep getting re-elected, though you'd think the public would have woken up to it by now.*********** Hurston by Bagge* old Bagge illustration ad* Bagge drawing the rare animal* Action Suits record sleeve cover by Bagge#1* "Caffy" a Crumb/Bagge Collaboration* Studs Kirby, one of the great characters Bagge created for(below)***************In spirit of RWBY Volume 4 I tried to combine to things I wanted to do:
1.Drawing the new Volume 4 outfit concepts for team RWBY.
2 Trying an own Time skip version of team SSSN.
And that's how this happened.
Also I added a mini penny because i have hopes. >.<
Mostly this idea started with a dream I had.
Sun had the idea to actually gather all hunters in one place,
to plan a final attack against Salem and Cinder.
So he send out his team mates to find the other members of team RWBY and
Team Rnjr.
He himself looked for Blake and ran into Adam, like you see here.
I actually want them to have a battle.xD
Mini Penny in the first Picture actually is a beta version of the original,
without combat skills, but with guide skills.
Scarlet came by the man who made Penny and actually,
beta penny decided to come with him.
Ruby seems happy to see penny again.
Neptune has the mission to get weiss out of the mansion,
without her father noticing.
Seem to work okay for now.
And for Sage, Sun gave him something for Yang,
so that she can fight somehow normally again.
Only some ideas I had.
I wish we have more team sssn screen time.
Also team Fnki as well, I loved them in the tournament.
Team SSSN is still my fav team, not only because they look like big bang.
Art by me
Charackter by RWBY
Timeskip outfits for Team SSSN by me
Edit 18.01.2018 Rwby Volume 5 is Awesome and now I ship both Rosegarden and Shades of Red.Edit: 13.02.2017: Now that Volume 4 was over, it was a great volume just,why do they have to be so short.But it was worth watching, not so sad than volume 3 ;w;Edit 23.10.2016: Now that I see the volume 4 intro,I am exited but also dissapointed, because no timeskip outfit for sunand adam looks the same too.Update: This story has been updated to clarify the role of the Unite Here union in this petition, and to incorporate comments from UFC representatives.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has found itself pitted against a surprising new adversary: A war veteran's committee who assert that UFC culture -- in particular, they allege, a tacit acceptance of homophobic and sexist behavior and slurs -- is an insult to the military's guiding principles.
But the story isn't so simple: The committee is one branch of the Unite Here union, an organization that's spent more than a decade trying, without success, to unionize 13,000 employees at Las Vegas' Stations Casinos -- which are owned by the very brothers, Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, who head up UFC.
UFC, a mixed martial arts promotions company founded in 1993, has since then made a steady crawl towards mainstream success. The company's events, essentially caged knockout bouts meant to showcase the most effective techniques of unarmed combat (whether derived from boxing, karate or myriad other fighting disciplines), now fill major American stadiums and attract millions of TV viewers through a partnership with FOX Sports.
The company, and the sport it represents, have also attracted a dedicated military following. Several UFC fighters, including former Special Forces Staff Sergeant Tim Kennedy and Marine Corps' Captain Brian Stann, are themselves veterans. UFC fighters often pay visits to military bases, and the armed forces now hold their own mixed martial arts competitions among soldiers. Some military leaders have even lauded UFC fights as a prime means of recruitment.
"Many of those [UFC] viewers are eligible recruits," wrote Major Kelly Crigger in 2008. "The UFC provides a great venue to get the Army name into the minds of millions of young Americans."
But the relationship between UFC and the military is now being spotlighted by the Unite Here committee: The group solicited 5,000 signatures (from war veterans, civilians and members of other advocacy groups) for a petition that was distributed to Marine Corps recruiting stations in seven cities last week. The petition's request? That the Marines "renounce support of the UFC immediately."
That support, according to the petition, runs taxpayers around $2 million each year. It's the approximate sum that the Marines spend on commercials during televised UFC fights and on other promotional materials (like this joint UFC-Marines website that offers instructional videos on how to "train like elite warriors"). Money aside, petitioners say they're also concerned that the military's affiliation with the UFC sends a disturbing message to soldiers and civilians alike.
UFC representatives tell a very different story, namely that after years of unsuccessful unionization attempts at Palace Station casinos, the Unite Here union has taken to harassing the company's leadership. "What's happening with the Marine Corps is another example of this harassment," Lawrence Epstein, UFC's executive vice-president and general counsel, tells me. "I could give you a long list of the dirty tricks these guys have played."
Whether or not this is another union ploy to indict UFC leadership, it has attracted the attention -- and support -- of at least one military advocacy group. "Why the Marines would turn around and support a group that so openly disparages women and gay people is beyond me," Lory Manning, executive director of the Women in the Military Project and herself a retired Navy Captain, tells me. "The UFC community is completely out of line with Marine Corps mandate."
Manning and her cohort of veterans aren't the first to criticize UFC culture. Earlier this year, for instance, the National Center for Domestic and Sexual violence assembled a lengthy list of instances where UFC fighters "[contributed] to a culture of violence against women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people."
Recently, a UFC fighter taunted his opponent by threatening to act like former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, who has been charged with 52 counts of molesting boys. UFC fighter Rashad Evans said, “Cause I’m gonna put those hands on you worse than that dude did them other kids at Penn State.”
UFC representatives, however, say they don't disagree with Manning's worries. "We share her concerns. These athletes were wrong, they made mistakes and they've apologized," Epstein says. "We do extensive training to make sure these athletes know what is and isn't acceptable."
Included in that training, Epstein says, are routine "fighter summits" that include talks from former professional athletes, sensitivity trainers and UFC president Dana White himself.
In addition to the petitions distributed last week, Manning's organization recently sent a letter to General James Amos, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, asking him to re-evaluate the money being spent by the Marine Corps to support the UFC. Thus far, however, the Marines Corps haven't made any concrete promises.
"We are monitoring the issue and continuously evaluate the effectiveness of our advertising and lead generation partnerships," Maj. John Caldwell, a Marine Corps |
part of a larger phenomenon: All around the world, rising prosperity and rising patriotism go hand in hand. But what sort of patriotism is India's going to be?
In India's general vicinity, there are many models on offer. Chinese leaders, expressing a self-confidence born of export wealth, frequently convey their patriotism using nationalist rhetoric. They treat all internal criticism as treason, declare themselves impervious to world opinion and demonstrate their power by snubbing President Obama at a climate summit. Russian patriotism, meanwhile, often takes on a neo-imperialist tinge. Russian leaders, expressing a self-confidence born of oil wealth, indulge in saber-rattling and sometimes physical attacks on their neighbors. Indeed, the conjunction of Russia's invasion of Georgia with the Beijing Olympics in the summer of 2008 was instructive: Two new models of national self-confidence were on display that week, along with two ways of expressing it.
Indian patriotism could develop in either direction. Saber-rattling is not exactly unheard of here, and nationalist sentiment has appeared in unexpected places. Newspaper headlines this week featured the national cricket league's recent refusal to draft Pakistani players, a decision widely attributed to politics and prejudice. Resistance to internal criticism and even the repression of dissidents are not unknown here either, especially in the poorer provinces. Indian editor Tarun Tejpal can list several such incidents off the top of his head: His energetic magazine, Tehelka, has reported on police officers who rape female travelers with impunity in one particularly violent region of the country, as well as on local laws that violate rights guaranteed in the national constitution. This reporting, he says, has had no political impact.
I heard Tejpal make these points down the road from the Amber Fort, at this year's Jaipur Literature Festival. From a large stage in a crowded room, he declared that India's new elite had been "bought off" with consumer goods and had slid into political complacency as a result; India's newly wealthy had ignored the continued suffering of the poor and, in particular, the ongoing violations of human rights. He made these points passionately, and many heads nodded. The crowd -- packed with the newly wealthy and newly elite -- rewarded him with hearty applause.
This was, in other words, a patriotic audience: Not nationalistic, not imperialist, not aggressive but, rather, self-critical, focused on what is still wrong as well as what has gone right. I don't want to make too much of a single session at a single festival, but it was clear that no one was intimidated by being there, no one was afraid to say anything out loud. It's that sort of patriotism, so hard to find in China and Russia, that gives India its lively novelists, its open public culture, its energetic film industry. That sort of patriotism, if it can be encouraged and maintained, will keep Indian politics diverse and democratic over time -- even if its economy stops growing.
It's also that kind of patriotism that makes tourists like me feel so energized by a brief visit. Like economic cycles, political trends come and go. At the moment, democracy is out, authoritarianism is in, and it is fashionable in many parts of Asia to claim that rapid economic growth requires censorship and central political control. India presents a real alternative to that model. I know that many Indians would violently disagree with that assessment -- and that makes me more optimistic still.
applebaumletters@washpost.comHas the era of the yellow cab come to an end? Photo by Michael Bocchieri/Getty Images
The driverless taxi—sleek, efficient, and blissfully free of obligatory small talk with chatty drivers—has long been the daydream of many a regular urban cab rider. Taxi drivers, of course, gripe at the idea of autonomous vehicles prowling their streets and snatching up business. But their grumblings haven’t stopped Google and Uber, among other companies, from investigating self-driving taxis as a real possibility for the cities of the future. Google’s self-driving cars are already on the road in several states, and the company is rumored to be expanding into taxi services. The head of Uber, Travis Kalanick, has publicly spoken many times about his interest in replacing drivers with robots, hence Uber hiring a reported 40 or more people from Carnegie Mellon’s robotics lab.
What was once a pipe dream is closer than ever to becoming a reality. Now, government research is pointing to the automation of cab-driving as the industry’s next major disruption—and a majorly beneficial one, at that.
Scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a lab in California that conducts research on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, published a comprehensive report Monday on the implications of self-driving taxis. The results are astonishing: After an extensive economic and environmental study, the researchers, Jeffery Greenblatt and Samveg Saxena, found that autonomous taxis would vastly cut back on cities’ greenhouse gas emissions. Self-driving vehicles in shared transit systems could dramatically reduce the amount of energy that is used per mile. The researchers also found that—despite the expensive production costs of autonomous cars—the replacement of traditional cabs with these vehicles would mean lower taxi fares.
That’s no small thing. Over the years, the costs of taxi rides in major cities have increased to headache-inducing levels. In 2012, New York’s taxi commission voted to raise fares by as much as 17 percent—a hike that, in combination with other unpleasant factors such as uncleanliness, caused the experience of hailing a cab in the city to become a last resort, or “something of an urban surrender.” And the “surge pricing” of companies like Uber has forced customers to sometimes shell out two or three times the usual rate of a ride. Greenblatt and Saxena suggest that driverless taxis offer a cheaper alternative:
In New York City in 2005, only 24 percent of taxi fares went toward vehicle costs, with 57 percent going to drivers … driver income constitutes $97,600 per year, which could more than cover the incremental cost of autonomous vehicle technology [estimated at $150,000]. Even using current costs, if financed using identical model assumptions for vehicle capital, this would amount to $36,500 per year, 37 percent of New York City taxi driver income and 21 percent of total taxi fares. Therefore, autonomous taxis could replace current taxis at current autonomous vehicle costs and possibly even lower fares, providing an important early market niche.
These findings back up a 2013 proposal from researchers at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, which suggested that a replacement of New York’s 13,000 yellow cabs with 9,000 self-driving ones could lower costs per mile to just $0.50. That study also found that self-driving cars could cut the average wait time for customers from five minutes down to 36 seconds.
Greenblatt and Saxena are not speculating on a hypothetical event in the distant future. The deployment of self-driving taxi fleets is not as far off as it would seem: As Google and Uber continue to experiment with their autonomous vehicle designs, other companies such as Nissan are also throwing their hats into the ring. With more companies developing self-driving cars each year, it won’t be long until they all turn their eye to autonomous taxi services. It’s an industry of untapped profit. And it could also help save the planet. Couple that with the safety bonus of driverless cars, and it sounds like a no-lose situation. But one thing the Department of Energy–sponsored report doesn’t touch upon is how the radical disruption of the taxi industry would affect the people already embedded in it—dispatchers, cab company workers, and, most of all, the roughly 178,000 taxi drivers in the country. If self-driving taxi fleets are to become a reality in the upcoming years, the displacement of these populations is an issue we need to address with the utmost urgency."The Xiphos Wolf, a high-grade mecha designed for amazing range of movement and speed. Named after the first pilot's style of battle and the often seen blade-type weaponry that accompanies the Xiphos into battle. Its muscle strands are made from a high-polymer material meant for both a high density/strength and high fluidity in movement. These are maintained aerobically; hence the 2 central air intakes near the cockpit. The natural heavy weight of the muscle strands is somewhat counter-active to the goal of high speed, though. Because of this, outer armor is sacrificed, with Xiphos relying more heavily on its natural density to withstand fire and amazing speed to avoid damage. 5 relatively lightweight gluon-fiber titanium plates cover the otherwise more exposed joints for a more true defensive ability. The positioning of these are, however, not good for actual defensive actions.
From its balance, to its agility, to its wild top speed, Xiphos is meant for high-paced combat. To further increase its speed, it is designed to be equipped with 2 shoulder boosters, which combined with it's tail booster make a delta-type boosting configuration; ideal for even distribution of the boosting and therefore sharp climbs in top speed movement and re-acceleration for darting maneuvers.
While technically capable of being equipped with heavy weaponry, Xiphos is ideally lightly loaded. Plasma-based progressive blades compliment the Xiphos much better, as its naturally good close quarters combat, high agility and poor defensive capabilities lend it better for kills made as quickly as possible. Long exposure during battle only heightens the Xiphos' chance of failure. "
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This painting took a bit longer than usual.. The goal was to focus more on size and detail, giving more of an atmosphere to what the painting is actually about.
.. Including a mini biography to help further that sense.
This one in specific is inspired by both the new game X, by monolith soft, coming to the Wii U, and Titanfall, coming to PC and Xbox One. Both games are featured around mechas, and they both look insanely awesome...
I'd love to hear critiques on this. Trying to step my game up some.Scientologist charged with perverting course of justice
Posted
One of the Church of Scientology's most senior figures, Jan Eastgate, has been arrested and charged in Sydney.
She has been charged with perverting the course of justice in relation to allegations she coached an 11-year-old girl to lie to police and community services about the sexual abuse she suffered from her stepfather who was a member of the Church of Scientology.
Eastgate is the international president of the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights, an organisation founded by the Church of Scientology that campaigns against psychiatry.
She was awarded the church's freedom medal for promoting human rights in 1988.
Police allege Eastgate threatened and intimidated Carmen Rainer when she was 11 into providing false statements to police about the sexual abuse she suffered from her stepfather.
Ms Rainer outlined these allegations for the first time on Lateline last year.
"She (Eastgate) kept repeating that: 'Just remember you can't tell them. Don't say yes because otherwise you will be taken away from your parents and you will never see your family again'," Ms Rainer told Lateline.
Ms Rainer's story was backed up by her mother, Phoebe.
"Jan Eastgate coached both of us, actually," Phoebe Rainer said.
"She came to us with DOCS - they weren't called DOCS back then - but she came with us to the interview and she basically told me what to say and Carmen what to say.
"She also told Carmen to lie to the police and I lied to the police as well because of that."
Carmel Underwood, who was at the time a senior figure in Scientology, says she witnessed these events.
"I knew that Carmen was being coached on what to say to the Department of Community Services and to the police," she said.
"So I challenged them on that and we had a bit of an argument and I was told it was none of my business and to get out of there.
"I didn't want to get out of there because I wanted to stop what was going on but I was escorted out of there."
Eastgate declined to be interviewed at the time the allegations first aired on Lateline.
In an email to Lateline last year she described the allegations by Carmen and Phoebe Rainer as "egregiously false".
She did not respond to an email sent by Lateline.
Eastgate has been granted conditional bail and asked to surrender her passport.
She is due to appear in Downing Centre Court on June 16.
Topics: crime, community-and-society, religion-and-beliefs, law-crime-and-justice, sydney-2000, australia, nswThe new economic stimulus bill could have an impact on your personal finances, but for most people, that impact will be small. Indeed, the new economic stimulus bill, with its limited tax cuts and credits, as well as toned-down job creation efforts is actually a reminder that the trillions already spent are really for the big guys.
Talk of personal accountability for poor financial decisions is nice, but only we regular folks will really be held to it as the big guys are fully bailed out — so now is the time for you to stop worrying so much about economic stimulus (and so-called “patriotic spending”) and start fixing your own finances. Here are some of the things you can do to help fix your finances in this time of economic turmoil:
Curb your spending. Take stock of your expenses and cut out the unnecessary items. Or at least pull back. Get used to spending less, so that if changes are forced upon you, it won’t be as financial devastating. Consider your financial options. If you are concerned about job loss, look at your options. Additionally, consider the options you have for retirement plans, spousal income, possible home business income, or passive income from dividend-yielding investments. Start an emergency fund. It is very important that you consider starting an emergency fund. Having at least $1,000 to start an emergency fund is a good way to make sure many unexpected expenses are covered — without you having to turn to credit cards. After you have paid down some debt, add to your savings and work toward building up enough to cover 3-6 months of expenses. Pay down debt. You want to try to get rid of debt. The interest (and credit cards keep raising interest rates) will eat into your income, and once you free up that money that was going to debt, you can do so much more with it.
Can you think of other things you can do to fix your finances at this time?As Downton Abbey heads into its final season, creator Julian Fellowes is busy with his new post-Downton project: a television adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s Doctor Thorne. According to Entertainment Weekly, the period drama—which will air on the U.K.’s ITV—has found its cast, which includes Tom Hollander, Ian McShane, and Alison Brie. McShane was recently cast in the upcoming season of Game Of Thrones, and Hollander starred in the fantastic British sitcom Rev. More recently, he appeared in Rogue Nation. Brie recently stole hearts in Sleeping With Other People and also voices multiple characters in Netflix’s BoJack Horseman.
Doctor Thorne will follow, well, Dr. Thorne (Hollander). He lives with his poor niece Mary (Stefanie Martini), who falls in love with Frank Gresham (Harry Richardson), a member of a formerly wealthy family that recently lost all of their money. McShane plays railway tycoon Sir Roger Scatcherd, who provides the Gresham family with a loan because he has all that sweet, sweet railroad money. Frank is faced with the task of marrying up to guarantee his family’s financial stability. In steps Frank’s mother Lady Arabella (Rebecca Front) to assist the lad with finding a suitable suitor. She sets her eyes on Miss Martha Dunstable, a young and wealthy American heiress played by Alison Brie. Lady Arabella is no dummy. Who wouldn’t want to marry Alison Brie?
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The story, with its class struggles and courtship woes, certainly sounds right up Fellowes’ alley, and he has an impressive cast at his disposal for the three-part miniseries. “Doctor Thorne is a wonderful example of Trollope’s gift for understanding the tangles we humans get into,” Fellowes said in a release. “He is sharply observant, critical and merciful in equal measure and, above all, highly entertaining. With the cast we have assembled, I am confident we can bring all of these qualities to the screen.”
The miniseries begins filming this month and will be directed by Niall McCormick, and additional cast members include Phoebe Nicholls, Gwyneth Keyworth, Kate O’Flynn, Edward Franklin, and Cressida Bonas. The Weinstein Company has acquired the North American rights to air Doctor Thorne.ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AFP) - Two journalists have been shot dead in two days in separate incidents in the Philippines, reinforcing the country's image as one of the world's most dangerous for media workers, officials said Monday (Aug 7).
Broadcaster Rudy Alicaway and columnist Leo Diaz were the third and fourth journalists to be killed since President Rodrigo Duterte, a vocal critic of the press, took office last year, said Dabet Panelo, secretary-general of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).
In both cases the victims were riding motorcycles when gunmen on another motorcycle came up behind and shot them dead.
Diaz, 60, a correspondent of Manila tabloid Balita (News) and a columnist for a community newspaper, was killed in the southern town of President Quirino on Monday, said Fort Yerro, a Balita consultant.
Diaz, a former policeman, had covered stories on political corruption, illegal gambling and drugs, said Yerro, but added that he did not know of any threats against him.
Alicaway, 47, who hosted a weekly community affairs show on DXPB radio station, was killed in the town of Molave on Sunday, a police report said.
Rocel Navarro, manager of the government-run station where the victim's show aired, said he had not covered controversial issues.
"We are asking ourselves why this happened to him. He had no enemies as a broadcaster," Navarro told AFP.
Both killings took place on the southern island of Mindanao, where Islamic militants, communist guerrillas and political warlords are active.
"This again highlights the culture of impunity, in the attacks against and killings of Filipino journalists that have remained unabated despite an international outcry," the NUJP said.
Last week Michael Marasigan, a respected former newspaper editor, was shot dead in a Manila suburb.
A study by the International Federation of Journalists said last year that 146 journalists were killed between 1990 and 2015, making the Philippines the second most dangerous country for the media after Iraq.
Duterte, who took office last year, has lashed out at journalists over critical coverage of his anti-drug war that has claimed thousands of lives.
Shortly before taking office, Duterte made comments widely interpreted as justifying the murder of some journalists.
"Just because you're a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you're a son of a bitch," he said.Michael Andersen, Green Lane Project staff writer
Vancouver, B.C., has arguably made the most significant investment in a connected protected bike lane network of any North American city in the last four years. Last month, city bike counts showed a 64 percent jump in bike traffic from 2013 to 2015.
Have you noticed? Something big is definitely brewing in Canada.
Some time in the last year, the world’s second-largest country crossed a tipping point in public consciousness. As part of our work, we monitor every mention of protected bike lanes on Twitter. Though there’s a steady drumbeat of discussion from across the U.S., Australia and the U.K., in the last six months we’ve watched in awe as a wave of protected bike lane chatter has been pouring out of every major English-speaking city in Canada: Victoria, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Halifax, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver.
(Note to self: add “piste cyclable” to Twitter search terms so we stop overlooking Quebec.)
Plans in some cities are more advanced than in others. Vancouver has arguably made the most significant investment in a connected protected bike lane network of any city on the continent over the last four years. Calgary is in the early months of an inspiring downtown trial. In Halifax, advocates deserve some sort of award for going street-by-street to measure existing lane widths and create their own detailed plan for a citywide protected bike lane network.
Saskatoon is further behind some of its peers; its first protected bike lane opened on a trial basis this month. But a column in its Star Phoenix newspaper is among the best pithy summaries of the case for protected bike lanes that we’ve seen in general-interest media.
There is a reason why other cities are in a rush to build more cycling infrastructure. A recent New Zealand study showed that for every dollar spent on cycling it will save $24, but only if a city makes significant investments in cycling infrastructure. A path here or there don’t make that big of a difference. [The] New Zealand study showed the piecemeal bike lanes only increase cycling by five percent[age points]. Having just a few lanes often increases collisions as people try to make their way to protected bike lanes. In some ways it sets back a city’s plan to expand cycling. When cities go all in and build a wide-scale network of cycling infrastructure, studies and projections show that cycling can increase by 40 percent[age points]. Such an increase in the number of cyclists, even in the seven months of good weather that we consistently get in Saskatoon, would take thousands of motorists off our roads and be a game changer when it comes to public health, and reduce traffic congestion. … Urban planners bring up two ways to liven up commercial areas: You need to get more people there or you can keep them there longer. Studies show excellent cycling infrastructure accomplishes both. It also attracts pedestrians, and a more vibrant street life has drivers stopping and staying for a while.
The full piece is well-informed and persuasive.
Like the United States and its other peers around the Anglosphere, Canada has a very long way to go before it’s made biking truly comfortable and mainstream. But for those of us watching with admiration from the United States, what’s happening in Canada right now is a deeply encouraging sign of how broadly a good idea can resonate once it really takes off.
The Green Lane Project helps U.S. cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets. You can follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook or sign up for our weekly news digest about protected bike lanes. Story tip? Write [email protected]
We’re part of PeopleForBikes. Follow the broader story of bicycling on Facebook and Twitter too.
See all Protected Bike Lanes blog entriesApparently, Internet Explorer is on its way out. JCXP.net is saying that Internet Explorer 8 will be the last traditional version of Microsoft’s web browser, and that Microsoft’s next web browser will be based on a promising Microsoft Research project dubbed “Gazelle”.
Reading through the Microsoft Research paper on Gazelle, it becomes clear that it is an intricate beast. It relies on a “browser kernel”, 5000 lines of C# code, that exposes the underlying system to webpages using a set of system calls. Web content does not interact with the actual operating system at all; all communication goes through the sandboxed browser kernel. The browser kernel takes care of all resource protection and sharing.
In addition, Gazelle takes the multi-process approach used by Google’s Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 a few steps further by not only running each tab or webpage in a separate process, but by also giving separate parts of each website their own process. The authors of Gazelle believe the model introduced by Chrome isn’t sufficient. “This granularity [in Chrome and IE8] is insufficient since a user may browse multiple mutually distrusting sites in a single tab, and a web page may contain an iframe with content from an untrusted site (e.g., ads),” they explain. They go even further by considering content coming from “ad.iloveponies.com” to be separate from “user.iloveponies.com”. Plug-ins are also run in separate, sand-boxed processes, so that if they go bad, they only affect that particular sandboxed plug-in process.
Currently, Gazelle is built with some additional IE bits on top, and is not production ready. Still, it renders most websites correctly, but there is an additional performance overhead thanks to the IE bits. The authors also state that they have made no concessions to backwards compatibility in favour of security.
JCXP now claims that Gazelle will be the basis for Microsoft’s next web browser, which won’t sport the IE name, but there’s no source. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen; when news of Singularity came out, the entire web automatically assumed that this Microsoft Research project would be the next Windows. Still, the ideas behind Gazelle are sound, and don’t sound too far-fetched to be implemented.Amazon and Monoprice offer cheaper HDMI cables than any traditional brick-and-mortar store. When it comes to cheap HDMI cables, two companies dominate: Amazon and Monoprice. Both offer well-reviewed cables of multiple lengths, all for far less money than many other brands.
Since all HDMI cables perform the same when it comes to video and audio, what's the better deal? Who's got the best price per foot?
The short answer is: Monoprice's 10-footer for $3.99.
The long answer? Read on.
If you're curious about HDMI cables, and why cheap cables offer the same picture and sound quality as expensive HDMI cables, we've really got you covered. Check out: Why all HDMI cables are the same; Why all HDMI cables are the same, part 2; Still more reasons why all HDMI cables are the same, and the HDMI cable buyers guide.
And because those weren't enough (amazingly), also check out why 4K HDMI cables are nonsense, and HDMI 2.0, what you need to know.
For the companies at hand, we've mentioned both before. They offer great prices on cables. As far as quality and longevity goes, Amazon cables have a 4.7/5 average rating from over 11,000 reviews. Eighty-two percent are 5/5 and an additional 12 percent are 4/5. Monoprice cables have similarly high ratings on Amazon (and on their own website, for what it's worth). Lastly, I use Monoprice cables in my lab, and CNET's lab uses cables from both vendors. We've had no issues.
Sarah Tew/CNET
AmazonBasics
Reading the Amazon page for the AmazonBasics cables is interesting. It's filled with redundant and unnecessary information, like "Backwards Compatible with Previous HDMI Standards," "3D," "Delivers audio and video in one cable," and "Meets HDMI 1.4 specification."
That shows where they know their consumer knowledge to be. They're trying to sell a product to someone who doesn't read CNET, and who knows only a few key buzzwords. Those buzzwords have to be on the page, even if we all know that if it's High Speed that means it can do 1080p.
Read some of the questions and comments on that page, and you'll see why I keep writing HDMI articles. It's clear there is still a lot of confusion out there.
As far as the cables go, here's how the pricing breaks down (as of this writing):
3 feet: $4.82 ($1.61 per foot)
6.5 feet: $5.02 ($0.77 per foot)
9.8 feet: $6.49 ($0.66 per foot)
15 feet: $11.49 ($0.77 per foot)
25 feet: $13.24 ($0.53 per foot)
There are also several multi-packs:
2x 3-feet: $6.99 ($1.17 per foot)
1 3-foot, 1 15-foot: $11.99 ($0.67 per foot)
2x 6.5 feet: $8.49 ($0.65 per foot)
2x 9.8 feet: $9.99 ($0.51 per foot)
3 feet/15 feet: $14.99 ($0.83 per foot)
As you can see, for the most part it's cheaper per foot the longer you get, and if you buy in bulk. Not too surprising there. The best deal is clearly the two pack of 9.8-footers.
Some might say 25 feet is pushing it for a passive HDMI cable, but I doubt Amazon would sell it if it didn't work with at least some of their test gear. In my testing of long passive HDMI cables, I found that beyond 25-feet, it really depends on the gear. As in, a certain cable would work with one projector and Blu-ray player, but not with a different projector and Blu-ray player.
If you're running 25 feet, if it doesn't work with your gear, active cables (which we'll discuss below) are just a little bit more money and tend to work great.
And definitely check any cable before you install it in a wall (also check local codes).
AmazonBasics cables have a one-year warranty.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Monoprice
The original king of cheap cables, Monoprice could certainly be called "disruptive." They also sell a lot of HDMI cables. Where Amazon is clearly trying to sell a cable that will work for just about everyone, Monoprice has a cable to fit just about every need and use. Every length, color, and "feature" you can imagine. For example, they sell flat cables and other oddities, but for this guide I stuck with the basics. These are the cheapest, thinnest High Speed cables Monoprice sells.
1.5 feet: $2.49 ($1.66 per foot)
3 feet: $2.99 ($1.00 per foot)
6 feet: $2.71 ($0.45 per foot)
10 feet: $3.99 ($0.40 per foot)
The cables above don't have Ethernet, though. However, neither does most (if any) of your gear. Do you really need it? Probably not. Is it worth having for "futureproofing"? Up to you. Here are a few of the prices with Ethernet capability:
1.5 feet: $2.20 ($1.46 per foot)
3 feet: $2.74 ($0.92 per foot)
6 feet: $3.88 ($0.65 per foot)
10 feet: $5.68 ($0.57 per foot)
Lastly, they have really long cables with RedMere active tech. These are what I use in my lab.
15 feet: $13.46 ($0.90 per foot)
30 feet: $31.48 ($1.05 per foot)
60 feet: $52.99 ($0.88 per foot)
As you can see, the standard 10-foot cable is the best deal. It is, however, 28 gauge. That's a really thin cable. Will it work? Yes. Will it hold up to a lot of abuse? Probably not. For less than $2 though, do you care if you have to replace it every few years? If that concerns you, there are thicker versions of all these cables for a little more money. Also, Monoprice offers a lifetime warranty on all its cables.
As you're shopping, be careful. There are some even cheaper (per foot) cables for sale on Monoprice's site that are Standard Speed; as in, they are rated only up to 1080i (not 1080p and beyond like High Speed). Don't buy Standard Speed cables -- there's no point when High Speed are only a little more money.
Also, it's worth noting that Monoprice cables on Amazon are more expensive than if you buy them from Monoprice directly (though shipping may offset that some, depending on what you choose and if you have Amazon Prime). For example, the "3992" model from Monoprice, a 28-gauge 6-footer, is $3.88 on Monoprice, but $9.24 on Amazon.
Other options
As I found in my HDMI Cable Buyers Guide article, there are lots of no-name HDMI cables available in certain stores and online. Generally speaking, they're probably fine. However, it is possible that the cable is not to spec, which means it might not pass 1080p (or 4K), even if it says "High Speed" on it. Short cables are probably fine, but long cables have more of a chance of being iffy.
In the current age of HDMI cables, Monoprice and Amazon constitute "name brands," and should be considered safe bets when it comes to working cables. That doesn't mean every one will be perfect; a look at the comments will show that every once in a while a bum cable gets through. Personally, I'd be more comfortable buying a cable from a known company, especially when the price difference is a dollar or two at most.
Which is to say, if you find some HDMI cables that are even cheaper, and claim to be High Speed, feel free to go for it. Just know that they might not work. But don't, as some have, find fault with all cheap HDMI cables if that happens, just that specific one. A different cheap HDMI cable will work fine.
A few words on 4K/60
Nearly all inexpensive HDMI cables claim to work with 4K resolutions up to 24fps. It is likely, over short distances, these will work with any 4K source you have. However, over long distances, and if you're trying to send 4K 60fps content (like from a computer), you may have less success. The picture dropping out or not showing up at all are the most likely scenarios.
Does this mean you should spend more on cables? Probably not, but it depends. Right now there is very little 60fps 4K content. Most is 24, just like nearly all Blu-rays (because that's what nearly all TV shows and movies are). If you plan on connecting to a computer to do some 4K gaming, know that the cheapest cables should, but might not, work.
Honestly, I don't advise you start with an expensive cable "just to be safe." It's still likely you'd be overspending on a cable. At this point the HDMI cable industry is the Wild Wild West: while a cable claiming to be High Speed should work, it doesn't mean it will. This is part of the reason HDMI Licensing came up with their Premium Cable program.
Unless you know you're going to be sending 4K/60 or other rare and high-bandwidth content over the cable, one of the cheap cables listed above should work just fine. If at some point you upgrade your gear and the cable doesn't handle the bandwidth, there will certainly be cheap HDMI cables at that point that work fine, and even buying two you'll be saving money over an expensive cable now (that still might not work in the future).
And it's also worth noting that our own David Katzmaier uses a variety of cheap HDMI cables (including Amazon Basics cables up to 25 feet) to run 4K/60 around the CNET lab from various 4K/60 sources, including a Roku 4. He's had no issues.
Bottom line
For short cables, Monoprice beats Amazon. That 28-gauge 10-footer I mentioned at the top is the best deal going.
For long passive cables (15 feet and up), Amazon has much better deals.
That said, the prices are all pretty close between the two, and as with many products, the convenience of Amazon might be worth a few extra cents.
Prices change, but the good news is that they're unlikely to change much. And since in both cases here you're getting a well-reviewed, inexpensive, HDMI cable that will give you perfect picture and sound, they're all pretty good deals.
Got a question for Geoff? First, check out all the other articles he's written on topics such as why all HDMI cables are the same, LED LCD vs. OLED vs. Plasma,why 4K TVs aren't worth it and more. Still have a question? Send him an email! He won't tell you what TV to buy, but he might use your letter in a future article. You can also send him a message on Twitter @TechWriterGeoff or Google+ and check out his travel photography on Instagram.AUGUSTA — Maine Gov. Paul LePage continues to blast Democrats for rejecting legislation that would force schools to allow uniformed military recruiters the same access granted to other career recruiters.
LePage’s remarks came Thursday after the Republican governor signed a proclamation making Saturday Maine Korean War Veteran Recognition Day.
Additional Photos Maine Gov. Paul LePage
LePage says the Vietnam War was probably the U.S.’s “most embarrassing war” in terms of its treatment of veterans. He says he hoped to “never see that again until recently it showed its ugly face” in Maine’s Legislature.
Opponents say there’s no evidence uniformed military recruiters are restricted in Maine schools.
The LePage administration has said recruiters have told them that Yarmouth, Portland and Sanford schools have limited access or not allowed them to appear in military uniforms.
School officials in all three districts have denied it.
Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves of North Berwick, who supported the bill, said in a statement that “it’s a shame” LePage “continues to drag our men and women in military into this unnecessary political fight.”
ShareI recently watched a pair of YouTube videos in which a young man, MarkE Miller, asked people (one video girls, one video guys) on a college campus essentially if they thought he looked gay. Now, at least part of the point of the questions and the videos were to create awkward situations. At that, Miller was certainly successful. However, he also seemed to be attempting to judge people’s attitudes toward homosexuality. He seemed to be happy with the responses, but I was much less impressed, though I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why until rereading a section of Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution by Shiri Eisner.
I do want to be clear that the videos were made for fun. His methods were certainly not scientific. In the course of the two videos he asked different people different questions, with no demonstrable methodology as to which questions he asked, but the questions strongly influenced how the people he was questioning responded. Some of the questions he asked were “Based on appearances, would you say I’m gay?” “Do you think I’m gay?” and “Would you believe me if I said I had a boyfriend?”
I had a mixed reaction to the questions themselves. Part of me appreciated that Miller was fighting the stereotypical image of a gay man. Part of me was frustrated because just asking if someone looks gay reinforces the connection between homosexuality and appearance, |
only force moving this trend forward, however, as many high-school and college-age gamers would much rather stay home and pretend to be a rock star with Guitar Hero and Rock Band games... a very social activity that draws groups of people to one house instead of going to a bar or the movie theater. In reaction, many bars are actually cashing in on the rhythm game phenomena by hosting parties with the game's hardware and offering prize while selling many drinks in the process.
At the same time, newer gamers are discovering that many developers and publishers are making titles aimed at them, and are subsequently moving their leisure dollars to those games instead of DVDs. Add to that the high-definition format war which is turning people off from upgrading to new players and repurchasing their content, and you have the perfect opportunity for gaming to become one of the most popular ways for people to spend their time.
Retailers don't have any loyalty to the DVD market; if they can make more money by stocking their shelves with video games and hardware, they will. With even 7-11 locations beginning to stock games for big launches, games could become the dominant product on the shelves of historically music- and movie-focused stores.According to reports, 20 street children from NGO Childhood Enhancement met WWE Superstar "The World's Strongest Man" Mark Henry in an event organised by CAF India on Friday, and celebrated Raksha Bandhan.
9-year-old Soni (name changed) a girl from Sarai Kale Khan, tied rakhi to Mark Henry, expressing hope that more than 50,000 street children may be protected.
"I had never saw such a big man in my life, I got scared, but later he made me laugh," said Soni.
Mark Henry was asked questions like 'what do you eat' and 'does WWE wrestling actually hurt?". The street children then presented him with a sketch of himself, and requested the star to fight for street children.
"I have two children, and I will tell them how to be brave in an odd situation. I appeal to all citizens to support street children", said Mark Henry.
I never had this experience before. Just by tying this band around the wrist, one could feel so responsible. The children have been amazing," he added.
On being asked by a child if WWE is'real', Henry said, "It is not at all easy work, the action you see is actual, the power and aggression is actual, hence there are chances of getting hurt".
"Raksha Bandhan may be symbolic for people, but it means a lot to street children", said secretary of Badthe Kadam - A Federation of street and working children with 10000 members.
"We at CAF India are concerned about plight of street children, and invite people to come forward and support them", said Mr Kartik Ayer, Deputy Head-Fund Raising CAF India.
Sajjad, a 16-year-old said, "Who cares about us? People like Mark Henry make us feel we are important".
14-year-old Rukhsana, a domestic help said, "We made lots of rakhi yesterday, but those were small in size. Then our teacher Shaswati from Chetna said that we need to make bigger rakhis for Mark Henry, as he is a huge man. So we made rakhis as big as a foot long."
12-year-old Shambhu who resides in a night shelter was shocked to see how huge Mark Henry was, and said "What must he be eating? We may need special chair and bed if he visits our night shelter."Plazan Placenta Collagen Mask
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Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader was the last CRPG published by the beloved Black Isle Studios. Developed by Reflexive Entertainment, it is known for being the only (released) game other than Fallout to use the SPECIAL system, and also for its poor reception by both fans and press.
13 years after its release, despite the game’s historical value, not much is known about its troubled development and the decisions that shaped it. Ion Hardie is credited as the game’s Lead Designer, so I figured he’d be the best person to ask.
At first, our conversation was not meant to be part of the interview. The actual interview was meant to be done later, via email, but he was giving detailed answers and it was more practical for him, so we went along with it.
First I tried to make sure he was the right Ion Hardie, and he clarified:
Ion: "Lead Designer" is a bit misleading, as we had a bunch of good people that contributed to the overall design of the game...but I definitely worked a bunch on it.
Fairfax: I said lead designer because thats what the MobyGames info said. [Note: Ion Hardie is credited in the game as Lead Designer, Co-Producer, Writer and Additional Sound Effects and Editing.]
Would you be willing to do a Lionheart interview for the RPGCodex? I actually liked many parts of Lionheart, and I've always been curious about its development and design.
Ion: Lead Designer is probably the most accurate of all the possibilities. It's what the game credits say too, so it's not wrong, I just like giving credit where it's due. Sure, doing an interview for it would be fun. It's the hardest I've worked on a game in my 19 years in the industry... though we got some flak for it not being all that it could be.
And in a familiar mantra "if we only had 6 more months..."
Fairfax: Not to mention how badly Interplay was doing, right?
Ion: Yeah, that didn't help...fans were upset that they didn't fund something else as one of their last games.
Fairfax: I think the game didn't get enough credit for how crazy it went with the story and the setting.
By the way, there's a CRPG book project being made by a Codexer (Note: shoutouts to felipepe), and I wrote the Lionheart review.
Ion: Thanks! We were definitely hopeful...I personally thought the Don Quixote side quest was creative, and I never saw anything about it, or any of the other historical twists we put in.
Hahaha...I agree with your conclusions too. Glad you enjoyed the parts we spent our creative time on.
[Lionheart spoilers: In Lionheart, Cervantes will tell you that he's being stalked by
Fairfax: Yes, most reviews focus on how the game got worse after Barcelona, and I agree, but the game deserved more credit.
Ion: We should have just made the game shorter, cut out England entirely and focused on the ending scene. We tried to do too much in the time we had. Black Isle was going under and was late with just about every milestone payment...we had to hire people that we didn't have their first paycheck for, which is always fun.
Fairfax: Did you get the milestone payments later?
Ion: We had to withhold the game eventually...at the end, they asked us to trust that they would pay us, but we had too many bad experiences for that. We did get the money, but only because we played hard ball...and Feargus was on our side.
In hindsight, it's one of the better stories of the development of the game, though we didn't think so at the time.
Fairfax: Is it OK if I take questions from the Codex?
Ion: Please feel free to ask whatever you like... I am curious what kind of questions people have this long after release. They weren't so nice at the time, and I can't imagine that's changed very much, but that's OK.
Lionheart was the game that pushed me into being a producer for many years (out of necessity) but I'm actually a sound designer now at my current job. On Lionheart I wore a few hats: I was also the co-producer and did sound design. I was working 12-14 hours a day, 6 days a week for quite some time. We needed more people to create our vision, but we couldn't afford them.
Fairfax: Dont know if you're familiar with the Codex. It’s known for not being very nice, to say the least, but only because everyone’s so passionate about CRPGs. Its been so long I doubt anyone's bitter, though. Probably more curious than anything.
And that sounds like it was pretty rough.
Ion: It's just the way it was...people and teams can find their way through adversity to make greatness, and there are lots of good stories that way too... that's just not our story with Lionheart. However, the Reflexive story still worked out, as we made a small downloadable game at the time called Ricochet...we convinced Interplay to put the demo on the Lionheart disc for us. It did so well, we were able to "go it on our own" and make smaller, independent games until Amazon.com purchased us in 2008.
I worked for Amazon as a game producer and sound designer(working on some really interesting R&D projects) until earlier this year...and I have to admit while I've heard of the Codex, I don't really know much about it. My passion for CRPG's has waned over the years as the time I have to commit to them has decreased. The most intense game I play nowadays is League of Legends, as the games only usually last about 30-40 minutes.
Fairfax: Nice to hear the team found success afterwards.
Do you ever feel like you have a sort of unfinished business with CRPGs? As in, do you feel the urge to make the game Lionheart could've been, even if it's in a different world?
Ion: What we saw in our heads was so much more. Barcelona represented a good step in the right direction, but we wanted more interconnectivity and more famous characters to interact with and thus change your character... we had wanted big reasons to replay as an inquisitor or Templar knight, and we didn't really have the time.
Really, we needed at least 2 more months of planning time on top of more development time...the quests were more seat of the pants than we wanted, but there wasn't much more blood we could squeeze from the Interplay stone.
Fairfax: A lot of people who really disliked the game recognize Barcelona had good parts. I liked it a lot, and I felt it was a glimpse of what the game could've been under different circumstances.
Did the payment issues with Interplay kick in while you guys were still developing Barcelona?
Ion: It started right as we signed the contract...they had issues getting us the initial payment. However, we were about to let a lot of people go as our "hand to mouth" development strategy wasn't working very well. As dire as Interplay's situation was, ours was at least as much so. We were literally one day away from making some really hard choices that might have shut us down for good when I heard we got the contract. As hard as it was to get money from them, Lionheart still kept us alive, and I credit Feargus for that.
To this day, I still buy whatever Obsidian makes to support them/him for helping us get the Lionheart contract. I bought one of the signed copies of Pillars of Eternity through Kickstarter for a few hundred dollars, and it sits on my shelf, unopened. I'll play it someday...when I make the time.
Fairfax: And when did that happen? I've never found information on how long the game's development took.
Ion: It took 18 months from story ideas first being thrown together to gold master, and we had to hire people in the middle, and sometimes without their first paycheck (as we discussed). We revamped the story with "the Disjunction" a few months in, and that changed everything (for the better).
Fairfax: So February 2002 - August 2003, is that right? Was Brian Fargo still Interplay's CEO when you signed the contract?
Ion: I believe so. Our CEO, Lars Brubaker, had worked at Interplay years before, and that was helpful in convincing them to give us the contract. It is amazing just how powerful "who you know" is in this industry.
Fairfax: Indeed. Feargus, MCA and the other folks at Obsidian got their first contract (KOTOR2) because the BioWare doctors knew them and recommended them to LucasArts.
In terms of budget, how did it compare to the other Black Isle games, for instance? And do you know how many copies were sold?
Ion: I could have told you those numbers at one point, but they've vanished in the mists of my memory. However, I do know we got the contract because we said we'd do it cheaper than just about anyone. Another remnant of our failed "hand to mouth" strategy and a sign of how desperate Interplay was that they took it. In retrospect, we bid way too low…
Fairfax: Do you remember if it was profitable?
Ion: I don't think it was profitable. The fan backlash was loud and hard to miss. They saw it as a treasured developer dying a slow death, and they wanted something to save them...and Lionheart wasn't it.
Fairfax: You mean Interplay wanting to save Black Isle?
Ion: I mean the fans wanting Lionheart to save Black Isle. The writing was on the wall that trouble was brewing. In the end, Feargus offered to make Black Isle work for an ownership stake, but Interplay said no. Probably better for Feargus that it didn't work out.
Fairfax: Yeah, he would've got himself in the middle of Interplay's legal troubles.
Ion: Yep...and missed out on a lot of things Obsidian got to do.
Fairfax: I'm sure the game's reception hurt, but did you find any comfort in the fact there wasn't much you could about all these problems?
Ion: In my mind there are only good results, no matter the issues faced to get there. Some solace, but not much.
Fairfax: I'd like to ask about the creative aspects of the game.
Two users (RK-47 and Apan) asked something I've always wondered as well: why the decison to go with an Action RPG real-time combat system?
On one hand, with the SPECIAL system and the "Fantasy Fallout" codename, one might've expected turn-based combat. On the other hand, the vast majority of Black Isle games used real-time with pause. Unlike the other Black Isle games, in Lionheart the player cannot issue combat commands while the game is paused, which brings it closer to Diablo and similar games.
Ion: We had just launched Star Trek Away Team, and Black Isle wanted to create something that was an action take, and they thought we could do it, based on our Star Trek game. As we went along, sadly, we actually thought that issuing commands while paused would have been better (much better). However, our programmers had told me we couldn't go back and just "add that" without completely missing our development schedule.
Fairfax: Interesting, I don't think that was public knowledge.
MotherMachinae had another question about the combat system:
"If they went with real time then why they choose so high speed? You had to be under influence of some drugs that make slo-mo effect or something. Even with patch that slide speed it was still unbearable."
Ion: Honestly, I don't remember why we went with the exact speed that we did. The development schedule that we agreed to didn't leave us much time for experimentation, and we really needed it. When you are creating something brand new like that (and not just copying something else verbatim that works) there needs to be time to see what feels good and what doesn't, and then adjust. We really had to just start running pretty quickly.
I do want to be clear that we were still responsible for making a better game than we did. There were plenty of reasons you could point to that provided less than ideal conditions, but that's life. Overcoming obstacles is what it is all about...and if we were so dedicated to quality, we could have chosen another path. It was just tough when that path was probably going to lead us through some even rougher financial hardships.
It's only now, with so much more experience behind me, that I see the probable failure that awaited us. At the time, there was still hope that we would tie it together, somehow, into something fun.
Fairfax: That's an admirable way of looking at it.
Apan asks: how did you come up with the setting? And I add: what were the main inspirations?
Ion: As I recall, we were originally thinking of "generic medieval", but we were trying to think of a way to spruce it up and add our own stamp. I was getting nowhere, even bouncing ideas off of assistant creatives like Chris Avellone and Chris Parker wasn't giving us the magic...it wasn't their job, it was ours, and I just couldn't corral the hook... then at Black Isle's request we hired a writer.
This was one of the people that we did not have their first paycheck when we hired them, but it was obvious to us, and Black Isle, that what I was coming up with wasn't enough. We needed someone who had more ideas and was dedicated to only this. We got Eric Dallaire, who wanted to try and set the game in the real world. "How could we do that and still fight dragons and go on interesting adventures?" we asked.
After a bit of brainstorming, Eric eventually came up with the idea of The Disjunction...a rip in time that allowed demons into the world. Once we expanded this to include other powerful forces, like dreams, the sky was the limit. This allowed us to pull in literary characters like Don Quixote and join forces with Leonardo DaVinci many years after his death.
At the time, Eric had said he had always wanted to make a "what if" kind of messed up history, and Lionheart provided a great venue to do that in. I'm not sure what gave Eric this inspiration originally, but he said he had wanted to do it for a long time before coming to work for us. (We're still friends, and I'd recommend his latest book, Shades, available on Amazon)
Fairfax: Messed up history indeed, which I thought was the most fun aspect of the game. (Spoiler alert) For instance, Nostradamus as a huge tree-like thing being defended by monks and ogres against half-demon assassins and yuan-ti like monsters was quite bizarre. Still, I got the impression it never took itself -too- seriously, which I believe can be good for such a crazy story. Was this wackiness deliberate?
Ion: It was meant to be a bit off kilter, so you wouldn't be sure what could happen...but not too much. We didn't want to violate the fourth wall, for example, we just wanted to get a bit crazy...Nostradamus was definitely one of the most off the wall things. We wanted to keep people guessing.
Fairfax: It was fun to have some of these historical figures as temporary companions. Some can stay longer than others, but still just temporary. Why the decision not to allow permanent companions?
Ion: Programming challenges. All sorts of things popped up that seem like they would be easy to fix in retrospect, but at the time getting the temp ones were a big win.
Fairfax: Question from Sacred82: Easier question, who came up with the absolutely botched skill system?
Ion: Hahaha...I don't remember who was responsible for the skill system. I seem to recall trying to figure something out with it, so I know I was involved, but I really couldn't say who fleshed it out and finalized it. I don't think it was me... however, the buck stops here, as they say.
Fairfax: Another one from Apan: And maybe ask about their addition of magic and spirits to the special-system. How did they balance that against other skills?
Ion: The addition of magic and spirits were initially discussed with Avellone and Parker to see what some good ideas would be, since they knew the Special system so well. We went back and forth a bit with the design. Now, this was a good start. The difficulty came when we just had to run with what we thought were the best ideas without tons of iteration... a common theme with some of my answers.
Fairfax: Speaking of which, who decided to use SPECIAL? Was it requested by Black Isle?
Ion: Yes it was. I think it was just a starting assumption of the project. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't think it was even a discussion. SPECIAL was just what we were using.
Fairfax: KodexKommieKomrade asks: On what parts did Black Isle work? Barcelona?
I believe he means guys like Chris Avellone and Josh Sawyer, who are mentioned in the credits. Chris said he helped a bit with dialogue in Barcelona, but couldn't remember much else. Do you remember what they worked on?
Ion: They definitely helped with polishing the story with Eric as well as the initial Leonardo dialogue. The dialogue of the different factions (Templars, Wielders, etc) when they were first met by the player probably benefited from their attentions as well. While we tried to do as much of the dialogue up front as we could, our pre-production phase was rather limited because of our monetary/time constraints.
We were writing a lot of dialogue as the game went along, to fit scenarios under development. While they were as generous as they could be with their time, especially Chris, they could only be in so many places at once. In other words, we all wish we had more time to polish the dialogue.
The early stuff had more of their attention and shaping than the later parts. I think we were all hoping that upper management would see Barcelona and want the rest of the game to get more time on it too (i.e. More time and money) but we gave up on that dream after they kept missing milestone payments.
Fairfax: Do you think Interplay didn't see that or they were just in so much trouble they couldn't afford it even if they wanted?
Ion: They were desperate. They worked with us on Lionheart because we represented a relatively cheap roll of the dice, and the amount they committed to its development turned out to be more than they really wanted to spend. Just getting what they said they would pay became our focus...yet we still tried to make something great. I can't tell you how many times Eric would write and implement half of something and I would have to finish writing the closing elements and tie up the loose ends because Eric had to move on to something else.
I do know that Feargus and Parker and Avellone saw the potential and were constantly pushing that potential... but a stone can only be squeezed so much...which is to say, not at all.
Fairfax: After Lionheart, the studio managed to stay afloat and was purchased by Amazon in 2008. It went on to make games until 2010, but never anything like Lionheart. Was it for the lack of opportunities or a conscious effort to avoid going through a similar situation all over again?
Ion: We equated large games like Lionheart with our inability to control our own destiny and our failed hand to mouth development plan. The early hope was that we would make a "hit" and then be able to increase our contract amount and invest more money in the business...however, Ricochet showed us we could make money and be independent of the big publishers. Once I/we started creating games without having to convince a publisher how great our idea was, or agreeing to do whatever they wanted whenever they said "dance, monkey, dance", I/we didn't want to go back. Selling directly to customers is fantastic.
We eventually had to sell Reflexive to Amazon because we, again, trusted a large publisher...except this time, it was with our own money. We were 7 figures in to development of a 360 title when Microsoft said they wouldn't accept the game without at least 6-8 more months of changes...and we thought we were almost done with it and almost out of cash. Amazon purchased us because we created an online affiliate game-selling network they could use, but they were able to lowball us because we needed the money.
I left Amazon earlier this year, but up until then I felt that Reflexive was still around, because we still had an internal identity within Amazon as Reflexive. I really just started mourning the loss of the company last January. I've talked about this with many people who used to work at Reflexive, as a lot of us are still friends, and the company "died" for different people at different times. For my wife, who used to run the affiliate network, it died almost immediately after Amazon bought us.
Fairfax: When do you think it died?
And can you talk about that cancelled project with Microsoft? I don't think I've heard of it. Couldn't find anything on Unseen64 either.
Ion: When Double Helix assumed managerial control in 2015 and my friend, Ernie Ramirez, who had run the division for the last few years, left. That's when the magic died. I still go out to lunch with my friends at Amazon though. Good people...we had good hiring practices.
The cancelled project was a multiplayer competitive/co-op game codenamed "Axiom" that we were developing internally that was a series of futuristic micro games meant to be played in short play sessions....though there was a story mode a single player could play through as well.
Fairfax: On a different note, CRPGs had a "dark age" in the last decade or so, but Kickstarter gave new life to the genre, with many projects being based on games from the Black Isle era. You said your passion for CRPGs waned over the years, but they're in a much better position now. Do you ever see yourself working on a CRPG again? Perhaps with former colleagues from Reflexive and Black Isle?
Ion: I played a lot of D&D as a kid. Heck, we were even working with Atari for a while on a Ravenloft game that, honestly, was looking pretty good before it got cancelled because Temple of Elemental Evil didn't perform to expectations. I kinda thought I would work on more CRPG's, but it just didn't happen. Now, I like quicker game play sessions that are less involving. Besides, I finally got enough experience with sound design to do only that full time...I used to do it part-time and be a producer or designer. I now work at a successful mobile game company as a senior audio producer creating sound effects...and I love it. I'd be surprised if I did anything else going forward, but I've been surprised before.
Fairfax: If you were to take on the role of Lead Designer again, RPG or not, what would you do differently? In other words, what did you learn from Lionheart?
Ion: I learned not to bite off more than I could chew. What we attempted to do with Lionheart was borne out of necessity to keep the company going, but we also mixed in an unrealistic amount of "hope sauce" to spread on that gargantuan mouthful to try and get it to go down.
We still clung to the belief that, even with reduced time and reduced resources, that we could make our big dreams great. We needed to reduce scope and invent less (stand more on the shoulders of giants) to have a hope of greatness in that situation.
Fairfax: Do you have any advice for people who are starting their careers or want to enter the industry?
Ion: Think about why you want to work in games. I've seen people burn out from the (potentially) long hours and the fact that it's an actual job. The stress can be palpable, and unless you get lucky, you will change jobs multiple times, many times not of your own choice. Realize that this is an attractive career, and many other people want in too... my current company hires less than 2% of the people that apply...and they are very motivated to hire. If this still sounds good, and you have no experience, start making games in your spare time. Partner with others, even if it just feels like messing around. Every time we hired someone with no experience, and we did that sometimes at Reflexive, they had to have made games on their own. It shows a passion for the work.
Also, this is a small industry. It might seem big, but you will be surprised at how often you run into people you know, or worked with before. Our CEO at Reflexive, Lars Brubaker, worked his way up the ranks at Interplay at the same time that Feargus Urquhart did, and they became friends. Years later, that friendship was key in us getting the Lionheart contract. Lars had also worked with someone at Activision years before, and that was key in us getting Star Trek: Away Team. Who you know can be super important... so don't burn those bridges! I got my foot in the door at my current job because I had worked with two people that already worked here, and they vouched for me.
Fairfax: Definitely sounds useful, and I think it ends the interview on a high note. Anything else you'd like to say that I didn't cover?
Ion: As a game creator, I'm happy when someone wants to talk about one of the games I helped create... even if it wasn't some of my best work. I actually think you can learn more from the things that went wrong than the things that went right. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to dive back into the past with me on Lionheart!
Fairfax: It's a game and a team that deserved to have their story told, so thank you for sharing it. I hope you find success and have a good time in future endeavours.
* * *
I sent the interview above to Chris Avellone (who I'm also interviewing) to get some feedback, and he ended up sharing some of his experience working on the project:
MCA: To clarify - Eric Dallaire was on the project when I got assigned to it, so I don't recall doing any pre-work (bouncing ideas) with Reflexive before Eric, but Eric and I did talk a lot when I was put on board, although I'm not sure how helpful I was to him. (Although some folks appreciated the dialogue and dialogue structure/scripting suggestions.) Eric and I still chat to this day, as he's writing novels |
, Agombar, whose son Harry played for both Swindon Town and Macclesfield Town, said: "I'm a football man and I want what is the very best for Hereford United and its supporters.
"They've endured a very hard time in recent months and years. We have to put things in place to avoid that happening again.
Media playback is not supported on this device Conference spells it out to Bulls
"I want to see the club back in the Football League as soon as possible and I'm confident that we can do that.
"We are currently liaising with the Football Conference regarding the club's current situation."
Bulls chairman David Keyte, whose own future is not yet clear, was reported to have been in talks with three different rival bidders regarding a takeover.
A statement was released last Thursday saying that the consortium of investors involved in trying to take over at Edgar Street had "begun the process of payments" to the Bulls' football creditors.
But the club are also overdue with their latest PAYE tax demand and they remain under a winding-up petition brought by former Hereford manager Martin Foyle, which was adjourned on Monday for 28 days.There was a time when abstract painting by its very definition was blazing new territory. Malevich trembled with excitement as he wiped the slate clean, confident that his "desert of pure feeling" could usher him directly into the higher reality. And it did. Mondrian understood that through the balancing of vertical and horizontal lines, and the exact placement of primary color areas, he could create a dynamic equilibrium that vibrated with the universal energy of life. And he did. Hilma Af Klint followed the direction of "the guides" and surrendered herself to the new language of abstraction, confident that great theosophical truths could be revealed. And they were.
I remember driving on the New Jersey Turnpike arguing with Phong Bui about who made the first abstract painting. I said that Kandinsky had gradually camouflaged his imagery and made abstractions by 1911. Phong said Kupka made completely abstract paintings in 1909 and that Arthur Dove first showed abstract oil studies to Steiglitz in 1910. I said what about Serusier and his Talisan painting from 1888 and Phong said that was just one painting and it’s still a landscape. I said Victor Hugo made drawings in the 1850s like abstract Redons. We argued about Annie Besant and Charles Leadbetter who made their Thought Forms in 1905, and Phong said those weren’t really paintings. I said maybe the first abstract paintings came from Hilma Af Klint in her 1906 Paintings From The Temple series. Just then Alfred Jensen woke up in the back seat and told us we were both fools and asked what about the Mayans and the Tantra painters and the Peruvian carpet makers and the American Indian rock painters and the Aboriginal dream-time bark painters and he told us that we had just missed the exit for the Holland Tunnel right there in 2002.
When the Abstract Artists Association started in New York City in the 1930s there were barely a dozen members, just a lonely band of abstract painters fighting for respect from a hostile and uncomprehending public. I remember I lived on Houston Street. I took methedrine for two days straight and made hundreds and hundreds of drawings only to drop them out the sixth story window and watch them float gently one by one down to the sidewalk below and the next morning only a few remained next to a broken piano in a puddle by the basketball court.
All around us a vast materialistic juggernaut surges across America. We are rushing to buy the images of pleasure that flicker across TV screens and glisten from giant billboards. America is rushing to burn down the Amazon, rushing to steal all the rainwater out of the Sudan, rushing to obliterate mud huts with million dollar missles, rushing to build shiny SUV’s out of coyote bones, rushing towards death... There was a time here in New York City when heroes walked the earth. In 1941 Mark Rothko lived at 29 East 28th Street. Clifford Still had a studio at 48 Cooper Square. Now history is finished. I climbed to the top of the Williamsburg Bridge and had a sunset vision about the trembling possibilities of abstract painting but came down cold and hungry with just a few dollars for pork buns and tea. I used to open the Ellsworth Kelly book to this 1958 photograph of Kelly, Kenneth Youngerman, Robert Indiana, and Agnes Martin taken on the roof of Coenties Slip. That image had all the romance of the New York art world in it and most of all I loved the way Agnes Martin looked in her white raincoat— monumental and alert. When I approached the delicate pencil lines and shimmering washes of color of an Agnes Martin painting I was suddenly conscious of my own breathing. Agnes Martin says, "We are in the midst of reality, responding with joy. It is an absolutely satisfying experience, but extrememly elusive..." Sometimes a horizon line is a horizon line and sometimes not. Dan Walsh says "We still need a horizon." And I agree.
Abstract painting contains powerful limitations and extraordinary freedom. Great abstract paintings can be the result of a tremendous condensation of information. An abstract painting can be a tight tough form with which to transmit huge content. Peter Acheson calls it "a hard nut containing the whole tree". The painting enters vision fast but continues to flow into consciousness as it releases it’s meaning slowly over time. We live with the image and it lives with us. This is what the soul needs— long periods of slow focused contemplation.
I had this dream: There was a big cocktail party in my parents’ house. A homeless man was lurking behind the sofa. I recognized him vaguely as an old friend and a drunk. Then I realized it was Rothko. We talked. He became strangely threatening. He showed me a matte black old forty-five caliber revolver like the starter pistol my older brother kept in his bureau. I ran upstairs and returned with a shiny new pump action 20-gauge shotgun. We met in the elegant drawing room surrounded by chatting oblivious guests. He reached for his pistol and I blasted him once, twice and again right in the chest. Red blood stained his burnt umber overcoat. I was euphoric. I had killed Rothko!
We are not thinking about art anymore. We are out of our minds. We seek a blunt visual meaning— not just a riff on postmodernism, color field painting, psychedelic kitsch or whatever. We can’t stop talking about Forrest Bess who closed his eyes and painted the images inside his eyelids with utter conviction. We are searching for this state of utter conviction. We digress and we stay up all night talking about abstract painting. We talk about Yayoi Kusama who painted the dots that flowed endlessly out of her own body and she painted them on canvases, on ladders, on couches, on naked bodies, and all over the floor until she couldn’t stop and then she did stop and disappeared into a quiet room in Japan.
Ad Reinhart said this about his five-foot square black on black paintings, "This painting is my painting if I paint it. This painting is your painting if you paint it." He was a great painter and could be very very funny. When I first came to New York in the 1970s a lot of abstract painting had been hijacked by people interested in conceptual purity and some kind of dogma of negation. They had no sense of humor and consequently could never be taken seriously the way
Ad Reinhart was serious. But in 1978 I saw Mary Heilman paintings that had a sense of humor and a sense of the a serious absurdity of things. The colors were as strong as they were in the tube. They seemed inevitable and offhand— like they just happened that way.
"If truth be known, abstract painting seems to have come to a bad end, with, to be sure, underground pockets here and there," John Perreault wrote last year. Mondrian is buried in Queens at Cypress Hills cemetery, one grave in an anonymous row of little headstones next to an old locust grove in Block 51, grave #1191. I dressed up in a suit and a tie and went to see him. A small rabbit darted from behind a nearby headstone. Now there’s a hotel for movie stars in Los Angeles called the Mondrian Hotel. Mondrian is dead and buried alive at the Mondrian Hotel under piles of new laundry, under piles of periodicals and art magazines and scholarly articles and heavy books on Mondrian. Abstract painting is finished: it’s marginalized, it’s minor, it’s dying and no one really cares or notices. Huge Whitney Biennials are filled with miles of glossy photographs and political installations and video installations and sound installations and computer internet installations and moving sculptures with blinking lights and there are exactly three abstract paintings in the whole museum and they look like decor.
And yet... Andrew Masullo is quietly sitting on the floor in the San Francisco night cradling a small painting in his lap carefully painting and repainting the candy colored shapes and the spirit of Florence Stettleheimer reclines on a miniature chaise-lounge perched on his shoulder and his very own Forrest Bess painting is hanging on the wall behind him. Masullo sits quietly in his apartment filled with hundreds of objects, his "little bits of nothing," each one carefully numbered. Masullo’s paintings have an eccentric severity despite their snappy pinks and yellows. They are utterly painstakingly subjective. Underneath a modernist naiveté his paintings contain a quirky ‘rightness’ and an undeniable honesty. Abstract painting is modest plain revolutionary anonymous. Abstract painting does not stand up and say, "Fuck Festivalism! Fuck this parade of international carnival art fairs with endless hours of fun house videos, sound installations and talking sculptures, screaming advertisements and sophomoric political propaganda." Abstract painting is silent. Abstract painting is a humble hand-painted recognition of humanness.
Abstract painting isn’t necessarily abstract. Abstract painting is not abstract but is filled with the forms of the world, is filled with cracks in the sidewalk and light off the water and floor plans and solar systems and an afternoon sunset in Bombay and the lumbering form of the big black bear Brice Marden saw as it disappeared across the lawn of his studio in rural Pennsylvania. If Julian Schnabel writes the words "70th Week" across a huge tarp painted with white forms that are not accidental and not deliberate but wonderfully fucked up, is it an abstract painting? If Peter Halley says that a rectangle is a piece of conduit or a prison cell and not a rectangle and it becomes some kind of neon road sign of sociology and the rectangles disappear and just the savage color is left, reborn as an absolute fact, is it an abstract painting? When we stand in front of a ten foot Ellen Gallagher painting and zero in on the thumbnail sized black faces with staring rows of eyes and we are swimming in a vast pink grid, is it abstract? When Tamara Gonzales pours white enamel over the black lingham form that she has decorated with cake icing flowers, is it a Shiva puja or an abstract painting? When is Carroll Dunham painting fuzzy knobs and when is he painting penis noses? If Andrew Massullo carefully sprinkles the moist dirt he has been saving from the grave of Alban Berg in Vienna onto the small canvas, is it an abstract painting? We are painting with the bones of our ancestors, we are painting the endless forms of the world, and it was Kandinsky who stated "Any form is possible if it arises out inner necessity."
I asked Kathy Bradford whether she was still an abstract artist. When she first came here from Maine she made paintings of logs and old mountains and they got very thick and more abstract and so she began to make abstract paintings and showed them in Soho. Then simple objects and clunky figures started to come back into the work so that a painting would be abstract and later a figure could be painted in it weeks later the figure could be painted out and it would be abstract again and I asked her whether she was an abstract artist or not and she said "I’m a freedom artist". In 1951 de Kooning said "There is no style of painting now. There are as many naturalists among the abstract painters as there are abstract painters among the subject matter school." And fifty years later it’s true more than ever: there are no boundaries. There is slippage and if Sigmar Polke starts moving paint and resin and meteorite dust and silk screens around in search of the alchemy of the moment there could be an image or maybe not. Sometimes Polke’s dots are playboy bunnies and sometimes the dots are dots. For many of the best painters the abstract paintings and the figurative paintings sit in the studio side by side— think of Polke, Schnabel, Sillman, Offilli, Taaffe, Tomaselli. Strictly speaking there is no such thing as abstraction and there is no such thing as painting and there is no such thing as writing about abstract painting. Abstract painting is not old, abstract painting is not new, abstract painting is happening in secret this moment, in abstract painting nobody knows what’s going to happen next. This is not a manifesto. Abstract painting is a state of mind, an openness.
I met Tom Nozkowski years ago setting up his first show in Soho. He was up on a tall ladder holding a small painting. The painting had a detail of a Giotto fresco— the peeling back of the edge of the sky— and I said "Hey that’s a Giotto" and he said "Yeah..." Nozkowski’s paintings are born out of a hand eye dance and his vast memory of other paintings, carpets, sculptures, architectures and drawings and the shapes half glimpsed out the car window and the thousand details of the Lower East Side and Shawangunk landscape that he knows and loves so fiercely. Out of the corner of his eye Nozkowski sees a silver birch or maybe a striped traffic divider and weeks later they enter the painting in the top left corner. Every day his paintings get weirder, more eccentric, more varied, more truthful, more particular, more stubborn, and less predictable. His color is unnamable and specific as if each panel contained its own weather and time of day. The new abstract painting says, "Fuck you we will not stand guard at the tomb of modernism but neither do we feel pressed to deliver the latest titillation..." The new abstract painting is in the same old boat the same leaking old boat the same perpetual crisis of inventing the new language to tell the brand new same old truth. We must grab this dusty skeleton of painting and (as Tom says) "make these bones speak..."
In 1979 I was sitting in the shadows of a Soho loading dock at 2:00 A.M. tripping on peyote and Bill Jensen walked by. I got up and I just started following him. I was too shy to approach him, so I just followed him through Soho down to Magoos Bar and then I went home. I never told him this. Bill Jensen remembers being born on November 26, 1945, in a Minneapolis hospital room with white tiles and green tile border a foot from the ceiling. He remembers his real father in an air force uniform gazing down upon him in the crib and then leaving. He never saw him again. He says he remembers it vividly like a scene from a Tarkovsky movie. Jensen studied painting with Peter Busa at the University of Minnesota and moved to New York in 1971. At that time, he saw five Ryder paintings at the Brooklyn Museum. He abandoned heavily impastoed large spiral paintings as the materials caused severe illness. By 1975 he began his legendary small easel paintings which blazed with inward compressed organic imagery. In 1978 he painted "The Black Madonna." In 1979 he completed the masterpieces "Crown of Thorns" and "Ryder’s Eye." The work deepened and grew strange: "The Tempest" (1981), "Spoons and Straws" (1984), "Denial" (1986), "Sea of Green" (1989-90), "Bright Moments" (1992). In 1994 the paintings began to open to a more gestural empty horizon line in "Colossus" (1993-4), "Stalker," and the great "Winter’s Light" of 1994. The paintings continue to grow simultaneously more open and more concrete as in the recent "Images of a Floating World" (1999-2001). Bill Jensen is a radical artist who harnesses the power of painting to present inner realities. Abstract painting is a search for freedom. This freedom cannot be found in style, or in details, large size, any particular forms, or in computers, new materials, old materials, or in trying to find the end of some daydream railroad track of art history. This freedom is found inside. There is no inside and there is no outside.
We were living on Houston Street in a six floor tenement building with no locks on the front door and a steady stream of drug dealers, transients, crazies and dogs living in the hallways. The tiny apartments were filled with poor hispanic families with up to ten people packed together. The saxophonist Robert Aron had a huge lizard that ate cockroaches and one day when it escaped to the apartment downstairs, the Chinese lady killed it with a broom and complained bitterly "We have roaches, we have mice and rats, and now the big lizards are coming!" Painters lived there: Gary Lang, Bob Kraus, Henry Chotkowski, Peter Acheson, Mark Potter. Jean Michel Basquiat slept on the floor and Glenn O’Brien lived across the hall. He used to knock on my door in the middle of the night to look at art books. The super Joe Terranova had a pompadour hairdo and loved the young artists in the building— we were his "boys". So one night Peter is making abstract paintings on the floor pouring gallons of yellow latex paint everywhere and at midnight the Puerto Ricans downstairs call up the super to say that there is bright yellow pouring down from their ceiling and the walls are turning yellow and Joe screams at them to stop taking drugs and shut up and don’t ever bother him again and next day tells Peter that the crazy Puerto Ricans were on drugs last night and would you believe they were seeing the paint move on the walls.
What does it mean, "abstract"? Does it mean to abstract from something— to start with an image and transform it into essentials, like Mondrian’s tree series? Maybe it means some kind of freedom from the image so we can get directly to the serious part and not get lost in apples or nipples. Maybe it means the big idea itself— painting as physics or philosophy. Maybe it means to be purified or to be closer to concrete essences. Maybe it’s a formal design strategy with invented rules, a graphing or charting of information. There is no guarantee of freedom in abstraction. In the suburbs of Seattle there are Barnett Newman postcards on the refrigerator. Here in Brooklyn the sidewalks are littered with caribou bones and the taxi drivers are lost. They drive to the airport and sit in the parking lot huddled in circles around the ancient Kashmir firelight and never return home. The painter Max Gimblett says "The impulse moves between the instant and the gradual... In alertness and attention. In silence with the paint. Painting is inherently mysterious, it’s a state of being where there is no recognizable ‘Mind’..."
I was twelve-years-old and all I wanted to do was play touch football. I was dragged to The National Collection of Fine Arts in Washington DC. I remember we were walking around a courtyard among these tall, shiny, red white and blue sculptures when the top of my head lifted off and a sudden sense of euphoria filled my chest. We spent, I guess, twenty minutes clambering around these soaring towers. The sunlight glinting off the new enamel paint filled me with the most intense feelings of love and I KNEW THAT I KNEW and I never told anyone but I never forgot the joy like some secret initiation. Years later I dropped out of college and worked as a guard at the Guggenheim Museum. Browsing through an old catalog of the Paul Feely retrospective I felt a shock of recognition— my initiation came inside his Sculpture Court piece from 1966.
Seeing a group of Paul Feely paintings and watercolors at Lawrence Markey Gallery this November I could not explain their presence. I mean I can see how they are painted— the guiding pencil lines are visible, the paint is stained directly into the cloth, the color is simple, the forms are subtle but not complicated, and yet they radiate an authentic classical joy. Feely’s paintings have a modest and effortless lightness of being. There is an anonymous universal quality to the paintings like the side of a house in Morocco, a painted sign in Brazil, or some tiny corner of the Taj Mahal. James Siena once told me he liked to think of himself as an anonymous craftsman setting tiles one by one in the Taj Mahal. Actually he’s an extremely sophisticated abstract painter who loves baseball and uses very, very small brushes. He focuses his humble laser beam attention on thin aluminum panels that you can hold in your hands. In a tiny room in Chinatown, Siena sets up a simple set of rules or strategies for each piece and follows them to their ultimate absurdly compressed conclusions. The paintings remind me of Celtic illuminations, Peruvian textiles, computer chips, cellular structures, or an LSD patterning flashback.They flicker, they glow, zigzag, vibrate, pulse and shimmer with energy. Yet this Op dizzying vibration is really just the by-product of Siena’s search to understand and bring these structures to life. You follow the direction of a particular line in it’s convoluted path from one place to another and the mind lights up. You can feel your own body watching your mind watching.
Myron Stout is the secret hero of the new abstraction. Stout, the incomparable tortoise, began his mature black and white work at age 47. In twelve years he finished three paintings, left five more almost finished, and a few others restored with the help of an assistant. Stout endlessly caressed and minutely adjusted the sublime edges of the white forms and black grounds, and now they radiate a superhuman light and energy, and resonate in archetypal tragic harmony. For the last fifteen years of his life Stout worked only on tiny drawings an inch in diameter, polishing and polishing. Can we ever finish the paintings? How can we stop? In 1958 Jay De Feo began her big mandala painting The Rose on Fillmore Street in San Francisco. She built up and scraped off layer upon layer of paint. It was reproduced a year later in The Museum of Modern Art’s Sixteen Americans catalog as The Death Rose. She continued to work on it, trowling on massive amounts of lead white until it became a veritable bas relief and eight years later when she and Wally Hedrick were evicted from their studios they had to use a crane and moving men to carry the 2,300 pound painting through a hole in the building. In 1976 David Novros began a series of very large abstract paintings on canvas in his loft on Broome street. Twenty five years later he is still working on them. The paint is inches thick but the light is unearthly and magnificent. They are almost finished; they will never be finished.
I’ve worked on individual paintings for twenty years. I have slides of paintings that were finished in the early eighties and then repainted and photographed in the nineties and now once again they’re almost finished. It’s not that it takes twenty years to make the painting— it takes seven minutes to make the painting— but it can take twenty years to find those seven minutes. Jim Harrison was a great artist who worked on some works on paper for thirty years. He told me "You don’t make the painting— the painting makes you..."
We are trying to paint what is real. We are trying to paint what we have never seen before.Image caption Douglas Adams passed away in 2001
The 60th birthday of the late writer Douglas Adams, creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, is to be marked with a special show.
Comedians, writers and scientists are coming together for the event at London's Hammersmith Apollo in March.
Clive Anderson, Stephen Fry, Michael Palin and Professor Brian Cox are set to participate in the one-off event.
Tickets for the show will go towards the Save the Rhino charity, which Adams supported.
According to the website, which has been set up especially for the event, there will be a "special premiere performance" of Douglas material.
As part of the line up, Anderson will talk to Terry Jones and Michael Palin about Douglas's comedy legacy and his influences, including Monty Python.
Stephen Fry and zoologist and wildlife photographer Mark Carwardine have recorded a special introduction about Douglas' passion for conservation.
Adams died in 2001 aged 49 following a heart attack.
More than 15 million copies of his The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series have been sold throughout the world.
He also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul."My version was really built around Leonard Nimoy as Spock and Toshiro Mifune as his Klingon nemesis. My idea was to make it less “cult-ish”, and more of an adult movie, dealing with sexuality and wonders rather than oddness; a big science fiction movie, filled with all kinds of questions, particularly about the nature of Spock’s [duality]—exploring his humanity and what humanness was. To have Spock and Mifune’s character tripping out in outer space. I’m sure the fans would have been upset, but I felt it could really open up a new type of science fiction."
In 1975 Gene Roddenberry began developing a Star Trek movie for Paramount Pictures. He wrote a script called Star Trek: The God Thing, which would've seen the crew of the Enterprise sent to face God, who was threatening mankind. Unsurprisingly Paramount weren't keen on the story but asked Roddenberry to stay on and oversee the movie and take submissions from other writers.A budget of $7.5million was set for the film, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Robert Wise were all approached and asked to direct what would've been the first Star Trek movie. All four directors declined, they were either busy on other projects or thought the budget too low. Philip Kaufman was then approached, Roddenberry himself didn't think that Kaufman would agree so was surprised when he did.Of all the story ideas that were submitted one called Planet of the Titans stood out to the production team, so the British writing duo of Chris Bryant and Allan Scott were officially hired in October 1976 to complete the screenplay.At this time though negotiations with William Shatner were not going well and so their first draft did not feature Captain Kirk. Shatner signed a new contract and was added to the movie, but then Leonard Nimoy dropped out of the project due to his likeness being used in a commercial without his permission. Paramount resolved the issue and the crew of the Enterprise were all on board.In Bryant and Scott's completed screenplay of Planet of the Titans the Enterprise was sent to respond to a distress signal from the USS DaVinci. Upon arrival there is no sign of the other Starship, however Captain Kirk is struck by electromagnetic waves and starts to behave erratically. He commandeers a shuttle craft and heads off in to space and vanishes without a trace. Spock orders the Enterprise home, resigns from Starfleet and heads to Vulcan to purge himself of his human half.Three years later, the newly refitted Enterprise, complete with a new crew commanded by Captain Gregory Westlake, is ordered to the location where Kirk disappeared. On the way they pick up Spock, and upon arrival discover a planet that appears to be the mythical Planet of the Titans, the home of a lost race with super technology. The Klingons had been searching for this planet too, and it is thought that whoever rescues the Titans will control the destiny of the Universe. But it is soon discoverd that the planet is about to be destroyed by a black hole, and the Enterprise is likely to be dragged along with it as the ship is trapped by the force field surrounding the planet.The Enterprise saucer separates from the rest of the ship and crash lands on the planet. Spock finds Kirk, who has been living there in the wild along with the other trapped beings. The duo discover that the rulers of this world are not the Titans, but a race called the Cygnans who had wiped the Titans out.Spock, Kirk and the rest of the landing party attempt to leave the planet in the saucer section, but as they reattach to the Enterprise the Cygnans transport themselves on board. Realising that he must save the Federation from this highly dangerous race Kirk maneuvers the Enterprise straight into the black hole. The Cygnans are destroyed and the Enterprise emerges from the black hole finding itself in orbit around prehistoric Earth. The crew teach early man how to make fire, in effect becoming the Titans themselves.The finished script was submitted in March 1977, the following month Paramount rejected it and the writers quit, however Philip Kaufman decided to undertake a massive rewrite in an attempt to keep the project alive. He later explained;It was a very different idea for a Star Trek movie, and one that seemed just too much for Paramount. In May 1977, just as Star Wars was about to arrive in cinemas, Paramount pulled the plug on the project.Some concept art had been completed along with some models of the new ships, some of which would go on to appear in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Kaufmann went on to direct Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Paramount decided that maybe Star Trek did not belong on the big screen, maybe the crew of the Enterprise should undertake a new five year mission. A project called Star Trek: Phase II began, and you can read about that hereOne in five homeless youth in Toronto identify as LGBTQ, according to the city’s most recent street needs assessment, which has led one person to ask council for a shelter and safe space specifically for LGBTQ youth who often face discrimination in the current system.
Alex Abramovich, a research coordinator with the Centre for Research on Inner City Health at St. Michael's Hospital, has spent eight years studying the issue and has proposed a shelter exclusively for their use due to what he calls the “normalized oppression” that occurs in the general shelter system.
“It’s come to be expected that the shelter system is homophobic and transphobic so LGBTQ youth will frequently avoid the shelter systems and find themselves in situations such as sleeping on a park bench or in alleyways,” Abramovich told Metro Morning’s Matt Galloway Tuesday.
Teal-Rose Jaques came forward to say her time in various shelters was difficult as she was forced to reside on the men’s floor during her transitions and given male clothing. Although many shelters she described have since changed their policies for transgender people, the LGBTQ community says it still faces many forms of discrimination including the abuse hurled at them by other shelter occupants.
Abramovich, who is also now part of the City of Toronto Shelter Operations's working group, said growing up in Toronto he’d always been interested in the visible — yet often “invisible” — issue of homelessness. And finally, during his own “challenging” coming out period, he realized how easy it was to become homeless as a youth if one lacked the support network they were hoping to have.
He’s pushing for the creation of an LGBTQ shelter which he said is “an emergency response to an emergency situation” until larger systemic issues can be addressed.
Toronto city council will give an update on work being done to develop more options for LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness as well as offer recommendations on future work Tuesday afternoon.Getty Images
Redskins rookie cornerback Bashaud Breeland had a strong game against Cowboys receivers Dez Bryant and Terrance Williams last Monday night as Washington was on its way to beating Dallas in overtime, but he may not get an immediate chance to follow up on it.
Coach Jay Gruden said, via Mike Jones of the Washington Post, that Breeland got his cleat caught in the grass during Friday’s practice and hurt his knee. Breeland is going to have an MRI so the team can assess the severity of the damage.
While we can’t know what the imaging will turn up, non-contact knee injuries have a habit of costing players a fair amount of time. If that’s the case for Breeland, it will interrupt his rookie season at a moment when things appeared to be coming together for him. Breeland saw his playing time rise after DeAngelo Hall’s initial Achilles tear and he’s responded to the increased responsibility well.
If Breeland is out, E.J. Biggers, Chase Minnifield and Tracy Porter are likely options to see increased playing time in his absence.Premier Rachel Notley made no apologies Wednesday for her government’s plan to take on debt to cover operating costs, saying any government — including the former Tory regime — would have to do so in the current financial situation or make “unprecedented cuts.”
And a day after the NDP government released its first budget, Notley also dismissed any notion the NDP government would introduce a sales tax to deal with its financial issues.
The NDP’s first budget, released Tuesday, posts a record $6.1-billion deficit while boosting capital spending in response to the province’s slumping economy.
The government projects it will drain its Contingency Account — which started the fiscal year at $6.5 billion — by next year as it projects a string of deficits until the books are again balanced in 2019.
With the rainy day account empty, the province will borrow $712 million next year to fund operations and a further $3.1 billion for operating costs in 2017. Alberta has not taken on debt for operating costs in two decades, but Notley said it needed to be done.
“When you’re on an exceptionally rocky and bumpy economic road, you need shock absorbers. It is not the role of the government to drive into the ditch,” she said at an announcement in Calgary regarding a planned new cancer hospital.
Notley said the budget presented by the former PC government this spring that was never passed laid out the prospect of slashing spending in the future.
“The only way that any government could plan to not have to borrow for operations for a couple of years would have been to make absolutely unprecedented cuts to our teachers, to our nurses, to our hospitals,” said the premier.
But the NDP has faced sharp criticism for borrowing to cover programs.
Interim PC Leader Ric McIver said in question period that the government has shown it has no plan.
“This NDP government cannot even pay for the groceries and keep the lights on without imposing a mortgage on Alberta’s children,” he said.
Notley also faced questions from Wildrose Leader Brian Jean, who suggested the government was setting up Albertans for some sort of sales tax.
“No one that I can find has a credible explanation for how this government is going to bring in $55 billion in revenue in fiscal 2019,” he said.
But the premier said no sales tax or harmonized tax will be created on her watch.
“That budget nor any other budget in the term of this government will not and does not include a PST,” Notley said.
With files from The Canadian Press
jwood@calgaryherald.comThe budding “bromance” between President-elect Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin makes for entertaining headlines. But in courting the Russian strongman while bashing China, Trump may be jeopardizing U.S. corporations, according to an analyst.
“When it comes to China and Russia, the signals from the incoming Trump administration have been more hard-line toward the former, while more sympathetic toward the latter,” said Joseph Quinlan, chief strategist at U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management, in a recent note.
Since his stunning victory on Nov. 8, Trump has launched a vigorous attack on China for what he claims are unfair business practices, playing into the popular myth that the Asian country is taking the U.S. for a ride when it comes to trade.
China has been taking out massive amounts of money & wealth from the U.S. in totally one-sided trade, but won't help with North Korea. Nice! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2017
Meanwhile, Trump has gone out of his way to laud Putin despite evidence that Russia hacked into Democratic Party computers in a bid to influence the outcome of the U.S. election.
Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2016
The problem is that although the president-elect’s tough talk on China may resonate with his supporters, for American corporations, China is far more important than Putin’s Russia.
“U.S. policies scorning China but cuffing Russia present unappreciated micro/market risks,” said Quinlan, echoing the sentiment among analysts on Wall Street that a potential trade war between the U.S. and China is among the top risks for 2017.
“A trade war between two of the world’s largest traders would subdue global growth and throw sand in the gears of globalization, while sowing downside pressure and volatility across various asset classes,” he said.
Indeed, if U.S. corporations are ever put into position of having to choose one country over the other, there really is no contest. China eclipses Russia in every way.
China’s gross domestic product is eight times larger than Russia’s while China’s consumer purchasing power is nearly six times larger than its neighbor’s, according to Quinlan. China’s presence in the U.S. debt market is also substantial with the Asian country holding some $1.1 trillion in Treasury notes as of October. In contrast, Russia owned roughly $75 billion in total.
“The importance of China relative to Russia for Corporate America is night and day,” said Quinlan.
Based on total assets of majority-owned foreign affiliates, the U.S. interests in China are more than five times larger than in Russia.
“U.S. policies are titling toward the more commercially unattractive Russia versus the better looking China, a dynamic the markets have yet to consider or price accordingly,” said Quinlan.
David Cui, a strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, agrees that the market is underestimating the risk of trade friction and predicts China would not easily back down in any dispute with the U.S.
“The government must not be perceived as weak,” he said, particularly with the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party scheduled for later this year.
Delegates at the closely watched congress will choose the new leadership of the Communist Party and in effect, the country, for the next five years.
Whether Trump’s newfound affection for Russia is a brief fling or a policy shift for the U.S. government, there will be plenty of drama ahead.
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Pads: Toxic ingredients: dioxins and furans, pesticide residues, unknown fragrance chemicals and adhesive chemicals such as methyldibromo glutaronitrile. Exposure concerns: cancer, reproductive harm and endocrine disruption. Studies link pad use to allergic rash.
Feminine Wipes: Toxic ingredients: methylchloroisothiazolinone, methylisothiazolinone, parabens, quaternium-15, dmdm Hydantoin and unknown fragrance chemicals. Exposure concerns: cancer and endocrine disruption, allergic rash.
Feminine Wash: Toxic ingredients: unknown fragrance chemicals, parabens, methylchloroisothiazolinone, methylisothiazolinone, dmdm Hydantoin, d&c red no.33, ext d&c violet #2, and fd&c yellow #5. Exposure concerns: endocrine disruption, allergic rash, and asthma.
Douche: Toxic ingredients: unknown fragrance chemicals and the spermicide octoxynol-9. Studies link douche use to bacterial vaginosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, cervical cancer, low-birth weight, preterm birth, HIV transmission, sexually transmitted diseases, ectopic pregnancy, chronic yeast infections, and infertility.
Feminine deodorant (sprays, powders and suppositories): Toxic ingredients: unknown fragrance chemicals, parabens, and benzethonium chloride. Exposure concerns: reproductive harm, endocrine disruption and allergic rash.
Feminine anti-itch creams: Toxic ingredients: may include unknown fragrance chemicals, parabens, methylisothiazolinone and an active ingredient, benzocaine, a mild anesthetic. Exposure concerns: endocrine disruption, allergic rash, and unresolved itch.
Thankfully, safer options are available in organic cotton and innovations like the silicone menstrual cup. Natural creams, soaps, wipes and washes are also a possibility. But until the toxicity of feminine care products becomes common knowledge, women around the world will continue to be put at serious risk.
Article sources:
About the author:
Carolanne Wright enthusiastically believes if we want to see change in the world, we need to be the change. As a nutritionist, natural foods chef and wellness coach, Carolanne has encouraged others to embrace a healthy lifestyle of organic living, gratefulness and joyful orientation for over 13 years.
Through her website Thrive-Living.net, she looks forward to connecting with other like-minded people from around the world who share a similar vision. You can also follow Carolanne on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Recommended articles by Carolanne Wright:The father of Ashraqat Qatnani, the 16 year-old Palestinian Arab terrorist who attempted to stab a young teenager in Samaria on Sunday, is proud of his daughter, he told the press in the hours following the attack.
"My daughter left home this morning to go to school, like she does every day," he said. "Instead, she went to go attack [Jews] and fulfill her national and moral duty."
"I'm proud of her."
Ashraqat had been keeping a close eye on the Palestinian terror war on Israelis, which has been raging since September. He praised her for "resisting the Occupation," in his words.
On Sunday morning, Ashraqat approached the Territorial Brigade Intersection near Elon Moreh, and raised a kitchen knife to the back of a young teenage girl waiting for a ride at the stop.
Former Samaria Regional Council chairman Gershon Mesika spotted the terrorist and ran her over before she could carry out the attack; security forces at the site then fatally wounded her.The attack on a gay club in Orlando in which 50 people were killed and more than 50 wounded — now the largest mass shooting in U.S. history — demonstrates how potential threats are escaping the FBI’s vast counterterrorism dragnet.
While it’s unclear whether gunman Omar Mateen’s inspiration was hatred of gays, the Islamic State, or something else, attackers like him are the intended targets of the FBI’s post-9/11 prevention program. Federal law enforcement’s top priority today is to stop the attacker of tomorrow.
But Mateen’s mass shooting is an example of how dangerous men slip past the FBI’s watch while federal agents focus on targets of questionable capacity.
Born in the United States to parents from Afghanistan, Mateen was reportedly a “known quantity” to the FBI.
According to the Daily Beast, whose reporter quoted an unnamed “senior law enforcement source,” Mateen was a person of interest to the FBI in 2013 and again in 2014. The Intercept has been unable confirm independently from sources that Mateen had been under FBI investigation during those years.
If the FBI had in fact investigated Mateen, his capacity for violence would have been easily verified: He had a state firearms license.
With connections to homes in Martin and St. Lucie counties, Mateen would have fallen under the jurisdiction of the FBI’s Miami office, which has been among the bureau’s most active and aggressive counterterrorism units.
The Miami FBI investigated the so-called Liberty City 7 in one of the earliest and most controversial post-9/11 counterterrorism stings, and prosecutors in Florida’s Southern District have prosecuted dozens on terrorism-related charges in the last 15 years.
The Miami FBI has not responded to a request to comment on whether it has investigated Mateen.
For more than a year ending in April — a time during which investigators will now be looking for any clues from Mateen that might have been missed — the FBI in Miami focused on a counterterrorism sting that targeted James Medina, a homeless man with mental problems.
An FBI informant recorded conversations with Medina in which he expressed interest in attacking a Jewish community center. Medina did not have weapons or connections to international terrorists. In fact, he was known in homeless circles, not terrorism ones.
“C’mon, man, no terrorist is homeless,” Rick Wallace, who volunteered to serve lunch to homeless people in South Florida, told Local 10 ABC investigative reporter Bob Norman. “Who did he not threaten? He was insane.”
According to the FBI’s affidavit, the informant, not Medina, came up with the idea of crediting the planned attack to the Islamic State.
“You can do all that,” Medina told the informant. “Yeah, we can print up or something and make it look like it’s ISIS here in America. Just like that.”
Nearly a year before Medina’s arrest, the FBI’s Miami office arrested another supposed terrorist, 23-year-old Cuban-American Harlem Suarez, also known as Almlak Benitez, whom former co-workers described as “a little slow.” The government alleged that Suarez conspired with an FBI informant to bomb a beach in Key West in support of the Islamic State. The FBI provided a fake backpack bomb.
Does the FBI’s focus on men like Medina and Suarez — questionable targets of questionable mental fitness — prevent agents from identifying and investigating armed and dangerous men like the one behind what is now America’s worst mass shooting?
It’s a question the FBI, which has faced little congressional scrutiny over its counterterrorism program, has never been forced to answer.
The Orlando shooting isn’t the first case to raise this question. In 2011, when the FBI investigated Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, agents did not deem him a threat.
Instead, at about the same time, the Boston FBI started a nine-month sting operation against Rezwan Ferdaus, who had no weapons and no connections to international terrorists, and whose mental wellness had deteriorated so much that he was wearing adult diapers at the time of his arrest on terrorism charges.The popular movie streaming service Fmovies.to has only been around for a few months but already it's listed among the most popular websites on the entire Internet. This hasn't gone unnoticed by copyright holders including the Philippine media conglomerate ABS-CBN, which is suing the site in a U.S. federal court.
Pirate video streaming sites are booming. Their relative ease of use and on demand viewing makes them a viable alternative to P2P file-sharing, which has traditionally dominated the piracy arena.
Over the past months, several newcomers appeared on the scene, some of which have quickly grown to become serious traffic magnets.
Fmovies.to is one of these relative newcomers. In tandem with the similar looking 123movies.to, the streaming service has built a user base of millions of people since the start of the year.
The downside to this success is that copyright holders are bound to come knocking, and this is exactly what has happened. A few days ago Fmovies.to and its operators were sued in a Florida federal court by the Philippine media conglomerate ABS-CBN.
In a complaint filed at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the media company brands Fmovies as a classic pirate site.
“Defendant’s website is a classic example of a pirate operation, having no regard whatsoever for the rights of ABS-CBN and willfully infringing ABS-CBN’s intellectual property,” the company’s lawyers write (pdf).
“As a result, ABS-CBN requires this Court’s intervention if any meaningful stop is to be put to Defendant’s piracy,” the complaint adds, explaining that several of its movies are freely available on the site.
An ABS-CBN movie playing on Fmovies
ABS-CBN accuses Fmovies.to of unfair competition and several counts of both trademark and copyright infringement, direct or through the site’s users. In doing so, they argue that the streaming service has cause them substantial harm.
“Defendant’s Internet-based website business is an illegal operation, infringing on the intellectual property rights of ABS-CBN through its distribution and performance of ABS CBN’s Copyrighted Works and using the ABS-CBN Marks to promote, advertise, and distribute such content.”
At this point it’s unclear who is operating the site. The media company notes that the domain names are registered anonymously so it’s very possible that the operators are not from the United States.
However, ABS-CBN argues the court has jurisdiction over the defendant since the site is operating in the state of Florida.
Through the court case the media conglomerate is seeking damages, which may run to millions of dollars. In addition, they request a permanent injunction to bar the operators from running Fmovies.
This includes a request to seize the site’s current and future domain names that are tied to copyright infringements.
This is not the first time ABS-CBN has gone after pirate sites and recent history shows that the consequences can be quite severe. In a default judgment last year, a U.S. federal court in Oregon ordered the operator of several tiny streaming sites to pay $10 million in damages to the company.
However, with a user base of millions of people, Fmovies.to is by far the largest movie streaming site to be targeted in a U.S. Court, although probably not the last.If you live in the suburbs of the Northeastern US like I do, on any given day you might be able to look out your window and see a herd of deer like the one pictured above. In my neighborhood in particular, I am surprised if a day goes by where I don’t see any.
In 1930 the US white-tailed deer population was down to about 300,000. Today, estimates of how many there are range as high as about 30 million. That’s a 1,000-fold increase in less than 100 years.
What would an ideal number of white-tailed deer be in the US? Scientists estimate the average carrying capacity is about 8 deer per kilometer. The current average? Up to 100 deer per kilometer.
The shift in the white-tailed deer population can be attributed to many factors. In the 1920s the species was actually nearing extinction due to overhunting before government protection programs and national parks sought to save it. You could say that they succeeded. Unfortunately, a number of factors are now leading the deer population to spiral out of control. These include:
No predators. Wolves, cougars, and grizzlies, which all once preyed on old, sick, and newborn deer, are now extinct in most states, and much of their former habitat is gone. However, the increase in human population will not stop the deer because…
Deforestation actually helps the deer. The white-tailed deer is a species that flourishes in “edge” habitats: that is, habitats along the edges of forests and roadways, as well as newly-planted lawns. This is why they have been so explosively successful in the suburbs. Which also means…
Hunting rates are going down. On average, about 6 million deer are killed each year by hunters, though this number is decreasing. By contrast, the deer population will double every other year under ideal conditions; the latest estimate suggests that 12 million fawns were born after the last hunting season. And this number will keep increasing because…
Due to the fact that they preferentially graze on disturbed or edge habitats, white-tailed deer populations naturally fluctuate. As such, they have evolved few methods of self-regulation (such as birthing fewer fawns in crowded conditions).
So there are a lot of deer and the population is still growing. The impacts this has are not just the annoying ones that I see every day (deer poop everywhere, deer carcasses all over the roads, destroyed gardens, and the occasional deer attack).
Deer in the US eat 15 million tons of vegetation each year, which costs about $248 million in damage to crops and landscaping in the Northeast alone. About 150 people per year are actually killed due to car collisions with deer. Furthermore, deer carry deer ticks, which can transmit lyme disease to humans.
But the impacts are not limited to us. Native ecosystems are bearing the brunt of the damage. A study on one forest in Pennsylvania found that over half of all plant species diversity had vanished thanks to hungry deer. Other studies suggest that deer prefer eating native to exotic plant species, which facilitates the spread of invasive plants.
This can lead to a cascade of effects on other animal species. Nesting bird populations drop due to the loss of certain tree species (the deer like to eat the new saplings). Insect species, particularly caterpillars, may lose their food sources. Conversely, biting flies and other parasites that prey on deer will increase.
What we should do about the deer overpopulation has been a highly divisive issue in the US; specifically between those who favor lethal vs. nonlethal methods. There is limited success with methods such as fertility control, but these successes are mostly found in closed populations (i.e., fenced in or isolated) and take a long time to take effect.
Lethal methods also have their pros and cons. The possibility of reintroducing wild predators of deer in parts of the US where they are now extinct is often raised and just as often vetoed, given that the bulk of the deer population lies smack dab in the middle of the suburbs.
Similar concerns are raised when people bring up hunting; furthermore, hunters must be advised to take does rather than trophy bucks or they will not significantly affect the population. Studies have shown that controlled hunting programs are effective over small areas, but the effects are mixed over larger ones.
While people argue over what the best way to manage deer is, the population continues to grow and grow, leading to an increase of diseases (such as epizootic hemorrhage disease, which can also spread to livestock) and starvation.
With deer populations going well over carrying capacity in many areas, the risk of population crashes grows. While a crash- which dramatically decreases the number of animals- sounds like it might be a good thing in this case, crashes can be catastrophic. In one famous reindeer crash on St. Matthew island, 95% of individuals died in a single winter.
That, however, is the worst-case scenario, and since few deer populations are so constrained, the more likely one is that deer populations will eventually strike a kind of limbo- not increasing very much but still heavily overpopulated, and constantly on the brink of starvation.
In this case, what is the correct thing to do? The longer we wait, the more damage is done, not just to people, but to the local ecosystem as well. But methods like contraception take several years to really show positive effects, while hunting has to be carefully managed in order to be effective. And this isn’t even bringing in the “moral” aspect of hunting versus nonlethal methods. Yet either way, many, many deer are going to die, and the only way to improve their- and our- quality of life is to dramatically reduce their population.
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about the issues with animal overpopulation- check out my post on rodent plagues. I’ve also written an article about deer with fangs.
To see a list of all animal articles that I’ve written, head to the Nonfiction section of this site.
References
Alverson, W.S., D.M. Waller, and S.L. Solheim. 1988. Forests too deer: edge effects in northern Wisconsin. Conserv. Biol. 2: 348–458.
Brown, T. L., Decker, D. J., Riley, S. J., Enck, J. W., Lauber, T. B., Curtis, P. D., & Mattfeld, G. F. (2000). The future of hunting as a mechanism to control white-tailed deer populations. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 28(4), 797-807.
Eschtruth, A. K., & Battles, J. J. (2009). Acceleration of exotic plant invasion in a forested ecosystem by a generalist herbivore. Conservation Biology, 23(2), 388-399.
Horsley, S. B., Stout, S. L., & DeCalesta, D. S. (2003). White-tailed deer impact on the vegetation dynamics of a northern hardwood forest. Ecological Applications, 13(1), 98-118.
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. 2009. Deer-vehicle collisions: no easy solutions but some methods work or show promise. Advisory No. 31.
Iowa State University, 2012. Epizootic hemorrhage disease in deer and cattle.
Kilpatrick, H. J., & Walter, W. D. (1999). A controlled archery deer hunt in a residential community: cost, effectiveness, and deer recovery rates. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 115-123.
Patterson, B. R., & Power, V. A. (2002). Contributions of forage competition, harvest, and climate fluctuation to changes in population growth of northern white-tailed deer. Oecologia, 130(1), 62-71.
Peek, L.J., and J.F. Stahl. 1997. Deer management techniques employed by the Columbus and Franklin County Park District. Ohio. Wildl. Soc. Bull. 25: 440–442.
Piesman, J. (2006). Strategies for reducing the risk of Lyme borreliosis in North America. International Journal of Medical Microbiology, 296, 17-22.
Rooney, T. P., & Waller, D. M. (2003). Direct and indirect effects of white-tailed deer in forest ecosystems. Forest Ecology and Management, 181(1), 165-176.
Rooney, T. P., & Dress, W. J. (1997). Species loss over sixty-six years in the ground-layer vegetation of Heart’s Content, an old-growth forest in Pennsylvania, USA. Natural Areas Journal, 17(4), 297.
Rooney, T. P. (2001). Deer impacts on forest ecosystems: a North American perspective. Forestry, 74(3), 201-208.
Roseberry, J. L., & Woolf, A. (1998). Habitat-population density relationships for white-tailed deer in Illinois. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 252-258.
Rutberg, A. T., & Naugle, R. E. (2008). Population-level effects of immunocontraception in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Wildlife Research, 35(6), 494-501.
Seagle, S. W., & Close, J. D. (1996). Modeling white-tailed deer< i> Odocoileus virginianus population control by contraception. Biological Conservation, 76(1), 87-91.
U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau. 2006. National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation.Baseball is often a game of defying expectations, but the Milwaukee Brewers may have taken it to a point of absurdity in 2017.
Nearly every assumption for the team and individual players in the early goings has been turned on its head within the first 131 games, if not sooner.
A team predicted to end the season at least 10 games below.500 now stands at 68-63, only a 2.5-game stone’s throw from first place in the division. A starting rotation that was almost entirely written off in March is the 10th best in all of baseball approaching September. A previously solid bullpen has been gutted numerous times, last year’s star Jonathan Villar has been one of the team’s least productive and some nearly unknown players have stepped into the spotlight of offensive prowess.
Take your pick, chances are there are still more to come.
The Brewers proved it again on their most recent road trip, taking two of three from the fourth-most run-happy offense (Colorado Rockies) in the majors, losing two of three to the second-worst team in the league (San Francisco Giants) and edging the best team in baseball with a pair of wins against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday and Sunday.
There are still 31 games remaining but even with the return of Chase Anderson, the impending recall of Brandon Woodruff and the team’s surprising depth, there’s little doubt Milwaukee faces an uphill battle.
Just within the division, the Brewers will have to face the Cardinals and their history of late-season surging five more times, a competitive Pittsburgh Pirates team another six times and the Chicago Cubs, who now boast the most runs since the All-Star break, seven more times, compared to only six against the sputtering Cincinnati Reds.
Of course, that’s not even to mention the four-game series against the Nationals, the league’s second-most powerful offense, and the surging Miami Marlins headed by Major League Baseball’s home run leader, Giancarlo Stanton.
Of what remains, 19 games will be played against teams with a record of.500 or better and only 12 against teams under the center-mark.
But that doesn’t necessarily spell doom for Milwaukee.
The Cubs also have a division-heavy schedule that features stiff competition without the benefit of more than three games against Cincinnati and three against the floundering New York Mets, one that has them nearly neck-and-neck with their division foes in strength of schedule.
The Rockies, one of two gateways to a wild card berth, have to face the Dodgers seven more times, a strong division rival in the Arizona Diamondbacks the same and the Marlins for a three-game series as well. The Diamondbacks themselves face similar odds with two three-game sets against the Dodgers, those seven games against the Rockies and three against the Marlins before closing out the season against the mercurial Kansas City Royals.
Let there be no confusion, there is no easy path to the playoffs — outside of those with a 13- or 19-game lead on the division like the Dodgers and Nationals — but then again, given the relatively even counterweights left in the season, even teams with longer odds still have a chance to squeak into October, where regular season records are merely predications with as much bearing in talent as they are in chance.
And of those who currently stand in the way of the Milwaukee Brewers, all share one important characteristic: an expectation to win.
The Cubs have always been assumed to be runaways in the National League Central and the Rockies and Diamondbacks were predicted to be at least.500 clubs entering the season.
The Brewers, on the other hand, had few outside of (or inside, for that matter) Milwaukee believing they would even be in the mix at any point this season. But that assumption may have given the team one of their greatest attributes: proving everyone wrong.
In a sense, outside of exceeding expectation in nearly every facet of the game, Milwaukee has already won this season, and they didn’t need to be guaranteed a spot in the postseason to do so.
They’ve reclaimed the potential of two controllable starters in Jimmy Nelson and Chase Anderson (if not also Zach Davies, who boasts a 1.67 ERA over his last eight starts), identified more future starters in Josh Hader and Brandon Woodruff, given some of their top prospects a taste of the majors and now have a more comprehensive look at their potential depth and talent moving forward — all while keeping their head above the.500 mark.
But above all else, under manager Craig Counsell‘s guidance, they have achieved three very important elements of teamwork and gameplay: they’ve learned to fuel success with doubt, to turn regression into resilience and how to do it all while embracing the pinnacle tenet that has taken a street game of sticks and rocks to an international phenomenon — to have fun.
via GIPHY
Whether or not the door remains open on this season will be determined somewhere in the final 31 games. But if the team’s progress this season is any indication, the end product of these final weeks will be minimal in comparison to having a young team learn tough lessons early and find a way to harvest their shortcomings as incentive for success in a future that only gets closer with every game.
Jonathan Powell is a co-founder and lead writer for Bronx to Bushville.As the story goes, a vagrant wandering the streets of Goldfield in 1908 was rummaging through the trash outside the local library, looking for something to eat. The best sustenance he came across was a jar of book paste.
He would have found the paste surprisingly sweet, because in addition to flour and water, it was 60% alum. Unfortunately, the concentration was deadly.
The legend continues to say that when the townspeople found the deceased drifter, he was buried in Pioneer Cemetery, which was little more than a dirt patch. The grave was topped with a headstone that stated what little they knew about him. It reads, “UNKNOWN MAN DIED EATING LIBRARY PASTE JULY 14 1908.”
Skeptics point to the fact that the grave’s red paint is very bright for being more than a century old. That being said, some ascribe the fresh paint to sympathetic cemetery-goers who regularly paint over the epitaph so that the unknown man can be remembered for years to come. Others say the whole thing is just a local prank. Whatever the case, the grave serves as a cautionary tale: don’t eat glue.Anonymity has always been an exciting and challenging aspect in the online community. Twenty years ago, The New Yorker published a cartoon of a dog looking at a computer with one paw on the keyboard. The caption read: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
The Internet has drastically affected the way we see individuals and corporations. It’s a major factor in many of our daily decisions. What used to be information passed via word of mouth is now forever etched and simply found through search engines.
For instance, a client of Hersh Davis-Nitzberg, CEO of RepairBadReputation, had an issue over an invoice of $500 while running a multimillion-dollar company. The individual who felt like he was cheated reported the situation on Ripoff Report. Although his client does take some responsibility for the situation, he claims that the impact of the report was so drastic that it significantly affected his business.
How do anonymous comments and reviews play in shaping or transforming the online reputation of an individual or business? Here's what you need to know:
Prepare Your Business in Advance
Conceptually, the idea of anonymous reviews sounds great, because it protects consumers from retaliation. However, when people write anonymously, they can also report falsely or inappropriately because there is little or no risk of accountability.
With a quick examination of sites like eBay, YouTube and Yelp, you'll find a number of hostile or hateful comments. These comments, although connected to an account, do not describe the publisher's online habits.
There are two things you can do to prepare yourself and your business. First, know what you're up against. Or, as my client Tavis Bucklin, a digital marketing consultant, says, “It is important to conduct a search for both your name and your business name. Use an incognito window in the Chrome browser or an equivalent to make sure your search results are not biased based on your daily search habits. Take note of what you see on page one.”
Second, when content is published to platforms by anonymous authors, the best defense is to already have an engaged audience that will support your brand. My client Julia McCoy, founder of Express Writers, says, “One of the best strategies is for brands to create engaging content that builds trust and a strong relationship with their audience. If a negative publication surfaces, your customers will be more likely to rush to your defense to refute the claims made by one individual that do not accurately reflect the typical experience of most customers.”
You Can't Stop It, But You Can Monitor It
We place immense value in the opinions expressed by strangers without knowing what those strangers may be gaining from stating those views.
A 2015 Harvard Business School working paper, "Fake it Till You Make it," asserts that there is a serious issue with the credibility of review sites since "reviews are fundamentally undermined when businesses commit review fraud, creating fake reviews for themselves or their competitors." The study analyzes businesses caught by Yelp for creating fake reviews, and looks at the 16% of restaurant reviews filtered by Yelp and how the "prevalence of suspicious reviews has grown significantly over time."
Furthermore, the expertise or experience of a reviewer is lost within the context of anonymous statements, but that doesn't stop the sentiment from spreading. Hersh Davis-Nitzberg explains, “when something is said about you, it can easily be spread from one person to the next until the trail to the original writer becomes so cold that it is impossible to find.”
The ability to determine a reviewer's expertise is nearly impossible. There aren't any standards or tools for evaluating the credibility of an opinion expressed on the Internet.
With all of this being said, the conclusion can be summed up this way: People are free to post anonymous reviews. As a business owner, you need to monitor and properly respond to those reviews.
And would I suggest that there is truly only one proper way to respond when managing complaints or opinions about your brand online: offer an apology and a solution. This is your opportunity to turn a disgruntled customer into your brand’s evangelist. This person (or people) obviously had some sense of loyalty to your brand if they spent their money with you, “liked” your Facebook fan page, and/or followed you on Twitter. Now, however, they’ve had an unpleasant experience and usually they just want to know that they’ve been listened to and that you (the person behind the brand) will make things right.Back in January, Lord Mayor Robert Doyle announced his plans to “activate” Melbourne after dark – to turn it into the city that dines after midnight and gallery-hops until the wee hours. One of the first steps was to trial round-the-clock public transport on weekends for one year, starting from January 1, 2016. On Tuesday the Victorian Government announced the trial will be extended for another six months, until June 2017, and will cost the city an extra $38.7 million.
Mike Roszbach, owner of late-night CBD bar Nieuw Amsterdam, says 24-hour public transport is one of the best things the Victorian Government has done for small businesses like his. He believes the six-month extension serves as a precursor for what will become a permanent service. He says it’s his customers from the outer suburbs who have benefited the most – previously they had to wait long periods for taxis and spend up to $80 to get home. “Twenty-four-hour public transport means our patronage feels safe travelling to and from the city,” Roszbach says.Federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould is tabling a bill enshrining trans and gender-identity rights in Canadian law next week.
The bill, which spokesperson Joanne Ghiz confirmed will be tabled Tuesday morning, will make it officially illegal — and a hate crime — to discriminate against someone based on their gender identity.
It’s in keeping with Wilson-Raybould’s mandate letter, which directed her to introduce “government legislation to add gender identity as a prohibited ground for discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act, and to the list of distinguishing characteristics of ‘identifiable group’ protected by the hate speech provisions of the Criminal Code.”
“She’ll be introducing legislation for that next Tuesday,” Ghiz said.
Tuesday is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.
READ MORE: Trans people still aren’t counted in Canada’s hate crimes data
This law will be similar to a bill introduced in the last parliament by NDP MP Randall Garrison.
That bill passed in the House but was effectively killed in the Senate by amendments that left it ineffectual.
Not having trans rights enshrined in law matters, advocates say. It means discrimination and criminal targeting of trans or gender non-conforming people aren’t classified or tracked as hate crimes.
But it also means there isn’t a legal onus on public institutions and law enforcement to train people in how to spot and quash transphobia.
“It’s hugely significant,” Ryan Dyck, director of research policy and development with rights advocacy group Egale, told Global News earlier this spring.
“We know trans people are one of the most targeted groups. And they experience violence at a much higher rate than other people,” he said. “But because we don’t collect data, we don’t collect information on these circumstances, it makes it difficult to put in place any programming or training for police or communities that address these crimes.”
IN DEPTH: The fight for trans rights
Canadians got a reminder of the forms that kind of hatred can take when someone tried to set fire to the only clinic in the country that provides gender reassignment surgery.
Dyck welcomed the announcement Friday.
“We’ve had very productive conversations recently with the Minister, her senior staff, and other community members,” he wrote in an email.
“We are very much looking for to next week’s anticipated announcement, and are optimistic that this is the beginning of a meaningful program of action on behalf of the government to ensure that trans and gender diverse people are protected and included throughout our communities.”
Continuing debate over the rights of trans people has come to the fore over the past few months as multiple U.S. states enact laws prohibiting people from using washrooms whose gender designations don’t match the individuals’ genitalia.
Earlier this month the U.S. federal government said it’s suing North Carolina over its law discriminating against transgender people.
On Friday, President Barack Obama’s administration issued a directive to all schools telling them to let students use washrooms and change rooms consistent with their gender identity.
The fight for trans rights has come up in multiple provinces: Spencer Chandra Hebert, a New Democrat in the B.C. legislature, introduced a private member’s bill to protect gender identity in the province’s human rights code last month. B.C.’s Attorney-General has said the government won’t support the bill.
Alberta gave its school boards an ultimatum, requiring them to come up with inclusive policies on gay-straight alliances, bathroom use and other LGBTQ issues by earlier this year.
WATCH: White House spokesman Josh Ernest saysthe new guidance directing public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms matching their gender identity was issued at the request of schools and parents.Scotland is to ban the hot-branding of horses and ponies.
New regulations will be introduced in the Scottish Parliament in September to remove an exemption which allows the hot branding of equines.
Freeze branding, shown here, is considered more humane than hot branding. Freeze branding, shown here, is considered more humane than hot branding.
Under present laws, hot branding can be carried out only where specific permission is given. No more authorisations are to be granted.
"There is no place for hot branding in a country which prides itself on its high animal welfare credentials," said the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, Richard Lochhead.
"This process is painful and involves burning and scarring sensitive tissue which can clearly cause animals unnecessary stress and pain.
"The main function of branding is to identify horses and ponies but the legal requirement to microchip all equines now means that it is no longer required," he said.
"The belief that branding is unjustifiable is shared among the vast majority of veterinary and animal welfare organisations."
He called it a major step forward for equine health.
The proposal to ban hot-branding was widely supported by veterinary, equine and animal welfare groups, who made their views known during a consultation period between December and mid-March 15.
The British Equine Veterinary Association said hot branding was no longer justifiable on welfare grounds.
"The production of a hot brand requires the efficient destruction by burning of the superficial skin layers, leaving essentially a distinct scar. One of the problems with horses and ponies identified by hot brand is the great variation in the degree of this scarring," it said.
"The procedure is undoubtedly painful and reactions to branding vary from the apparently stoic to quite violent."
The British Veterinary Association supported the ban, describing hot branding as unacceptable. It said a ban was necessary on welfare grounds.
The British Horse Society said it did not consider accurate identification through hot branding to be a sufficient justification for causing pain.
Advocates for Animals said: "Hot branding of horses and other equines is an outmoded means of identification which causes unnecessary suffering and ought to be prohibited."
The Scottish SPCA also welcomed the ban. "with the advent of, and a legal requirement to microchip all equines, hot branding is no longer required," it said.
People4ponies called brands an unreliable and unnecessary form of identification.
"Branding does not improve the welfare of ponies; in fact, the handling, restraint and branding is detrimental to the overall welfare and future of the ponies."
Animal Aid said: "To remove the exemption to allow the hot branding of equine animals - would be a major step forward in equine welfare."In The Arena Nuke 'Em, Harry: Why Democrats Should Kill the Filibuster
William Yeomans worked as an attorney and senior official in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division for 24 years. He is now a fellow in law and government at American University’s Washington College of Law.
Democrats, it’s time to bid farewell to the filibuster as we’ve known it. Your restraint has gone beyond admirable to foolish. The institution for which you have shown extraordinary respect over the past four years, as Republicans flouted its best traditions, is no more. Republicans have overplayed their hand by disregarding prior agreements and turning the Senate into a graveyard—or at least a critical care unit—for obviously qualified presidential nominees. Republican obstruction has left you with nothing to lose by bringing the Senate fully into the 21st century and allowing the majority to rule. It’s time to change the rules.
In the hands of a Republican minority |
$100 million in 2008. He alleged it was wrongfully preventing him from building homes on land adjacent to his golf course.
The city — which has a budget of roughly one-quarter the size of Trump's legal claim — settled with Trump in 2012 on confidential terms. But Trump's plan for the driving range on which he is donating an easement has been far less contentious.
Though the land was still approved for the construction of 16 homes, Trump turned it into a driving range when he bought the property more than a decade ago, according to city planning documents.
In the years since, Trump did not apply to build homes on the property, and he sought approval from the California Coastal Commission to permanently approve plans that left the land as a driving range.
"Sometimes he'd make statements, saying, 'Well, maybe I'd put homes there instead of the driving range,'" said Joel Rojas, the city's community development director. But there were never any concrete plans to build.
Trump received that approval last year, Rojas said, which prevents him even from applying to build homes on the driving range.
When Trump announced four months later that he will permanently forgo building on the range, he said the land was worth more than $25 million.
Zerbe, the former Senate lawyer, said tax deductions for such projects are unquestionably legal but noted that building homes there instead would have complicated Trump's golf plans.
"You're not going to have a golf course without a driving range," he said.The operators of a famous Malaysian restaurant in Melbourne are being taken to court for allegedly underpaying workers almost $90,000 and falsifying records to disguise dodgy payments while under investigation.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has launched legal action against the owners of the popular Mamak restaurants, alleging employees were paid as little as $11 an hour - half the legal rate for adult hospitality workers.
Mamak Malaysian restaurant in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. Credit:Penny Stephens
Between February 2012 and April 2015, Mamak Pty Ltd allegedly short-changed six foreign workers a total of $87,349 at one of its two Sydney restaurants. Two of the workers were allegedly denied more than $20,000 each.
According to Fair Work, its inspectors were also allegedly given false records that made it look like higher rates were paid to one worker when this was not the case.For those in business, staying up-to-date with news related to customers, competitors and industry is important. Unfortunately few services curate this information in a personalized way.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a Facebook for business—a platform that could alert you of new opportunities and threats to your company as well as general developments in your industry? Whether you work in marketing or business development, at a multinational retail chain or a tech startup, the right information can help you identify leads, predict competitor actions, ward off damage to your company’s reputation, and more.
Several popular, freely-available sources provide this information, but they have their drawbacks.
Subscribing to mailing lists, consuming social media feeds, and (for more technical folks) employing an RSS reader are all ways of staying informed. But scanning these sources (not to mention configuring readers) can take time. Smart people automate, which allows them to avoid searching through large volumes of content to find the updates they need.
Google provides two well-known options: Google News, which helps users find the latest news stories related to their areas of interest, and Google Search, which provides a comprehensive list of results matching the search terms they enter. Google Search returns highly-relevant results. One major drawback? Every time users want to check for new updates, they have to visit the Google website and reenter their keywords. The same is true of Google News.
Another disadvantage of these solutions is that users have to choose between getting the most relevant results (with Google Search) and the most recent results (with Google News). Why can’t they get both? Perhaps worst of all, searchers often have to read through many results to find those that are useful (Google Search’s list format requires a good deal of scanning effort).
Then there’s Google Alerts. Google Alerts (GA) provides more immediate results by sending out emails when content related to a user’s keywords is published on blogs, online forums and corporate websites. GA is meant to provide results that are both new and – because they’re based on specified keywords – relevant. Unfortunately, this isn’t always what users get.
Let’s say you’re tracking “Ford” to see if you should keep the auto company in your investment portfolio. Using Google could turn up a Kijiji ad for a low-mileage Ford Escort. You may have to click through several pages containing this type of results, and you’ll likely wind up opening some irrelevant links.
Unless carrying out daily research on specified topics is your only task at work, you probably don’t have the time to dip continuously into an ocean of information to find new and noteworthy content. In fact, spending excessive time in an inbox or on blogs or social media can get many people fired.
It’s a tricky issue. For many professionals, having the latest intel is essential to making good, informed professional decisions. An ideal solution would include technology that automatically aggregates relevant information from a user’s many feeds, compiling them into one intuitive dashboard. It would be available whenever the user had time to check it, but it would also send out alerts when time-sensitive information became available. Until recently, no such solution existed.
Having recognized this problem, our team at Gnowit – a web-monitoring and intelligence company – developed a product that can draw in, analyze, and visualize a user’s Google Alerts results. We are now moving this product into open beta for a limited time (until the launch on January 28).
Gnowit’s Data Visualization for Google Alerts uses the same full-site monitoring, full-text analytics, and workflow-automation technology that powers our company’s other solutions (which include media monitoring, Canadian Government publication monitoring, and custom enterprise solutions that process and provide insight into very large volumes of data).
Google Alerts users can stop making decisions out of their inbox. It’s no longer necessary to read every email from Google. Now, you can access full-text filters that eliminate duplicate content, enable document previews via automatically-extracted summaries, and allow you to organize results by various criteria (including topic, keyword, sentiment, and date).
Gnowit’s Data Visualization for Google Alerts is available at a compelling price – free. Open-beta participants can create more searches than subsequent users, a benefit they will retain for life. Existing beta users have found themselves spending less time engaged in monitoring activities. Gnowit has helped them increase their productivity and pick up on all business signals relevant to their work.
Power users have taken advantage of an upgrade that has allowed them to get up to 100x more results from crawlers run directly by Gnowit. These results are delivered within minutes of being published (as opposed to every hour, which is the case with Google) and are made more useful through the advanced archiving, translation, report-generation, and business-signal mapping capabilities provided by Gnowit’s flagship products.The iconic former Valencia goalkeeper is concerned by the appointment of Gary Neville as the club's new head coach
Santiago Canizares has major doubts over the appointment of Gary Neville at Valencia, claiming the Spanish club is "no place for apprentices".Canizares, who made over 400 appearances winning two league titles during a 10-year stay at the Mestalla, says Neville is anonymous amongst fans and will not be given the luxury of time to settle in Spain.The Valencia great also raised concerns over Neville's experience as a coach, with the former Manchester United and England defender-turned-pundit venturing into his first managerial position."In Valencia we know almost nothing about Gary Neville, he's an unknown," the 45-year-old retired goalkeeper said."Being a good analyst is not the same as being a good coach. Valencia is not a team for experiments, it's not a place for a coach to get his apprenticeship."Three years ago the club gave a former player, Mauricio Pellegrino, his first proper coaching job. There were similarities with Neville, in fact. But it did not work out. So that's why there are doubts."[Owner Peter Lim] has hired someone he knows, a friend who happens to have coaching badges. He has very good personal references."But what is he like as a coach? No one knows because he has no experience. It is one thing to give your opinion and another to get things working on the pitch."Canizares cited the difficulties former United boss David Moyes faced during his spell with Real Sociedad, which was brought to a premature end after just 12 months in November."The main difficulty he'll have is the language and getting to grips with Spanish football," he continued."Moyes didn't adapt to Spanish football, he didn't learn the language, didn't connect with the Sociedad players and couldn't transmit his philosophy. He was a disaster."With Valencia sitting ninth in La Liga, Neville's priority will be to lift the club into a top-four position and qualify for the Champions League, according to Canizares."There is still a long way to go this season and Valencia are only five points behind fourth, so it's not difficult, especially because none of the teams above them have the squad that Valencia have," he added."If he can get Valencia to perform at even 80 per cent of their potential they will achieve that objective, so it's all set up nicely for him."NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wall Street's meltdown has put the squeeze on all sorts of lending, and home loans are no exception. Now, even some very well-qualified home buyers are getting turned down for mortgages.
"A lot of good, well-qualified people are being turned away for no good reason," said Mark Savitt, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers and a mortgage broker in West Virginia. "The wheels are coming to a grinding halt."
Sometimes the rejections seem completely inexplicable. Long Island, N.Y.-based mortgage broker Bob Moulton had one client with substantial income and assets who planned to put down $1.2 million on a house selling for $2.2 million. For this borrower, a mortgage should have been a snap. But it wasn't.
The hitch: The buyer was a few days late with a single mortgage payment last year when he was away on vacation. That lowered his credit score to 679, which is the reason the lender cited when it denied his loan.
"Just a little ding on his credit report, one late payment a year-and-a-half ago," said Moulton. "Everything else was fine."
Higher rates
Another example comes from Savitt. One of his clients was buying a home for $205,000, putting down 20%. The buyer had an excellent credit score in the mid-700s, and the house was appraised at a little higher than the sale price.
The problem here: The borrower's debt to income ratio would be at about 45 - slightly higher than what most banks like to see, but by no means excessive. And his other risk factors were great.
"The bank turned it down over excessive debt ratio," said Savitt. "That's crazy."
And higher interest rates are making it even harder for borrowers to get a loan. The 30-year fixed rate has shot up in the wake of the financial crisis - to 6.09%, compared with 5.78% last week - making monthly mortgage payments higher as well. That's raising the debt to income ratio for most borrowers, which means more will have their loan applications rejected.
"
It used to be that if most of a borrower's qualifications were quite strong - income, assets, credit score and the value of the home itself - lenders would use their judgment to make exceptions if one factor was a bit weak.
A lender might accept a less than stellar credit score, for example, if the borrower was making a big down payment, or forgive a modest income if the borrower's bank account was fat enough.
Not any more, says Alan Rosenbaum, president of New York City mortgage broker GuardHill Finance.
"There are no exceptions today," said Rosenbaum. "If an application does not meet each of the guidelines - and those guidelines themselves have gotten more strict - it's denied."
That means many more people simply no longer qualify for a mortgage.
A numbers game
"I get as many phone calls as I got two years ago," said broker George Hanzimanolis, of Bankers First Mortgage in Pennsylvania, "but I bet you 40% of the people calling in, we can't do anything for, versus 5% a year ago."
And Hanzimanolis say it's gotten worse in the last few weeks. One recent client who had excellent assets and income wanted to refinance his first and second mortgages. The house was valued at $1.6 million, and he was looking for a $1.2 million loan. That's an excellent loan-to-value ratio of 75%; the banks like it to be no more than 80%.
But these days many lenders are anticipating that home prices will continue to fall, so they're automatically discounting every home's appraised value by 10%.
That dropped the value of the borrower's home to $1.44 million, which put him over the 80% loan-to-value ratio. So the loan was turned down.
Things like that make brokering mortgage loans today a struggle, according to Moulton.
"Nothing is making sense. Everything is torture right now," he said. "We're getting things done but it takes enormous effort. You think a deal is vanilla and it turns out to be rocky road."Max Verstappen will become the youngest driver in Formula 1 history next season when he races for Toro Rosso
Max Verstappen will become the youngest driver ever to take part in a grand prix weekend when he drives in first practice in Japan on Friday.
The Dutchman, who is 17 on Tuesday, is making his debut for the Toro Rosso team, for whom he will race in 2015.
He will drive Jean-Eric Vergne's car in preparation for next season when he replaces the French driver.
"To be already participating in a practice session is a dream come true," Verstappen said.
F1's youngest drivers Jaime Alguersuari 19 years, 125 days 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix Mike Thackwell 19 years, 182 days 1980 Canadian Grand Prix Ricardo Rodriguez 19 years, 208 days 1961 Italian Grand Prix Fernando Alonso 19 years, 218 days 2001 Australian Grand Prix Esteban Tuero 19 years, 320 days 1998 Australian Grand Prix
"It will be a very valuable experience, spending some time in the car and also getting used to working with everyone in the team, to prepare myself for next year.
"I am not going there to break any records, I just want to gain experience."
Suzuka is renowned as one of the toughest circuits in the world and is regarded as an extreme test for even the most experienced drivers.
Verstappen said he had spoken to his father, the former F1 driver Jos Verstappen, about the circuit and had been warned it is "not an easy track to start on".
Max Verstappen added: "I have spent one day driving this track on the simulator, which helps a bit, but it's no substitute for driving it for real.
Verstappen was the centre of media attention at the Belgian Grand Prix last month
"My first impression is that it's not an easy track and for example it looks hard to get the combination right in the first Esses.
"I have one and a half hours to drive there and I'm looking forward to doing a good job, for myself and for the team."
Verstappen has less than one year's experience in car racing but Red Bull, who use Toro Rosso as a junior team, say they have promoted him because he is a "once in a generation talent".
The company's motorsport adviser Helmut Marko compared Verstappen to the great three-time world champion Ayrton Senna in an interview last week.COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohioans will decide Nov. 3 whether to legalize marijuana for recreational and medical use.
There have been many questions about Issue 3, the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot, and the group behind the initiative, ResponsibleOhio.
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about the initiative, as well as links to more information about ResponsibleOhio and Issue 2, a competing measure intended to stop Issue 3.
What do you want to know about Issue 3? Share your questions in the comments section below.
The full amendment is attached after the questions.
Could I smoke or consume marijuana in public?
Where could marijuana be grown?
Who are these investors?
Who would regulate the industry?
Where could I buy marijuana?
How could I open a retail store or make marijuana products?
What are the qualifications for medical marijuana?
If I use marijuana, can my employer still drug test me?
Would driving while high be legal?
How would Ohio's marijuana possession laws change?
Could I sell homegrown marijuana?
How much would marijuana be taxed and where would the revenues go?
Who supports this plan?
Who opposes this plan?
What is Issue 2?
What happens if both Issue 2 and Issue 3 pass?
See amendment text
Could I smoke or consume marijuana in public?
No. The amendment prohibits marijuana use in a public place or on the grounds of elementary and secondary schools, daycare centers and correctional facilities or in a vehicle, aircraft, train or motorboat.
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Where could marijuana be grown?
Adults age 21 and older could grow up to four flowering plants at a time, in a secure area obscured from public view. There's no limit on nonflowering plants. Growers would have to obtain a $50 homegrow license. ResponsibleOhio's website says the limit is per household, but the amendment does not specify per household.
Commercial marijuana sold in Ohio could only be grown at 10 "marijuana growth, cultivation and extraction facilities." Facility sites are listed in the amendment, in the following counties: Butler, Clermont, Delaware, Franklin, Hamilton, Licking, Lorain, Lucas, Stark and Summit. The 10 sites are owned or optioned by campaign investors who have raised more than $36 million to push the initiative.
Local zoning laws could not be changed to prevent these facilities from opening.
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Who are these investors?
ResponsibleOhio has made the following investors known: Nanette Lepore, Barbara Gould, Paul Heldman, Woody Taft, Dudley Taft Jr., Frank Wood, Rick Kirk, William J. Foster, Frostee Rucker, Oscar Robertson, Dr. Suresh Gupta, Sir Alan Mooney, Bobby George, Tony Giardini, David Bastos, Jennifer Doering, Brian Kessler, Nick Lachey, William "Cheney" Pruett, John Humphrey, Keith Orr, and Dwight Pruett.
But filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show there are dozens more investors whose names are not known.
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Who would regulate the industry?
The amendment would create a seven-member Marijuana Control Commission, with members appointed by the governor, to write most of the industry's rules and procedures including packaging requirements and health and safety regulations.
The commission would be composed of a licensed Ohio physician; a sworn Ohio law enforcement officer; a licensed Ohio attorney experienced in administrative law; an Ohio-based patient advocate; an Ohio resident with demonstrated experience in owning, developing, managing and operating businesses; an Ohio resident with demonstrated experience in the legal marijuana industry; and a public member. None could have served as elected officials in the eight years prior to their appointment.
The commission would issue licenses for stores and dispensaries, marijuana product manufacturers and home growers.
The commission would conduct an annual audit to determine whether demand is being met by the commercial growing facilities. The commission may suspend or revoke commercial grow licenses and after four years, add an 11th site if demand is not being met.
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Where could I buy marijuana?
The amendment allows one retail marijuana store per 10,000 residents, which would allow up to 1,150 stores, according to the latest census. Retail store licenses would have to be approved by voters in the precinct where the store would be located, similar to liquor options.
Dispensaries would sell marijuana at wholesale to people who meet the qualifications. If all deadlines in the amendment are met, legal marijuana could be for sale as early as summer 2016.
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How could I open a retail store or manufacture marijuana?
The Marijuana Control Commission must establish rules for retail and manufacturing license applicants. The number of retail stores is capped at 1 per 10,000 residents according to the U.S. Census -- up to 1,150 retail licenses -- and the commission would decide how many stores can be located within a city, county or other municipality.
Stores and manufacturing facilities could not be within 1,000 feet of a church, school, library or daycare center and local zoning laws could not be changed to prevent retail stores and dispensaries from opening, except if an area is zoned for residential use only. Retail stores would have to be approved by voters in a local election, similar to how liquor licenses are granted now. Retail store owners would have to pay a license fee of $10,000 each year.
An unlimited number of licenses would be available to manufacture marijuana candies, lotions, and other products. Manufacturers would have to pay a $25,000 annual fee.
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What are the qualifications for medical marijuana?
Patients must receive a physician's certification to take cannabis to treat a qualifying medical condition. The patient must have an existing relationship with the physician. The amendment details the initial list of qualifying conditions: cancer, glaucoma, HIV or AIDS, hepatitis C, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Crohn's disease, sickle-cell anemia, ulcerative colitis, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, cachexia, post-traumatic stress disorder, severe pain, severe nausea, seizures, including those that are characteristic of epilepsy, or persistent muscle spasms, including those that are characteristic of multiple sclerosis. The commission will review the list annually and add conditions to reflect peer-reviewed medical research.
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If I use marijuana, can my employer still drug test me?
Yes. Marijuana is illegal according to federal law. Judges have ruled that state marijuana laws do not prevent employers from setting and enforcing their own drug-free policies. However, ResponsibleOhio's amendment requires employers to allow medical patients to consume marijuana recommended to them by a doctor in the same way they're allowed to take prescription medications.
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Would driving while high be legal?
No. The amendment prohibits operating or controlling a vehicle, aircraft, train or motorboat while under the influence of marijuana. The General Assembly is tasked with writing laws to enforce this.
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How would Ohio's marijuana possession laws change?
Ohio decriminalized marijuana decades ago. Possessing a small amount of marijuana -- less than 100 grams -- is a minor misdemeanor that carries no jail time and does not create a criminal record. In many parts of the state, any drug conviction carries a mandatory driver's license suspension for at least six months.
Issue 3 would legalize possession of up to 8 ounces (about 224 grams) of homegrown marijuana and 1 ounce (about 28 grams) of purchased marijuana. Issue 3 tasks the legislature with toughening penalties for selling to minors and adding "child endangerment" to those violations.
Issue 3 makes no other changes to possession laws, so if you're caught with more than 28 grams of purchased marijuana but less than 100 grams, you'd still have to pay a fine and might lose your driver's license for six months. And dealers and unlicensed homegrowers caught with more than 8 ounces of marijuana would still face felony charges.
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Could I sell homegrown marijuana?
No. The amendment allows adults to share up to 8 ounces of marijuana but not transport it. The amendment also prohibits bartering or trading homegrown marijuana.
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How much would marijuana be taxed and where would the revenues go?
Commercial marijuana would be taxed 15 percent at the wholesale and manufacturing levels and 5 percent at the retail level. ResponsibleOhio estimates the effective tax rate would average to about 23 percent, with the effective rate on edibles at roughly 26 percent and the effective rate on flowers at about 21 percent.
ResponsibleOhio estimates legalization would generate $554 million in annual tax revenues after the industry is fully operational in four years.
Revenues would go to several places:
5 percent to municipalities and townships on a per capita basis for public safety and health services
30 percent to each county on a per capita basis for public safety and health services
15 percent to fund the commission, a marijuana business incubator, non-profit medical marijuana dispensaries, mental health and addiction prevention and treatment programs, and a program to subsidize medical marijuana for patients who cannot afford the full cost
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Who supports this plan?
In addition to the investors, Issue 3 has been endorsed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, national NORML, and several urban Ohio city leaders. Click here to see the list of individuals and groups outside of ResponsibleOhio that support the measure.
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Who opposes this plan?
Medical associations, children's hospitals, business groups and politicians have opposed Issue 3. Click here to see the list of individuals and groups outside of ResponsibleOhio that oppose the measure.
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What is Issue 2?
Issue 2 is a constitutional amendment proposed the the Ohio General Assembly. Issue 2 prohibits monopolies, oligopolies, and cartels from being written into the Ohio Constitution. Proposed constitutional amendments that grant monopolies or other economic rights could still become law, but voters would first have to vote "yes" on a question exempting it from the rule.
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What happens if Issue 2 and 3 pass?
Issue 2 has a paragraph nullifying any initiative about a Schedule 1 substance, which marijuana is, if both pass. Issue 2 supporters say their amendment would take effect first. But the Ohio Constitution says the issue that receives the largest majority votes becomes law. The matter would likely be decided by the Ohio Supreme Court.
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Most of the answers for the above questions came from the proposed constitutional amendment. Relevant paragraphs are highlighted in the document below, starting on page 7.
Mobile readers, click here to read the amendment.3.5k SHARES Facebook Twitter
After Donald Trump was given a Purple Heart medal from a veteran, Trump quipped, “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.” Purple Heart recipient Sean Davis responds.
This morning, I heard retired LTC Louis Dorfman gave you his Purple Heart. Having a Purple Heart myself, knowing what it takes to get that medal, knowing the toll that award has taken on me, both mentally and physically, I can’t stop thinking about this.
You probably don’t know the Purple Heart was established by George Washington during the Revolutionary War. It was the first award in our military. Today, the Purple Heart is “awarded to members of the armed forces of the U.S. who are wounded by an instrument of war in the hands of the enemy and posthumously to the next of kin in the name of those who are killed in action or die of wounds received in action.”
In my case, it was a violent and coordinated ambush in Taji, Iraq. A vehicle packed with munitions exploded next to my Humvee while we were on a patrol to find and arrest a suspected arms dealer. The blast critically injured me and killed my gunner, and dear friend, instantly. We both received Purple Hearts that day. My driver pulled me out of the truck and when a secondary explosion went off, he shielded me from the blast with his own body, taking shrapnel in his arm and back. He received a Purple Heart that day. Another good friend ran while under direct fire with a medic bag to try to help us and the secondary explosion critically injured him. He also received a Purple Heart that day.
So, when I heard you quip, “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier,” my first reaction was anger and indignation. How could someone give something I hold sacred to you, a person so full of hate and ignorance? Why would anyone give this award I hold so precious to a man who so obviously has no idea what it really means?
But the truth of the matter is, I don’t own the medal, Mr. Trump. I don’t own war, and I surely don’t own being a veteran. I only own my past and what I believe. It took me years to come to this conclusion.
So, please give me a minute of your time and keep reading. I gave my Purple Heart to my nine-year-old son when I first came back, twelve years ago. He saw my bandages and later my scars. He also saw how the war changed me. I gave him my Purple Heart with the hope that it would help him understand sacrifice and duty. Not just my own, but my brothers who died and the others who were wounded, as well as all the men and women who risk their lives to defend our great country.
My son has grown to be a fine young man that I am proud of and love dearly. I do believe that giving him the medal helped in some way. So I want to believe that this retired Lieutenant Colonel giving you his Purple Heart is a good thing. I want to believe this because, considering the number of times you have superficially invoked war veterans, you obviously need to learn more about sacrifice and duty. These are two topics that weigh heavy on all veterans. These are two topics, taking in account your dispute with Gold Star families, you desperately need to understand.
My hope is that you don’t give that medal to a staffer to file away and lose. My hope is that you hold that heart-shaped medal in your hand and feel the weight of it. I sincerely wish it crushes you at first. You need to come to a realization, Mr. Trump. Veterans and their family members are not props. Sacrifice and duty is how we’ve lived our lives and we understand that these are the foundations our great country was built on, and it is our duty to ensure no one, not even a presidential candidate with billions of dollars, trivializes or belittles our sacrifice.In the midst of more big-name foreign signings in Major League Soccer, the players that teams hope will define the league’s future toil in much smaller venues. The 2015 season marks the third year of MLS’s affiliation with the United Soccer League, replacing the old Reserve League.
“Reserve leagues throughout the world, they rarely have a lot of benefits,” USL president Jake Edwards told SI.com in a recent phone interview. “The games are not competitive, and they’re not played in front of very many people. They don’t serve the purpose that they need to.”
Under the new system, less experienced players who aren’t ready for the jump to MLS or are simply crowded out by more talented teammates can play meaningful games where teams compete for a national championship.
“When we had the Reserve League, it was all younger players sort of playing against each other within the league,” MLS executive vice president of player relations and competition Todd Durbin told SI.com. “That’s good in terms of getting them games, but that’s different than playing a non-affiliated team [where] you have pros of various ages and experience, and they’re out on the field with the goal of winning the league. It’s that environment, and it’s that week-in and week-out, high-level competition that we think is fundamental to developing players.”
Kaká pulls the strings for Orlando City SC, David Villa is tasked with scoring for New York City FC and Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard are set to anchor NYCFC and the LA Galaxy’s midfields, respectively, starting this summer. But the next big American talent could be playing in the USL right now.
“If we’re going to continue to improve the product on the field, there are two ways to do it: one is to import players by going out into the international market and bringing players in, and the other way is to develop them. You have to do both,” Durbin said. “If we are going to continue our growth, and if we’re going to be successful long-term, a very, very important part of that is player development, and this partnership is central to that.”
It started with four teams in each league forming a loan agreement in 2013 in lieu of fielding reserve squads, along with friendly matches between USL teams and the remaining MLS reserve teams. In 2014, it grew to 11 affiliations, and LA Galaxy II began playing in the USL under the same ownership as the first team.
Full elimination of the MLS Reserve League followed in 2015, with eight MLS-owned teams in the USL now and the 12 other MLS teams forming affiliations. The lower league now comprises 24 teams, double the number it contained in 2011. The only four teams in USL without an MLS affiliation are the Orange County Blues, Colorado Springs Switchbacks, Tulsa Roughnecks and Pittsburgh Riverhounds.
The MLS-USL partnership model sits between the European system in countries such as Germany and Spain, where reserve teams play a minimum of two tiers underneath the first team in the pyramid, and the North American minor-league baseball and hockey system of affiliating with lower teams throughout the continent for developmental purposes.
Scores of top-level players in Europe started their careers for reserve teams in the third or fourth division before earning consistent first-team places. Xavi debuted for Barcelona B in 1997, as did Lionel Messi in 2004.
Officials see the growing partnership between MLS and the USL as a major turning point to raise the level of lower-division soccer in the American game. Edwards spent his career in his native England’s lower divisions, and he wants players in the United States to be able to make a living outside MLS.
“If the top division and the national team programs are going to succeed, you need a robust league below,” he said. “Our league is an aspirational league—it’s a professional league with the opportunity for talented players.”
Durbin, who brokered MLS contract agreements with Landon Donovan and Cuauhtémoc Blanco as part of the thousands of deals he’s signed, echoed Edwards’ sentiments.
“As our country grows and evolves, part of what happens is that not only are we going to continue to have a thriving first division, but to have a thriving second and third division is also very important,” Durbin said. “I think that’s part of just the natural growth and evolution of the sport in this country.”
MLS teams can loan first-team players to affiliates, such as Will Johnson joining Portland Timbers 2 in the final stages of his rehabilitation from a broken leg. Players can also sign USL-exclusive contracts. MLS “2” teams operate under USL rules and regulations, as well as some MLS roster rules when it comes to player movement.
As part of any loan arrangement, teams are required to disclose contract terms as they would for permanent roster members. This prevents using a USL affiliate to circumvent the MLS salary cap.
The agreement encourages MLS teams to invest more resources in their academies and take more chances on Homegrown Players, giving them a place to play before the first team. It’s a step in the right direction toward bridging the pesky gap between the oldest youth ages and first-team environments.
That area has proven problematic in recent years, with the college system coming under more scrutiny than ever. Reduced training opportunities and a condensed match calendar are more likely to cause stagnation at ages where players elsewhere around the world begin to establish themselves as full-time professionals.
A proposal in front of the NCAA to split the season into fall and spring halves will be stuck in bureaucratic limbo for a while. Meanwhile, the modest spending on MLS academies increases annually, and players often leave college early.
The USL now exists to provide opportunity for younger professionals and those cast away from the first team. Beyond the professional leagues, Edwards said existing MLS and USL teams are being encouraged to either start or adopt existing franchises in the Premier Development League, USL’s under-23 amateur league.
The Northwest MLS teams pioneered the concept of using their own PDL teams to keep tabs on Homegrown Player prospects, giving them a place to train in the summer to maintain their status. Others have sprouted in recent years, including under D.C. United, the New York Red Bulls and Orlando City’s banners.
“It’s hugely valuable to the MLS clubs—65, 70 percent of draftees every year in the MLS SuperDraft have played in the PDL,” Edwards said. “It will continue to play a major role in terms of the development laboratory, let’s call it, for players to come onto the USL and become professionals.”
At all levels, the USL is growing at a record rate. A record 13 expansion teams joined the league in 2015, and further announcements are on the way for 2016 and 2017.
“We’ve worked hard to get into this position, and we are able now to really critically evaluate all ownership groups that are putting business plans together for the various markets that we’re looking at,” Edwards said. “They not only meet ownership requirements and capitalization requirements and appropriate stadium requirements, but they add value to the league.”
Beyond expansion, the league also wants to raise standards for existing teams. Architectural firm HOK signed an agreement to lead an overhaul in stadium standards throughout the league, with MLS “2” teams held to the same requirement as independent franchises.
“We’ve got some really great venues, but we’ve got some venues that need a bit of work. Everybody that’s coming in now is coming in with a stadium plan in hand to build a 10,000-seat stadium,” Edwards said. “It’s critical that we get to the stage where our games are in these 8-to-10,000-seat stadiums with a good crowd in there. The markets that we’re in should sustain those kinds of stadiums.”
Edwards admitted it’s an ambitious project, as the numbers show. Besides the MLS expansion candidate Sacramento Republic, no team in the USL currently breaks 6,000 average spectators, let alone the five-digit mark.
“I think that’s the future,” Edwards said. “We’re not there now, but in the next three to five years, we’ll be there.”During its weekly meeting, Central Student Government proposed resolutions to compensate its assembly members financially and to create a student Regent that would serve on the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents.
The compensation resolution, if passed, would pay CSG members for their work in the organization. In its proposed form, the president and vice president would be compensated hourly and representatives would receive stipends. Historically, CSG members have not been paid, as they are often considered a volunteer positions. However, many universities do pay their student government representatives.
Last year’s Leadership Engagement Scholarship was created to provide funding for low income student leaders interested in extracurricular activities they may not have time for otherwise. The scholarship received backlash, however, due to the possibility of increasing the student fee paid for CSG's budget.
Members of the assembly, however, had concerns with the resolution |
castle (reconstruction), Lütjenburg, Germany: PD
32. Castle-of-Gisors–Donjon-type-,-Gisors,-France: Nitot
33. Keep,-Cardiff-Castle,-Cardiff,-England: FotosImagenes.org
34. Cloister-of-Fontenay-Abbey,-Marmagne,-France: Jjpetite
35. Kaiserpfalz Goslar,-Goslar,-Germany: GDA Senioren-Residenz Schwiecheldthaus GmbH
36. reconstruction-of-an-archetypical-long-house: Alamannen-Museum Vörstetten
37. Romanesque-town-house,-Cluny,-France: MOSSOT
38. Romanesque-town-house,-Bad-Muenstereifel,-Germany: Putput
39. Overstolzenhaus-(postwar-reconstruction),-Cologne,-Germany: Rolf Heinrich
40. Korenstapelhuis,-Ghent,-Belgium: WikimediaWaterboarding is 'drowning', 'water torture': expert testimony David Edwards and Adam Doster
Published: Saturday November 10, 2007
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Print This Email This Interrogation expert Malcolm Nance, who serves as a counterterrorism and intelligence consultant for the U.S. government and was formerly an instructor at the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school in California, did not mince when detailing the dangers of waterboarding, the highly controversial interrogation technique to which he was previously subjected. "I didn't feel like I was about to die, but I understood that the process of degrading my respiratory system was taking effect," he said in an interview with ABC News' Brian Ross. "I was drowning." Nance experienced this simulation during staff instructor training at the Navy school. Because the staff must be exposed to all of the processes any student would ever encounter, the dangerous tactic was required as well. "I know my first thought was, 'I'm being tortured,'" he said, "'and this is not a simulation.'" Nance, who has served 17 years with the Navy, pointed out that waterboarding videos circulating in the media don't accurately depict the procedure, which he says involves "a very rapid process where a person is put onto a table and then water is introduced to the point where it overcomes their ability to swallow or spit it away," eventually filling the lungs. On Wednesday, Nance told a House subcommittee that "waterboarding should be banned." As an instructor, Nance conducted "prisoner of war and terrorist hostage survival programs," according to an AP report. The following video is from ABCNews.com's Brian Ross Investigates and MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast on November 8 and 9, 2007.After more than seven months of development and ten release candidates, the OpenOffice.org development team has issued the final version of OpenOffice.org 3.3.0. The latest major release of the Oracle owned open source office suite comes six weeks after version 3.3 of Oracle Open Office was released in mid-December.
OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 features an updated, easier to use, Extension Manager user interface (UI) and several improvements to Calc spreadsheets, such as an increase in the number of rows supported from 65,536 to 1,048,576. The print system has been restructured, the thesaurus dialogue has been redesigned for better usability and slide layout handling has been improved in the presentation application, Impress.
Other changes include the addition of coloured individual spreadsheet tabs and PDF export updates that allow users to optionally embed the standard 14 PDF fonts. Improvements to document security include updates to the save file with a password function that allows users to add an additional password to protect a document from being edited.
Following four months of development, the Document Foundation released the final version of LibreOffice 3.3 yesterday. LibreOffice was created last September due to the community's frustration with Oracle's OpenOffice plans and development. Since breaking away from Oracle, an increase in the number of developers and a more open source friendly development model has allowed the Foundation to release ahead of its "aggressive schedule", and to offer a number of new and original features which distinguish LibreOffice 3.3 from Oracle's OpenOffice 3.3.
More details about the OpenOffice.org release can be found on the OpenOffice.org 3.3 New Features page and in the release notes. OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 is available to download for Windows, Mac OS X and Solaris from the project's site. OpenOffice.org is available under version 3 of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPLv3).
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(crve)Best days of our lives. Truly the internet age has made more music accessible to more of us than ever before. With infa-red agility we can swing between our competing desires and fill our homes, heads and cars with the latest sounds at the click of a mouse. A lot of things shared among tight communities are now accessible to any of us.
In the sphere of dance music this means unprecedented access to DJ mixes, podcasts, a never-ending luxuriant stream of the hottest sounds played by the hottest mixologists on the planet. All in danger of being ruined by that other thing that’s flourishing in the modern age. The shit MC.
You know the shit MC. The one who ruins those live-sets at four in the morning by bellowing over the music, usually a mix of stentorian nonsense, pointless shout-outs and cretinous rabble-rousing, puncturing the flow and cumulative build of the DJ's skills by continually asking for hands in the air, repeatedly demanding we make some noise when all we want to do is dance.
The shit MC can be found on any mix but is most prevalent on d&b mixes or live sets at the moment. Drum & bass, perhaps more than any other type of music, relies on a mix between spontaneity and sureness of touch. Occasionally a great set can be enlivened by the right voice, saying little, but having maximum impact when they let a track roll out or know the music enough to know when to chat, build pressure, release tension, when to stfu.
The shit MC pays little attention to the music. The shit MC doesn’t sense the vibe of a venue or club, the shit MC just wants to foreground his massively limited verbal skills in ugly chuntering whorls of gibberish that entirely destroy the sense of flow and finesse the DJ is bringing to the room.
MC'ing should always be a contact sport, not a solo wankfest — in its earliest incarnations with people like U-Roy and Brigadier Jerry and Nicodemus you can hear in those yard-tapes the sense of people fighting for the mic, and once on it justifying that struggle.
As dancehall spread worldwide the best MCs spat pure science: check out any Saxon Sound System tapes from the early '80s and get a lesson from Tippa Irie, Papa Levi, Peter King et al about how to command a mic AND sit in a groove, drop bombs lyrically but never disrupt the dancefloor.
MCs like Dynamite, GQ, Fearless, Flux, Hyper D, Rebel MC and the Ragga Twins were vital voices in early d&b, lighting up mixes with their bruising backchat, obviously massively influenced by those early dancehall pioneers.
Trouble is — today’s d&b MCs haven’t listened, haven’t learned from the right people, bring an overwhelmingly arrogant sense of the MC as pure Butlins Redcoat, whipping up a crowd that need no such thing, hollering (they always holler, usually way too loud in the mix) a grab-bag of shout-outs, borrowed rap lyrics and assorted gibberish over music that doesn’t need it, to crowds who don’t want it.
It’s often simply a case of MCs who don’t know the music they’re MCing over. If a track already has vocals, we want to hear them, we don’t want them smeared with a barrel-load of bantering bollocks that just fucks with the mood and feel. A good DJ/MC combo can elevate the vibe at all the right moments, propel things forward at all the right speeds but a bad DJ/MC combo can stall the flow, deflate the vibe, leave most punters thinking “the music’s great but when is this utterly incomprehensible buffoon gonna shut the fuck up?”
MCing was once a vital part of d&b culture, the bridge between the DJ and the crowd, the umbilicus link back to the reggae, dub & dancehall roots that so massively fed and nurtured d&b culture.
The crucial failing of the bad MCs so prevalent at the moment is in forgetting that reggae side to things and thinking rap invented the MC. A good d&b MC can take a set to another level, focus the crowd not thru aggression, arrogance or hostility (all good things in a rap MC) but through warmth of tone and heartfelt purpose i.e. making sure people have as good a time as possible.
Too many times in recent months otherwise superb mixes and sets have been sabotaged by some chucklehead on the mic who thinks laziness will do, who loftily thinks the crowd deserve only to hear his own smug coasting around his own lyrical limitations.
C’mon DJs, promoters, the punters deserve better. Secure MCs for your slots who know the crucial part MCs have played in bass-music history, and know the difference between dominating a mic and letting the music speak for itself.Avenging Spider-Man is coming to an end, but— effectively what Avenging Spider-Man had previously been — is launching in July, with a new #1. The book will keep Avenging writer Chris Yost, with art from David Lopez, and a cover to #1 by Paolo Rivera. "takes fans across the entire Marvel Universe and pits Superior Spider-Man against heroes and foes you wouldn’t necessarily think he'd rub shoulders with," said Marvel senior editor Stephen Wacker in a statement. "More and more people in the Marvel Universe are starting to sense a change in Spider-Man, and being able to see Chris put Spidey in those situations is going to have my inbox full of team-up requests! (So stay strong Songbird fans!)" Yost talked about the switch in an interview with CBR, saying, "Well, in my heart when I say "Team-Up" for "Superior Spider-Man," I probably mean "Versus." In the latest "Avenging" issues, we've seen that he has a fairly contentious relationship with most of the heroes he's encountered. And with, that just gets bigger. I think in issue #1, he teams up with pretty much the entire Marvel Universe." Hinting towards May's, billed as a "gamechanger" issue, Yost said, "As you'll be seeing in the months to come starting in, Spidey’s gone through some changes, and will expand his operations. He's going to be the best Spider-Man that's ever been, and he's going to take it to the next level.reflects that. You're going to get bigger stories."Got a comment? There's lots of conversation on Newsarama's FACEBOOK and TWITTERLexus doesn’t really have a styling identity as strong as, say, BMW with its unmistakable kidney grille. It has been rounding itself off as a unique manufacturer, but up until the latest generation of models, their offerings were really rather conservative looking.
Now, as the brand approaches its 25th anniversary, the head of its European division, Alain Uyttenhoven thinks they’ve reached “the end of puberty.” The epitome of their current vision is the pint-sized LF-SA concept (pictured), a study that’s more bold than it is beautiful, but at least it shows ambition and the desire to stand out from the crowd.
Uyttenhoven told Autocar that “what we’ve decided is that because we are the challenger, we have to be different. We have to be distinctive, be bold and produce cars that don’t look like the other offerings in the segment. What we know, from customer clinics, is that our design polarises at the moment. And we want that.”
What he’s basically saying is Lexus is not apologizing for its new flamboyant ways and in fact it will continue to pursue this more individual path.
Probably the best point made in the entire source article revolves around the idea that “for some brands, not displeasing people is becoming more important than really pleasing a smaller group of people. We’d like to think that’s to our advantage.”
Photo GalleryAccording to PETA:
"7 billion chickens are killed for their flesh each year, and 452 million hens are used for their eggs." -- "According to a 2006 industry report, more than 1 million pigs die each year from the horrors of transport alone." -- "42 million cows suffer and die for the meat and dairy industries every year." -- "Billions of fish die every year in nets and on hooks. Some are destined for human consumption, many are tortured just for'sport,' and others are unintended victims who are maimed or killed simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
There are only 313 million people living in the U.S., that means we are consuming meat for almost every meal.
Going Vegan was never a plan, or diet goal. I never thought I'd go vegan to lose weight or join some yogi fad. I choose to be vegan for one reason and one reason only, compassion.
I will never forget the conversation that took place on a mid afternoon day at the yoga studio. I had arrived a little early this time and had my teacher all to myself. I treasure these moments, as it gives me an opportunity to gain insight and wisdom from someone I look up to (we should all show up early more often). We exchanged cordialities and then I dove deep, "So, I have noticed that my sensitivity has increased." I explained. "I haven't been eating meat," I told her.
She said, "Lisa, I'm vegetarian not because I don't love meat, who doesn't love the smell and taste of bacon, I'm vegetarian because it"s my way of creating the least amount of pain and suffering in the world."
Her words cut into me, a truth, that really I always knew. I guess somewhere I was hoping that she would say she was raised that way or she was vegetarian for health reasons. Had that been the case, then I could turn around and justify my actions when I decided to eat meat again, but instead her response jabbed my heart like a heavy hand that pushed me further into action.
I knew that with my own ignorance on the matter of vegetarianism/veganism I would eventually turn back around. I had tried being vegetarian once before, and it lasted only 6 months. This time if I didn't want to add to the suffering of the world I needed to educate myself.
I learned all there was to know. I read books, watched videos, and got on board with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). These days with education at our fingertips the world of "Why go Vegan" is easily accessible. Out of everything I read and watched these three sources made a enormous impact on me:
1. The amazing documentary, Peaceable Kingdom
2. This wonderful book, Yoga and Vegetarianism by Sharon Gannon
3. This very well done short video by Paul McCartney called "Behind Glass Walls"
After all my research being vegetarian, although a great step in the right direction, it wasn't going to work for my heart. Instead I choose to become vegan for the world of forgotten victims, like the diary cows who after their calves are taken away from them, the mother cows are hooked up, several times a day, to milking machines. These cows are genetically manipulated, artificially inseminated, and often drugged to force them to produce about four and a half times as much milk as they naturally would to feed their calves.
I choose to become vegan because if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for adding to the incredible amount of suffering taking place.
I won't lie, its not easy being vegan and often times I feel alone in this endeavor. Dining out has become very difficult; I am always that annoying person altering the entree and asking for special requests like a bad episode of Portlandia. Even grocery shopping anywhere other then my local farmers market or Whole Foods is frustrating. I'm constantly explaining why I won't eat meat while trying to be sensitive to my family and friends. It's also tough being a vegan wife, staying creative with meals and doing my very best to make sure that my husband gets enough protein so he won't lose muscle mass.
But for me in the end it's worth it! Above all else, my heart has opened to an incredible degree. I feel for all beings with compassion that wasn't there before. Energetically I believe that by not eating the pain and suffering of others I can hear the voices of the ego more profoundly and it's when we are able to hear the ego that we can learn to control it by rebuking negativity while keeping our thoughts pure and our demeanor kind. Physically my skin has cleared, I rest soundly at night, and I've lost that little extra weight I carried for years creating longer leaner muscles (I feel like a ballerina). I have more sustained vitality, my mediation practice is clear and my conscience is free knowing that my choices save more then 100 animals a year from misery.
I hope you consider being vegan, but I urge you to find a special reason for yourself. It's important to know what you stand for. At some point we all need to draw a line in the sand and decide if we support peace, love and compassion or slaughter, enslavement and brutality.image via Fox2
Pamela Tabatt's reign as the Bath Salt Queen of Missouri must have felt like quite the joyride. At her stores (Smoke Sensations: Nights of Rave in St. Louis County and South 94 Bait and Tackle in St. Charles County), the St. Peters woman sold more synthetic drugs than anyone in the eastern district of Missouri. And because her supplier was her very own son, Richard Gross, she likely got quite bargain. Federal prosecutors say Tabbatt, Gross and their co-conspirator Paul Berra accumulated an astonishing $6.5 million in profits.But that's all over now. Yesterday, Gross, 36, was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison, the same sentence his mother received on July 20. Berra, 34, of Warrenton, Missouri, was sentenced to 34 months.Gross's sentence, which follows guilty pleas for the three conspirators, brings the two-year-old case against them to its end. He was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge John A. Ross.And here's what must be just as galling for their three-person drug syndicate: As part of their convictions, they agreed to hand over those $6.5 million in profits to the federal government.Easy come, easy go, right?The forfeiture agreement filed in federal court shows that the three turned over a remarkable amount of cash — nearly $100,000 — as well as money squirreled away in numerous accounts. They also turned over property in Wentzville, St. Peters, Troy, New Florence and Carrollton, Illinois, in addition to a 2008 Ford F450 and 2011 Chevy Traverse.Tabatt's operation was hiding in plain sight after Missouri's 2011 ban on synthetic drugs, but a source tipped off Fox-2's Chris Hayes, which led to a series of investigations. She, her son and Berra were initially charged as a 28-person drug ring that raked in $23 million in total assets, but their little ring was later broke off and handled separately.People who use bath salts report side effects of hypertension, paranoia, anxiety and psychosis, according to the U. S. Attorney's Office. Synthetic marijuana also has dangerous side effects, including excessive heart rate, vomiting and seizures.Though the drugs were intended to be smoked or snorted, the ring mislabeled the packages to "thwart drug-trafficking laws," according to the indictment. The packages said the drugs were "not for human consumption" and marketed the drugs as scouring powder, research chemicals, incense and novelty products.Russia-Based Kaspersky Lab Sues Trump Administration For Banning Its Software
Enlarge this image toggle caption Sean Gallup/Getty Images Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Kaspersky Lab, a massive, Russian cybersecurity company, sued the Trump administration in U.S. federal court on Monday, arguing that the American government deprived it of due process rights when Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke banned its software from U.S. government agencies in September.
"Kaspersky anti-virus products and solutions provide broad access to files and elevated privileges on the computers on which the software is installed, which can be exploited by malicious cyber actors to compromise those information systems," said the Department of Homeland Security's September statement. "The Department is concerned about the ties between certain Kaspersky officials and Russian intelligence and other government agencies."
The DHS's directive gave government agencies 30 days to identify any presence of Kaspersky products, 60 days to develop plans to remove them, and 90 days to execute the plans.
President Trump signed the ban into law last week as part of a broad defense policy bill.
"There are concerns on record and some that suggest there has been direct collaboration with certain officials from Kaspersky and from the FSB, which is of course the successor to the KGB," Sen. Jean Shaheen, D-N.H., told NPR.
As NPR's David Welna reported in September,
"Kaspersky Lab said it was disappointed by the decision to ban its products. It said the company has never helped any government anywhere with cyber-espionage and added that it's, quote, 'disconcerting that a private company can be considered guilty until proven innocent due to geopolitical issues.'"
Kaspersky Lab's lawsuit also claims that the ban violates the Administrative Procedures Act and the Fifth Amendment. The Administrative Procedures Act controls how agencies like the DHS can establish regulations, and requires that agencies must provide "substantial evidence" for their regulation decisions if questioned by a U.S. court.
The company's founder, Eugene Kaspersky, issued an open letter condemning the DHS on Monday. "DHS has harmed Kaspersky Lab's reputation and its commercial operations without any evidence of wrongdoing by the company," he said.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Until recently, Kaspersky Lab was among NPR's underwriters.Armed fighters believed to be part of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant have seized the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh and freed hundreds of prisoners, government officials say.
Overnight, hundreds of fighters launched an assault on the provincial capital Mosul, 350km north of Baghdad, engaging in combat with troops and police, the officials said on Tuesday.
"The city of Mosul is outside the control of the state and at the mercy of the militants," an Interior Ministry official told the AFP news agency, making it the second city to fall to anti-government forces this year.
Turkish media also reported on Tuesday that 28 Turkish lorry drivers were taken hostage by ISIL fighters in Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.
In recent days, fighters have launched major operations in Nineveh and four other provinces, killing scores of people and highlighting both their long reach and the weakness of Iraq's security forces.
Al Jazeera correspondent Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said: "the intelligence estimates Iraq has released suggests it's not just Iraqi fighters. There are foreign fighters who have come to fight for ISIL."
Mosul is the second city to be captured by rebels this year, after the central government lost control of Fallujah.
Control of prisons
Before Mosul fell on Tuesday, ISIL fighters took control of the governor's headquarters, prisons and television stations, reports said.
The Associated Press news agency reported that the group freed about 1,400 prisoners held in the city's jails.
A pro-ISIL Twitter feed boasted that fighters had released about 3,000 prisoners from three facilities.
Describing the assault, Ali Mahmoud, media official for Nineveh, said rebels armed with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers stormed the provincial headquarters building in Mosul late on Monday night.
He said the attackers were able to overpower the building guards after a short firefight.
He confirmed accounts by Mosul residents that many of the police and army forces that had been stationed in the city had disappeared by Tuesday.
Atheel al-Nujaifi, Nineveh's governor, was in a nearby guest house but managed to escape from the area unharmed, Mahmoud said.
Osama al-Nujaifi, the parliament speaker and brother of Atheel al-Nujaifi, said he had asked the US ambassador in Baghdad for help in order to stop what he described as "a foreign invasion by ISIL".
Nujaifi said he had also requested the help of the Kurdish peshmerga but received no response from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, which controls the fighters.Spoiler
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1.)Thou shalt not refer to the Adeptus Soritas as "Bolter Bitches," nor shalt thou go anywhere near our sisters during the time of the "Red Rage," lest thou wishes to be the first human to enter orbit without the aid of a shuttle.
2. Orks are not "cute."
3. Thou shalt not make jokes about the Imperial Guard's weapons.
4. Thou shalt not replace the Librarian's staff with a magic wand.
5. Thou shalt not tip the Terminators over during battle.
6. Thou shalt not do Spock impersonations around Eldar.
7. C-3P0 is not a Necron ambassador.
8. You shall not dare others to eat Squigs.
9. No, you cannot "take the Titan for a spin."
10. Thou shalt not use thy Multi-Meltas to light campfires. (In a similar manner, thou shalt not use the Terminator Captain's Chainfist to open tins of baked beans)
11. Thou shalt not bribe the Inquisitor to bring down Exterminatus on your ex-wife.
12. Thou shalt not refer to the Rhino transports as "pimp wagons," nor shalt thou use the phrase, "If the Rhino be rockin, don't come a knockin."
13. The Chapter Master is not a drag.
14. Thou shall not use Power Swords to cut your food.
15. Thou shall not ask a Sister if you might "donate some of your own Gene-Seed."
16. Thou shall not throw soap at Nurglings.
17. Thou shalt not put a "kick me" sign on the Golden Throne.
18. Thou shalt not refer to the Machine Spirit as "Cruise Control".
19. Thou shalt not stick a 'Honk if you think I'm sexy' sticker on the Sisters' Rhino.
20. Thou shalt not honk if thy sees a sticker saying 'Honk if you think I'm sexy' on a Sister's Rhino.
21. Thou shalt not unplug the Golden Throne just "for laughs".
22. Thou shalt not make the Emperor read your palms, or call upon him as "Miss Cleo".
23. Virus bombs are not fun in a box.
24. Shooting one of your own men who looks at you funny does not count as an "enemy casualty".
25. Thou shalt not clog the Lascannon tubes "just to see what happens".
26. Thou shalt not spread cooking oil in front of a Dreadnought.
27. Thou shalt not attempt to shake the Chaplains hand whilst wearing a Power Fist.
28. Putting sand inside the Terminators Armour is not "funny".
29. Thou shalt not refer to the Standard of Fortitude as a "walking stick"
30. Thou shalt not refer to the Bolt Pistol as a novelty cigarette lighter.
31. The Earthshaker Cannon is not a "hat stand" nor is the Sentinel a "standard lamp".
32. Thou shalt not use Land Raiders to "play chicken" with Imperial Guard Chimeras.
33. Thou shalt not put a "Purge me!" sign on the back of the Chaplains armour.
34. Thou shalt not compliment the Dark Eldar by calling them "kinky"
35. Thou shalt not let an Ork be the designated driver
36. Thou shalt not replace the holy unguents for the Machine Spirit with grain alcohol
37. Thou shalt not invite a Banshee to Karaoke
38. Thou shalt not replace the O2 units on the Commanders Power Armour with laughing gas
39. Thou shalt not train a Hormogaunt to be a watchdog
40. Thou shalt not take "Old One Eye" out of context..."He's in my Artificer Armour he..he..duh!"
41. Thou shalt not call Dark Angels "hippie alter boys"
42. Thou shalt not taunt an Eldar "gee didn't these used to shoot further?"
43. Thou shalt not refer to the Golden Throne as "the nicest commode in the galaxy"
44. Thou shalt not attempt to offer a Carnifex a breath mint.
45. Thou shalt not throw a Warp Beast a dog biscuit.
46. Thou shalt not hope for mud wrestling during a Wych/ Sisters battle.
47. Thou shalt not ask a Warlock what he wears under his robe.
48. Thou shalt not tease an Inquisitor with "look Sir-Heretics!"
49. Thou shalt not play whack-a-mole with those little Jawa-wannabe Dark Angel thingies (tangent).
50.Thou shalt not wear oven mitts when issued a Plasma Gun.
51. Thou shalt not take the Rhino to procure monkish ale before filling out His Most Holy acquisitions forms.
52. Thou shalt not ask the Librarian if he has records concerning Uranus.
53. Thou shalt not refer to the flamer as a "novelty toaster"
54. Thou shalt not ask the Apothecary to guess what you have eaten by looking at your tongue.
55. Thou shalt not remove the motors from a Terminators' Armour during battle.
56. Thou shalt not point and laugh saying 'look somebody missed the toilet when battling Snotlings.
57. Thou shalt not break wind in the presence of the Emperor (unless properly addressed to do so)
58. Eldar helmets may not be use as hole-punches.
59. Thou shalt not refer to the daily rituals as "psychological warfare" nor shalt thou refer to the Index Astartes as "the book of grudges"
60. Thou shalt not say, "will someone please tell the Emperor to crap or get off the Throne"
61. Thou shalt not petition His Most Holy administration to make "Inquisition" an Olympic sport.
62. Thou shalt not instigate a "my Primarch could beat up your Primarch" debate.
63. Thou shalt not use heavy breathing and "I am your father" as a battle cry when wielding a Power Sword and entering an assault
64. Thou shalt not affect a Transylvanian accent around the Blood Angels.
65. No hair pulling when enjoying brotherly contests with the Space Wolves.
66. Duct-taping a Flamer to your Boltgun does not count as a Combi-weapon, and painting it pretty won't make it "Master Crafted"
67. Thou shalt not punt Grots for pleasure.
68. Thou shalt not shout "Thongs for the Thong God!" in front of the Dark Eldar lest thou wish to learn the true meaning of pain.
69. Thou shalt not debate the protective merits of purple spandex with the Dark Eldar.
70. Thou shalt not write theatre criticism and charge His Most Holy treasury to mail it to the Harlequin.
71. Power armour never makes a Sister look fat.
72. Thou shalt not laugh maniacally when flaming the non-believers.
73. Thou shalt not use Thunder Hammers to play croquet.
74. Thou shalt not start rounds of "you might be a Ctan if" while imbibing strong monkish ale.
75. Though shalt not refer to thine brethren, whom the Emperor has dictated be armed with an incendiary weapon, as a "Flamer" constantly. For this has been proven to lower morale and cause strife within His Most Holy showering facilities.
76. Thou shalt not affect an Austrian accent around the Necrons.
77. Thou shalt not ask Rough Riders if you can pet their ponies.
78. Thou shalt not stray from the Adeptus Mechanicus' directive towards ornamentation of Rhinos; specifically no aluminium sport rims, neon, extraneous exhaust pipes, or fuzzy dice.
79. Thou shall not attempt to challenge the Eldar to games of 'Counter-strike'.
80. Thou shall not, in any way, shape, or form, take the Land Speeder joyriding.
81. Remember; shining Lasguns in the Guards eyes is WRONG.
82. Thou shall not pretend to have been possessed by a Daemon.
83. Thou shall not call the sacred Plasma gunners of the Imperial Guard 'fizz busters'.
84. Yes, it will be noticed if you 'borrow' the Chapter Master's equipment.
85. Thou shall not use supported War Hounds to 'play ball' with Imperial Guard Sentinels.
86. It is NOT cool to feed Snotlings copious amounts of narcotics!
87. It is not "funny" to dress up as a Bloodletter and jump out in front of the Chapter Master.
88. Replacing a Brother's ammunition with blanks is not "funny"
89. Wiffle bats are not approved hand weapons.
90. Playing naughty movies in your Power Armours Autosensors is not sanctioned by the Adeptus Astartes.
91. Thou shalt not teleport into the Sisters showering facilities.
92. Thou shalt not taunt our revered Dreadnought brethren by tapping on their window and saying "anyone in there?"
93. Thou shalt not commandeer Drop Pods to go for pizza.
94. Thou shalt not refer to the Emperors Champion as "that brown-noser"
95. Nuking from orbit is not doctrinally feasible for removal of annoying insects-unless they be Tyranids.
96. Thou shalt not tickle the Fallen to press for confession and redemption.
97. Thou shalt not follow a Librarian around thinking, "Can you hear me now", repetitively in an attempt to drive him insane.
98. Thou shalt not refer to the Wulfen as "damn dirty apes".
99. Thou shalt not use Whirlwinds to put on fireworks displays.
100. Thou shalt not ask the Dark Angels if they "can keep a secret"
101. Thou shalt not do Scooby Doo impersonations when speaking to the Space Wolves.
102. Thou shalt not tell the Salamanders "sorry about the Multi-Melta thing"
103. Thou shall not ask directions from the Wulfen.
104. Thou shall not ask Berserkers for an axe.
105. Thou shalt not do doughnuts in a Rhino, unless thou wishes to clean the passenger's vomit from the floor, as doughnuts make passengers dizzy
106. Thou shalt not write "Biggest Bitch on the Battlefield" on the side of thy Land Raider, even if it is true.
107. Thou shalt not take the Rhino out on Saturdays to 'impress the girls'.
108. Tyranids are not cute.
109. Though shalt not use Lasguns as laser sights for thy Bolters
110. Just because youre fighting Necrons it doesnt mean your standard equipment is a Skaven and a tin opener.
111. Thou shalt not throw snowballs at Salamander Space Marines whilst yelling, "THINK FAST!"
112. Thou shalt not ask Ork prisoners "why the red ones go faster"
113. Thou shalt not attempt to drown out Noise Marines with ye old rave music
114. Never ask a Dreadnought "how old are you?"
115. Thou shalt not use the Golden Throne as a microwave
116. Thou shalt not wear a dress in the presence of the Dark Angels
117. Thou shalt not wear fake fangs in the presence of the Space Wolves
118. Thou shalt not ask a Space Wolf if he wants a biscuit
119. Thou shalt not eat another Marines paste
120. Thou shalt not trip a Dark Angel in front of an Interrogator-Chaplain
121. Thou shalt not trip an Interrogator-Chaplain
122. Thou shalt not fill Demolisher shells with lots of flowers.
123. Scouts are not 'target practice'.
124. Thou shalt not replace the Chapter Master's Power Sword with a plastic sword.
125. It is not funny to put an 'Eat me' sign on the Librarian's back prior to a Tyranid attack.
126. Thou shalt NOT refer to the Dreadnought as 'Granddad', nor shalt thou hang a, 'I told you I was sick' sign from it.
127. Thou shalt not play 'peek-a-boo' with the Machine Spirit.
128. Thou shalt not unscrew your Battle Brethrens leg plates.
129. It is not funny to play ring toss with Orks tusks.
130. When faced by the Inquisition, dont laugh.
131. Necrons are not cans
132. Thou shalt not eat prunes before a battle
133. Thou shalt not refer to the company Tech-Marine as "Scotty."
134. Thou shalt not challenge the Terminator Company to a game of "Twister."
135. Thou shalt not refer to Ripper Swarms as... "Cute."
136. Thou shalt not refer to Catachan Jungle Fighters as "tree hugging hippies"
137. Thou shalt not suggest the Eldar "live long and prosper."
138. Thou shalt not tell a Space Wolf it smells as if something crawled up and died in their mouth.
139. Thou shalt not replace the Space Wolves store of Tuna with cans of Puppy Chow.
140. Thou shalt not use Imperial Guardsmen as sticks while playing fetch with a Hive Tyrant.
141. Thou shall not use Flame Falcons to toast thy marsh mellows
142. Thou shall not ask an Inquisitor's Psyber-Eagle "does Polly wanna cracker?"
143. Thou shall not ask the Lametors "are ya feeling lucky punk, well are ya?"
144. Dating the Veteran Sergeant is the exclusive privilege of the Heavy Weapon trooper
145. Thou shalt not ask the Eldar females if they are interested in a hand-portable 'Vibro Cannon'...
146. Thou shalt not strut around Imperial Guardsmen bragging about how 'well-equipped' you are.
147. Thou shalt not ask the Thousand Sons if they are that slow on purpose.
148. Thou shalt not taunt the Imperial Guard with threats of utilizing a Lascannon upon their posteriors in an unnatural fashion.
149. Thou shalt NEVER, under any circumstances, interrupt a Navigator's concentration during warp travel to ask him if you "are there yet."
150. Thou shalt |
days.Once again, we’ve got Robert Kirkman talking about the latest episode of The Walking Dead, “Claimed.”
TheWalkingDead.com: I think in both the comics and the show the characters have this notion that when you’re settled in somewhere, you’re safe, and when you’re on the road, you’re in danger. But honestly, being settled seems to just make you a target. At this point in the apocalypse, do you think they’re really safer settling, or is being on the move the safest path?
Robert Kirkman: That’s actually something that gets discussed in the comic book series at a certain point, so I wouldn’t want to spoil anything, but it is certainly beginning to look like being mobile is a good way to avoid being boxed in or avoid drawing attention to yourself. That very well may come into play in the series very soon.
TWD: Speaking of danger, Rick has a run-in with a new group of strangers, including character actor Jeff Kober. He’s one of those guys that you see and instantly recognize but can’t remember where. I think he’s been in every major show ever made [including, but not limited to, Sons of Anarchy, It Always Sunny, New Girl, CSI, 24, ER, Buffy, and way more]. Are you allowed to tell us if we’ll be seeing more of him?
Kirkman: I think it would be very strange if we didn’t since he’s such a recognizable actor. It was kind of by design. I’m actually really proud about how it all ended up. It’s almost hard to spot him the way things are edited and the way the episode goes. His character is definitely going to be returning again and it will happen when you least expect it.
TWD: When they’re in the house, Rick doesn’t hesitate to use violence against these guys. Is it safe to say that farmer Rick is dead and buried?
Kirkman: Yeah, farmer Rick kind of went away during the beating he took from the Governor. I think this is a guy who’s very much back on his heels at this point. He’s trying to do whatever he can to survive. Rick has always been a character who recognizes you have to have certain preparations in order to survive in this world, and farmer Rick only emerged because of the safety that the Prison provided, so now that that’s been taken away we’re certainly going to be seeing Rick Grimes rise to the challenge of being on his own again. What we saw this episode is a big part of that.
TWD: Carl and Michonne’s friendship continues to blossom in this episode. What do you think Carl sees in Michonne? What bonds them?
Kirkman: I think at this point, Carl would be clinging to anyone to try to have a connection to someone outside of his father. He’s had a great many people that he cared a lot about taken away from him. He’s also definitely formed a bond with Michonne in the past, and there’s a lot of intricacies to how that bond works and what both characters are getting out of it. Specifically, that will come to pass in upcoming episodes, so there’s definitely still a lot to be revealed when it comes to Michonne and Carl.
TWD: It’s great to see the two of them bond the way they do over crazy cheese.
Kirkman: Indeed. I think Danai [Gurira] ate like four gallons of that cheese during the filming of that scene.
TWD: We talked about Abraham last week, but this week get to see a lot more of him and what drives him. He was introduced WAY BACK in 2008, but do you remember what inspired him?
Kirkman: I think Abraham as a character in both of the comic and the show represents a drive to alter the story, and he’s also a catalyst to keep things fresh. In both instances, he brought with him new challenges and new situations for the characters to deal with. He also opens up the world. He’s from another part of the country, he’s seen different things and had his own unique experiences and he’s going to be bringing what he’s learned to the group, so the idea behind the introduction of Abraham is to shake things up. And I think we’re going to see that Michael Cudlitz is going to provide that and then some. Introducing new characters is a way to open up the world without leaving behind the characters and seeing too much. But we always get those little snippets and tidbits of information about how things are going down in other areas.
TWD: We noticed some sneakily placed Super Dinosaur comics this episode. This isn’t the first time a Skybound comic has popped up. We’re obviously big fans of that, who’s the one sneaking those into the show?
Kirkman: Well, that early scene in the [Season 4] premiere, where Michonne comes back with comics, we set aside a pile of books aside for that scene. And so the comics have shown up here and there as the season has progressed. Though, I do want to state specifically that it is not me being on set going, “Hey, put my comic over there!” Sometimes I see them and I’m like, “Aw, you’re gonna see my comic there? Come on!” But it’s certainly a cool thing and I hope [Super Dinosaur artist] Jason Howard likes the appearance. We’ll see.
TWD: Well, getting more readers for Super Dinosaur is an awesome thing. It’s a good book.
Kirkman: Super Dinosaur is one of the coolest comics ever made, so… I think it will benefit the Walking Dead show immensely to have it appear on screen.
That’s it for this week! Tune in next week for another chat with Robert!Colin Craig's membership has been suspended from the Conservative Party following a decision by the just-appointed new board.
Board chairman John Stringer said he voted against the measure, but was overruled by a majority of the five member board.
The final decision about Craig's membership and who the new leader will be will be made at a later yet-to-be decided date, Stringer said.
Stringer said he had not spoken to Craig.
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Stringer said the issue between Craig and his former press secretary Rachel MacGregor was "now a private matter".
"The story will now continue but it will be continuing separately from that story.
We don't want to comment anymore on the issue. I think they're going to spiral around and take a life of their own... but it's really none of our concern."
He accepted the party had been damaged.
Stringer also "categorically denied" leaking information to Cameron Slater's Whale Oil blog.
The four new board members are Deborah Cunliffe, former Conservative Party candidate in the Bay of Plenty electorate, Mark Pearce, former Palmerston North candidate, Thomas O'Rourke, former Te Atatu candidate and Al Belcher, the party's regional chairman in the Waikato.
Related articles:
Stringer said he was able to appoint the new board members as under the party's constitution a quorum was needed, and as the sole remaining member he provided that quorum.
The conference took place in a room at the Heartland Hotel near Auckland International Airport.
Stringer said the board would meet next month but may not decide Craig's long-term future with the party then.
"It's not a priority."
He had voted against suspending Craig because he didn't " want to make it about Colin and I".A team led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has found a simple method to convert human skin cells into the specialized neurons that detect pain, itch, touch and other bodily sensations. These neurons are also affected by spinal cord injury and involved in Friedreich's ataxia, a devastating and currently incurable neurodegenerative disease that largely strikes children.
The discovery allows this broad class of human neurons and their sensory mechanisms to be studied relatively easily in the laboratory. The "induced sensory neurons" generated by this method should also be useful in the testing of potential new therapies for pain, itch and related conditions.
"Following on the work of TSRI Professor Ardem Patapoutian, who has identified many of the genes that endow these neurons with selective responses to temperature, pain and pressure, we have found a way to produce induced sensory neurons from humans where these genes can be expressed in their 'normal' cellular environment," said Associate Professor Kristin K. Baldwin, an investigator in TSRI's Dorris Neuroscience Center. "This method is rapid, robust and scalable. Therefore we hope that these induced sensory neurons will allow our group and others to identify new compounds that block pain and itch and to better understand and treat neurodegenerative disease and spinal cord injury."
The report by Baldwin's team appears as an advance online publication in Nature Neuroscience on November 24, 2014.
In Search of a Better Model
The neurons that can be made with the new technique normally reside in clusters called dorsal root ganglia (DRG) along the outer spine. DRG sensory neurons extend their nerve fibers into the skin, muscle and joints all over the body, where they variously detect gentle touch, painful touch, heat, cold, wounds and inflammation, itch-inducing substances, chemical irritants, vibrations, the fullness of the bladder and colon, and even information about how the body and its limbs are positioned. Recently these neurons have also been linked to aging and to autoimmune disease.
Because of the difficulties involved in harvesting and culturing adult human neurons, most research on DRG neurons has been done in mice. But mice are of limited use in understanding the human version of this broad "somatosensory" system.
"Mouse models don't represent the full diversity of the human response," said Joel W. Blanchard, a PhD candidate in the Baldwin laboratory who was co-lead author of the study with Research Associate Kevin T. Eade.
A New Identity
For the new study, the team used a cell-reprogramming technique (similar to those used to reprogram skin cells into stem cells) to generate human DRG-type sensory neurons from ordinary skin cells called fibroblasts.
To start, the scientists examined previous experiments and identified several transcription factors -- managerial proteins that switch on the activity of large sets of genes -- that seemed crucial to the ability of immature neurons to develop into adult sensory neurons. They found that the combination of the transcription factors Brn3a plus Ngn1, or Brn3a plus Ngn2, reprogrammed a significant percentage of the embryonic mouse fibroblasts into what looked -- and acted -- like mature DRG-type sensory neurons.
"We added compounds including capsaicin, which activates pain receptors on DRG neurons, and menthol, which activates cold receptors, and saw subsets of our induced neurons light up with activity just as real DRG neurons would," said Eade.
Remarkably, although mouse studies had indicated that different transcription factors were differently important for generating pain and itch sensing neurons versus pressure and limb position neurons, in the dish these factors produced equal numbers of each of the three main subtypes.
A Step Toward 'Personalized Medicine'
Using the same recipes of transcription factors, the team was able to convert adult human fibroblasts, which are harder to reprogram, into DRG neurons. The conversion rate was lower, but the induced neurons seemed just as much like their natural counterparts as those produced from embryonic mouse fibroblasts.
"We can definitely scale up of the numbers of these induced neurons as needed," Blanchard said.
The feat means that scientists now can relatively easily study DRG sensory neurons derived from many different people, to better understand the diversity of human sensory responses and sensory disorders and advance a "personalized medicine" approach. "We can start to understand how individuals respond uniquely to pain, cold, itch and so on," said Blanchard.
Other co-authors of the study, "Selective conversion of fibroblasts into peripheral sensory neurons," were Valentina Lo Sardo, Rachel K. Tsunemoto, Daniel Williams, and Pietro Paolo Sanna, all of TSRI; and Attila Szűcs of the University of California San Diego, who performed many of the electrical tests on the induced neurons.
Support for the research came from the Dorris Neuroscience Center, the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, the Baxter Family Foundation, the Del Webb Foundation, The Norris Foundation, Las Patronas, the National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Drug Abuse [DA031566], National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders [DC012592] and National Institute of Mental Health [MH102698]), the National Science Foundation and the Andrea Elizabeth Vogt Memorial Award.Kim "Bisu" Taek Yong was a South Korean progamer who played Protoss for SK Telecom T1. In Brood War, he was usually regarded as one of the best and most consistent Protoss player of his active time (2006 onwards), as well as one of the best Brood War players of all time. On 9 September 2013, Bisu retired from professional StarCraft II.[1] but subsequently made a successful Brood War return by winning his first SSL final.
Biography [ edit ]
Bisu was one of the most successful Protoss player in the Brood War era, being a three time champion of the MBCGame StarCraft League.
Wings of Liberty [ edit ]
Bisu played his first official StarCraft II match in the May 27th set of the hybrid 2011-2012 Proleague Season 2 where SK Telecom T1 played CJ Entus, he lost the match to herO. Bisu was one of the eight KeSPA-affiliated players to be sent to the KeSPA exhibition match at the 2012 MLG Spring Championships.[2] In October 2012, Bisu was reported to have renewed his contract with SK Telecom T1.[3]
Trivia [ edit ]
"Bisu" means "assassin's dagger" in Korean.
In April 2012, Bisu was reported to be considering to switch to Terran in StarCraft II, as his multitasking skills were arguably most suited for this race than for Protoss. [4]
Lost his first official StarCraft II match against herO.
Won his first official StarCraft II match against Sea after losing 6 StarCraft II games in a row.
Bisu was one of the Six Protoss Dragons in Brood War, title which was given to the top six Protoss players that dominated the scene from November 2008 to March 2009.
When he took a close look at Force Fields, he remarked that having the ability would make him unbeatable in BroodWar.
Bisu is a part of the Brood War quartet TaekBangLeeSsang
WoL Matches [ edit ]
PvZ [ edit ]
Interviews [ edit ]
2013 [ edit ]
2012 [ edit ]
Gallery [ edit ]__1980: __Washington state's Mount St. Helens volcano explodes in a cataclysm that pulverizes its top 1,300 feet, deforests nearby valleys, sends ash 12 miles into the air and kills 57 people. The picture-perfect snow-capped peak becomes the center of a bleak, gray mudscape.
The volcano, about 55 miles northeast of Portland, Oregon, had lain dormant since 1857. The 9,677-foot peak and the surrounding valleys, lakes and forests were popular destinations for mountain climbers, backpackers, day hikers, boaters, fishermen and those who just wanted to sit back and take in the sylvan splendor.
Volcanologists started detecting swarms of small earthquakes emanating from the volcano's insides on March 20, 1980. Snow avalanches began on March 24, and the crater started steaming on March 27. A series of explosions from March 28 to 30 was heard 20 miles away and sent ash drifting 100 miles away.
The volcano was no longer sleeping.
Fearing snow avalanches and mudslides, the National Forest Service closed the area to visitors and allowed loggers to use the area on a no-overnight basis. Stereoscopic aerial photography in early April showed that the mountain was inflating, with parts of the crater rim 250 feet higher than they'd been before. Ominously, the north slopes were pushing out sideways as well, displaced 300 feet or more.
Earthquakes — up to magnitude 4.9 — continued, and St. Helens began a second set of steam and ash explosions May 7. A few property owners chose to stay put. Doughty old Harry Truman, owner of the Spirit Lake Resort, said he'd trust the mountain and if she wanted to take him, so be it.
Geologists and journalists swarmed into the area, too. U.S. Geological Survey volcanologist David Johnston took an observation post on a ridge 5 miles from the peak, That seemed far enough for safety.
St. Helens' big boom came on Sunday morning, May 18, at 8:32 a.m. The entire north face of the mountain, it turned out, was made of crumbly rock riddled with cracks and fissures. So St. Helens didn't blow up exactly. It blew north and up.
A magnitude 5.0 quake shook a block of the mountain loose, setting off a landslide half a mile wide and a mile from top to bottom. With the side, rather than the top, of the volcano open and exposed, searing volcanic gas and steam from its innards shot up and out. That blast seared the landscape and blew huge trees down like matchsticks up to 17 miles away.
Hot ash and rock billowed into the sky and spread for hundreds of miles. But there was enough ash and debris at ground level to melt the mountain's snow and glaciers and create surging mudflows that filled the valleys below.
David Johnston was lost in the blast. Harry Truman was buried in the mudflow. Other photographers and observers perished as well. Downstream, emergency workers rescued about 200 people from the mudflows, but 57 people lost their lives.
Some people have returned to rebuild in the devastated valleys. Plants and animals have gradually re-colonized parts of the blown-down forests and mud-filled valleys. And the the Forest Service and Geological Survey keep a watchful eye on the mountain.
Source: Mount St. Helens - The Volcano; National Geographic, January 1981
Photo: Driftwood still clogs parts of Spirit Lake in 2005, a quarter century after the eruption.
Photographer: Ken Lambert/AP
See Also:- Mount St. Helens Eruption: May 18, 1980[np_storybar title=”Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby thriving under increased workload and expectation” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/sports/nhl/washington-capitals-goaltender-braden-holtby-thriving-under-increased-workload-and-expectation”%5D
WASHINGTON — It was labelled the stomach flu, and it was a doozy.
White as a ghost and shaking all over, Braden Holtby could not stop vomiting shortly after the playoffs began. Eventually, he was given an IV to replenish the fluids that he had lost.
Fans did not see any of this. All they knew was that the Washington Capitals goaltender who had been so good in the regular season had struggled mightily in a first-round Game 1 loss to the New York Islanders and then was mercifully kept out of Game 2.
“Under the weather,” was the term head coach Barry Trotz used. But few would have been surprised if there was an additional diagnosis of exhaustion.
Read more…
[/np_storybar]
WASHINGTON— On the morning of Game 3, reporters and teammates each took turns trying to convince Rick Nash, the second-highest goal-scorer in the NHL this season, that scoring goals was not really important. That it was the little things, like providing a screen for a power play goal or winning puck battles along the boards or just playing sound defensive hockey that makes the difference.
It was a gesture that made the New York Rangers forward smile, if not laugh out loud.
“Thanks for noticing that,” said Nash, who after Monday night’s 1-0 loss to the Washington Capitals remains with just one goal during these playoffs. “I appreciate the positives.”
Around this time a year ago, there were no positives from a drought that saw New York’s US$7.8-million star forward finish the playoffs with three goals in 25 games. Fans booed him on home ice after he went the first two rounds without a goal. When he finally did score, the headline in the New York Daily News read, “Hell freezes over.”
It is easy to carry that criticism into this year, especially with Washington’s Alex Ovechkin having already scored two GIF-ready goals and having set up the winner in Game 1 in this series. But the 30-year-old Nash, who said the disappointment of going the entire Stanley Cup final without a goal stayed with him all summer, seems a bit wiser this time around.
“I’ve been through this before,” said Nash, who has not scored since Game 2 of the first round. “The negative doesn’t get you anywhere. I feel like all the negatives come from (the outside). In here, we’re positive things will go in.”
This has been a difficult year for scoring goals. The NHL failed to have a single player reach the 90-point mark for the first time in a season — at least one uninterrupted by a labour dispute — since 1967-68. That trend has carried into the playoffs, where Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin went without a point in the first round, Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos went without a goal in his first eight games and Chicago’s Marian Hossa has still yet to score.
On Monday, goals were hard to come by again as goaltender Braden Holtby stopped all 30 shots he faced to give Washington a 2-1 series lead. Capitals third-line forward Jay Beagle scored the only goal of the game on a wraparound in the second period that appeared to bank in off New York defenceman Keith Yandle’s skate.
Nash, who scored 42 goals in the regular season (second only to Ovechkin’s 53), has been getting a steady diet of Washington defencemen Brooks Orpik and John Carlson in the second round and been kept to the perimeter where he is least dangerous. “They’re just so good at boxing out,” he said on a night where most of his game-high seven shots came from the outside. “They’re letting Holtby see everything.”
Still, the Brampton, Ont., native is finding ways to make a difference. He is tied with a team-leading five points. In a 3-2 win against the Capitals in Game 2, he took away Holtby’s eyes with a block-the-sun screen on Dan Boyle’s shot from the point. On Monday night, he crushed Orpik into the end boards with a heavy hit that caused the Washington defenceman to miss at least one shift.
“We have some stats that go beyond goals that show he’s generating more chances than anyone on the team in every single game,” said Rangers forward Chris Kreider. “He’s been pretty successful.”
“Obviously he’s known for scoring goals and being offensive,” said Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh. “But if we need a good defensive play, we feel just as confident with him in that situation too.”
For now, the Rangers could use more of Nash’s scoring touch. This series has been a tight-wire act, with all three games having been decided by one goal. Had he scored on Monday night, maybe the Rangers are have a 2-1 series lead. Instead, it was a fourth-line grinder who became the hero while Nash continues to search for answers.
“It’s frustrating … it’s a fluky goal that bounces off a skate and goes in,” he said of Beagle’s game-winner on Monday night, “but at the same time that’s playoff hockey. It seems like you work for your bounces and you work for your lucky goals.
“That’s how you win.”
Postmedia NewsYou don't need to convince Tony Keats that the anticipated population decline in Newfoundland and Labrador is a big deal.
The mayor of Dover, a small town in Bonavista Bay, is also the president of Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador.
We need to talk more about regionalization. - Dover Mayor Tony Keats
That means he's very familiar with a recent study from Memorial University's Harris Centre which predicts the province's population will drop by about eight per cent within 20 years.
Some towns will probably die. Others, such as Roddickton on the Northern Peninsula, are expected to lose 40 per cent of their population.
MNL CEO Craig Pollett speaking during the Rethinking Resettlement' town hall in Gambo. He was one of several people who promoted regionalization as a way to respond to the future population decline anticipated for Newfoundland and Labrador. (CBC)
And Keats said he's pretty sure people left will still want the exact same services that they get now, even though finding ways to pay for them will be difficult.
"I think we need to come together," said Keats. "We need to talk more about regionalization."
Duplication of fire departments, town offices
Keats spoke at CBC Newfoundland and Labrador's recent town hall, Rethinking Resettlement.
About 50 people gathered at the Smallwood Interpretation Centre in Gambo at the end of November to talk about the future of rural Newfoundland and Labrador.
We need to start thinking about regions. - Craig Pollett
Craig Pollett, executive director of MNL, also suggested regionalization was a crucial issue for bigger towns, too.
"Gander depends on Gambo more than Gambo depends on Gander," Pollett said, arguing that efforts to track business transactions show that people in smaller communities do their shopping in hub towns like Gander.
"To say that the urban centres can make it without the rural places is just fundamentally false — it's wrong. We need to start thinking about regions."
Echoing problems
It wasn't just the municipalities group voicing concerns about how rural regions operate.
Audience member Len Muise, of Gambo, called for a "realignment" of rural communities, explaining that he's deeply concerned about the province's large debt.
Robin Brentnall of Gambo says there's already a shortage of home care workers in the town. (CBC)
"We have to match the towns or the areas that we want to put our resources in — our very limited resources," said Muise.
"We can't afford to have a fire department and a town office with managers and staff every five or 10 miles away from each other."
Robin Brentnall also wondered how services will be provided in the future.
"Here in Gambo, we have a lot of seniors and we can't get home care workers," Brentnall told the crowd. "There's not enough young people to do it. We're feeling the same pinch everyone is."
You can watch the full town hall on CBC Newfoundland and Labrador's Facebook page below:Update: We have added the latest deals on Android and iOS apps and games. This article has last been updated on November 29th.
We'll keep on updating this as new deals come up. Feel free to tip us about price cuts on games and apps in the comments section and let us know what you've downloaded so far.
We’re still nearly a week until Black Friday, but the shopping craziness kicks off early this year and app and game makers have already started some massive sales on the hottest Android and iOS titles.Most of the titles that have gone on sale right now are for iOS and only a limited number is for Android, but that will likely start changing over the next couple of days, so no reasons to worry. Still, iPhone and iPad users get the early deals and some apps have gone down to completely free while others are slashed in price. There is no particular order to this selection so feel free to discover apps of all sorts of use and games of different genres below.The court determines that Sam Echols is not a proper person to raise a child, owing to his opinions.
My great-great-grandfather determines that his zeal for the (Mormon) faith will be his best revenge.
And that’s the last mention of Samuel Echols in the pages of The New York Times.
But not the first.
The young Mr. Echols develops into a Mormon preacher and becomes a leading man among dupes from the South.
Georgia is called up to settle the issue as to whether belief in Mormonism is a stain on citizenship or not.
The feeling among the people is to treat Echols roughly if he should win the suit.
Mrs. Echols learns that Mormonism permits the practice of polygamy, refuses to follow her husband to Colorado, and does not see him again until his return to Georgia two years later.
One month later, as The New York Times will report, Samuel has met my great-great-grandmother and taken her to Salt Lake City to be “sealed unto him.”
“He does not practice polygamy.”😉The Indonesian city of Jember is introducing compulsory virginity tests for female high school students so they can be barred from receiving diplomas if found to have had sex outside of wedlock.
The decision was put forward by the town's municipal government with lawyers claiming that girls "have sex several times and with different partners", the Jakarta Globe reported.
Another lawyer said he hoped the proposal could expand to the whole East Java province - of which Jember is the third largest city.
"If they're not virgins anymore, don't let them pass. It may sound like a joke, but it's serious. It's for the sake of the future," he said.
According to Human Right Watch (HRW), this is sadly nothing new: the country's National Police have been forcing thousands of female students to carry out virginity tests since 1965.
In 2014 Indonesia announced that virginity tests had also become obligatory for female military recruits.
The decision to carry out such tests violates the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, of which Indonesia is signatory.
The country is also a party of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which commits signatory countries to guarantee to individuals a range of rights, including the right to education.
"The Indonesian government can't feign ignorance about the abusive nature of such 'tests'," HRW said.
"The Indonesian government's tolerance for this violence against women and girls needs to end. President Joko Widodo should send a loud and unambiguous message forbidding 'virginity tests' by local government as well as the Indonesian military, police, and civil service.
"Until he does, high school girls and their education in Jember will remain in peril."Ironically, in the week that the UIDAI revealed its draconian face, serving a legal notice to those who exposed flaws in the Aadhaar eco-system, Ajay Pandey (CEO, UIDAI), wrote, “The critics tend to forget that Aadhaar empowers the people, not the state” (‘Criticisms Without Aadhaar’, IE, May 13). However, government data reveals that Pandey is wrong to believe that “Aadhaar empowers the people”.
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Peddling long-debunked assertions on savings as facts without any proof is an old UIDAI strategy. Pandey’s strongest claim, “an independent study by the World Bank”, reportedly estimates that “Aadhaar can potentially save Rs 72,000 crore every year by plugging leakages.” Actually, the study only states that “the value of these transfers is estimated to be Rs 70,000 crores ($11.3 billion) per annum”. There is no estimate of potential savings.
Pandey claims that Aadhaar has “cleansed delivery databases of fakes, duplicates and con men/intermediaries”. Job cards and ration cards cancelled in the course of routine updation (or “cleansing”) drives are attributed to Aadhaar. In fact, in many cases, the cancellation pre-dates integration with Aadhaar. For instance, the 20 lakh cards deleted in 2014-15 in West Bengal are credited to Aadhaar-integration though only 15,000 cards were Aadhaar-seeded on March 2015.
The case of LPG subsidies is well-documented. In July 2015, Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian wrote in The New York Times that cash transfers resulted in “estimated savings of about $2 billion”. Yet, Cabinet Secretariat minutes from November 2015 report only Rs 91 crore savings due to Aadhaar. Later, the CEA himself clarified that it was potential (not actual) savings he had in mind, but the government still uses the earlier figures. The government’s claim on deleted ration cards is also interesting. Out of 1.2 crore deleted cards, 62 lakh were from West Bengal. Here’s the catch: All states (except West Bengal) report the number of cards in terms of families; West Bengal reports individuals. The ministry ignores the difference in units, adds them up, thus inflating the numbers.
Why are governments resorting to such desperate measures to defend Aadhaar? Primarily because during UPA 2, they over-sold the benefits of Aadhaar. For instance, Aadhaar cannot reduce quantity fraud. When a PDS dealer undersells, whether I am forced to put my thumbprint in a paper register or a POS machine makes no difference to quantity fraud.
Aadhaar cannot enhance inclusion. Possession of Aadhaar alone cannot guarantee benefits (say, pensions or scholarships), one still has to meet the eligibility criteria of those programmes. Exclusion from welfare was rarely due to the lack of ID documents (in a response to an RTI query, 99.97 per cent of those who enrolled in Aadhaar did it on the basis of existing ID documents). What Aadhaar can fix is identity fraud — for example, if I illegally get two ration cards or duplicates. But then, Aadhaar is one among several ways of de-duplication, and not the most efficient either — smart cards, or even painting the full list of beneficiaries on panchayat walls works well to identify ghosts and duplicates!
The key question with respect to identity fraud (and the Aadhaar project) is what Senior Advocate Arvind Datar asked the government in court (during the PAN-Aadhaar linkage case), “Did you do any study?” The fact is there is no reliable evidence on the scale of identity fraud in welfare programmes. We are told that people are getting their benefits “directly from the government without middlemen usurping them” due to Aadhaar. Three clarifications are in order: One, benefits under some of the schemes he lists have been credited into bank accounts for years, so middlemen were absent from the payment process to start with. For example, payment of MGNREGA wages into bank and post office accounts became mandatory in 2009. Two, where middlemen existed (pensions delivered by a postman who demanded money), one type of middleman has been replaced by another (banking correspondents have taken the place of postmen). Three, the Aadhaar eco-system is breeding an army of middlemen (enrolment, re-enrolment of biometrics, Aadhaar-seeding, correcting demographic details, etc).
Meanwhile, Aadhaar is also disempowering people. For example, names are being struck off pension lists without people’s knowledge (say, for not submitting their Aadhaar number) or MGNREGA wages get “lost” in the electronic payment system. In Rajasthan, more than 10 per cent of PDS beneficiaries are unable to get their ration after Aadhaar-based Biometric Authentication (ABBA) was introduced. Monthly authentication of any one member is pointless: If someone dies, I can continue to claim their ration. At the very least, the government should move to annual authentication of all members, put people out of their monthly misery. Since 2009, we were lulled into believing that privacy is the price we pay for better welfare programmes. In 2009, the present National Security Advisor A.K. Doval rightly said: “Now, it is being projected as more development-oriented, lest it ruffle any feathers. People would be unwilling to give up their right to privacy.” Welfare, efficiency, transparency, empowerment, etc., was the sugar-coating.
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The writer is an associate professor, Economics, at the Indian Institute of Technology, DelhiBefore Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson became a famous wrestler, actor or father, he was a kid growing up in an ever-changing home. For years, Johnson and his parents moved to a different city each time his father, a professional wrestler in the '80s, got a new gig. Money was tight, and the strains this lifestyle created didn't go unnoticed by the future movie star.
"I knew that my parents were going through some really, really tough times in terms of their marriage," Johnson tells "Oprah's Master Class."
One particularly traumatic moment happened when the family relocated to Nashville, Tenn. from California. Johnson, who was 15, and his father, Rocky, moved before Ata did, and on the day she arrived in Nashville after her cross-country drive, the tension between mother and father boiled over.
"I'll never forget it. It was probably about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. We were at a restaurant, the three of us, and they got into it," Johnson says. "They got into a very big fight. Not physical, but just really loud arguing."
The three left the restaurant, with Johnson's upset parents getting into his father's car, and Johnson getting into the driver's seat of his mother's car.
"I already had my license at that time at 15," Johnson says. "We're driving down I-65 -- I-65 is a major interstate that runs through Tennessee -- and I'm watching them drive in front of me. Their car starts swerving, and I can clearly see that they are arguing. My old man makes a hard right, and he gets on the shoulder, on the gravel road."
With the car stopped, Johnson's mother got out. The look on her face still haunts Johnson today.
"She had a glazed look over her eyes that I had never seen before," he says.
That's when she walked into traffic.
"She walks right into the middle of I-65, and continues to walk down into oncoming traffic," Johnson recalls. "My heart stopped."
Horns were blowing and vehicles were swerving out of the way to avoid hitting Ata. Johnson sprung out of the car and quickly made his way to her.
"I grabbed her and wrestled her over to the side of the road," Johnson says. "I don't remember what I said to her. I remember she didn't say a thing."
Yet, even without words, Johnson had just learned a powerful lesson.
"In that moment, one of the greatest lessons I've ever learned was how precious life is and how in an instant, it can all go away," he says. "[It] changed me."
Though that incident will stay with Johnson forever, Ata has no recollection of it.
"My mother has |
mounted on automobiles, can be viewed at different scales and from many angles, and are navigable by arrow icons imposed on them.
Water and ocean
Introduced in Google Earth 5.0 in 2009, the Google Ocean feature allows users to zoom below the surface of the ocean and view the 3D bathymetry. Supporting over 20 content layers, it contains information from leading scientists and oceanographers.[25] On April 14, 2009, Google added bathymetric data for the Great Lakes.[26][27]
In June 2011, Google increased the resolution of some deep ocean floor areas from 1-kilometer grids to 100 meters.[28] The high-resolution features were developed by oceanographers at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory from scientific data collected on research cruises. The sharper focus is available for about 5 percent of the oceans. This can be seen in the Hudson off New York City, the Wini Seamount near Hawaii, and the Mendocino Ridge off the U.S Pacific coast.[29]
Outer space
A picture of Mars'landscape
Google Earth in Sky Viewing Mode
One of the lunar landers viewed in Google Moon
Google has programs and features, including within Google Earth, allowing exploration of Mars, the Moon, the view of the sky from Earth and outer space, including the surfaces of various objects in the Solar System.
Google Sky
Google Sky is a feature that was introduced in Google Earth 4.2 on August 22, 2007, in a browser-based application on March 13, 2008,[30] and to Android smartphones, with augmented reality features. Google Sky allows users to view stars and other celestial bodies.[31] It was produced by Google through a partnership with the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Alberto Conti and his co-developer Dr. Carol Christian of STScI plan to add the public images from 2007,[32] as well as color images of all of the archived data from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Newly released Hubble pictures will be added to the Google Sky program as soon as they are issued.
New features such as multi-wavelength data, positions of major satellites and their orbits as well as educational resources will be provided to the Google Earth community and also through Christian and Conti's website for Sky.[33] Also visible on Sky mode are constellations, stars, galaxies, and animations depicting the planets in their orbits. A real-time Google Sky mashup of recent astronomical transients, using the VOEvent protocol, is being provided by the VOEventNet collaboration.[34] Other programs similar to Google Sky include Microsoft WorldWide Telescope and Stellarium.
Google Mars
Google Mars is an application within Google Earth that is a version of the program for imagery of the planet Mars. Google also operates a browser-based version, although the maps are of a much higher resolution within Google Earth, and include 3D terrain, as well as infrared imagery and elevation data. There are also some extremely-high-resolution images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera that are of a similar resolution to those of the cities on Earth. Finally, there are many high-resolution panoramic images from various Mars landers, such as the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, that can be viewed in a similar way to Google Street View.
Mars also has a small application found near the face on Mars. It is called Meliza, a robot character the user can speak with.[35]
Google Moon
Originally a browser application, Google Moon is a feature that allows exploration of the Moon. Google brought the feature to Google Earth for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 2009.[36] It was announced and demonstrated to a group of invited guests by Google along with Buzz Aldrin at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.[37][38] Google Moon includes several tours, including one for the Apollo missions, incorporating maps, videos, and Street View-style panoramas, all provided by NASA.
Other features
Google Earth has numerous features which allow the user to learn about specific places. These are called "layers", and include different forms of media, including photo and video. Some layers include tours, which guide the user between specific places in a set order. Layers are created using the Keyhole Markup Language, or KML, which users can also use to create customized layers.[39] Locations can be marked with placemarks and organized in folders; For example, a user can use placemarks to list interesting landmarks around the globe, then provide a description with photos and videos, which can be viewed by clicking on the placemarks while viewing the new layer in the application.
In December 2006, Google Earth added a new integration with Wikipedia and Panoramio. For the Wikipedia layer, entries are scraped for coordinates via the Coord templates. There is also a community-layer from the project Wikipedia-World. More coordinates are used, different types are in the display, and different languages are supported than the built-in Wikipedia layer.[40][41] The Panoramio layer features pictures uploaded by Panoramio users, placed in Google Earth based on user-provided location data. In addition to flat images, Google Earth also includes a layer for user-submitted panoramic photos, navigable in a similar way to Street View.
Google Earth includes multiple features that allow the user to monitor current events. In 2007, Google began offering users the ability to monitor traffic data provided by Google Traffic in real time, based on information crowdsourced from the GPS-identified locations of cell phone users.[42]
Flight simulators
In Google Earth 4.2, a flight simulator was added to the application. It was originally a hidden feature when introduced in 2007, but starting with 4.3, it was given a labeled option in the menu. In addition to keyboard control, the simulator can be controlled with a mouse or joystick.[43][44] The simulator also runs with animation, allowing objects such as planes to animate while on the simulator.[45]
Another flight simulator, GeoFS, was created under the name GEFS-Online using the Google Earth Plug-in API to operate within a web browser. As of September 1, 2015, the program now uses the open-source program CesiumJS, due to the Google Earth Plug-in being discontinued.[46]
Liquid Galaxy
Liquid Galaxy is a cluster of computers running Google Earth creating an immersive experience. On September 30, 2010, Google made the configuration and schematics for their rigs public,[47] placing code and setup guides on the Liquid Galaxy wiki.[48] Liquid Galaxy has also been used as a panoramic photo viewer using KRpano, as well as a Google Street View viewer using Peruse-a-Rue[49] Peruse-a-Rue is a method for synchronizing multiple Maps API clients.[50]
Versions
Google Earth has been released on macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. The Linux version began with the version 4 beta of Google Earth, as a native port using the Qt toolkit. The Free Software Foundation consider the development of a free compatible client for Google Earth to be a High Priority Free Software Project.[51] Google Earth was released for Android on February 22, 2010,[52] and on iOS on October 27, 2008.[53][54] The mobile versions of Google Earth can make use of multi-touch interfaces to move on the globe, zoom or rotate the view, and allow to select the current location. An automotive version of Google Earth was made available in the 2010 Audi A8.[55]
Version history Version Release date Changes 1.0 July 2001 1.4 January 2002 1.6 February 2003 1.7.2 October 2003 2.2 August 2004 3.0 June 2005 The first version released after Google acquired Keyhole, Inc. 4.0 June 2006 4.1 May 2007 4.2 August 2007 Google Sky was introduced
A flight simulator was added 4.3 April 2008 First release to implement KML version 2.2
Google Street View was added 5.0 May 2009 Google Ocean was introduced
Historical Imagery was introduced 5.1 November 2009 5.2 July 2010 Last version to support Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (PPC & Intel) and 10.5 Leopard (PPC) 6.0 March 2011 3D Trees were added 6.1 October 2011 6.2 April 2012 Last version to support Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (Intel) 7.0 December 2012 Support for 3D Imagery data was introduced
Tour Guide was introduced 7.1 April 2013 Last version to support Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion 7.3 July 2017 Google Earth Pro became the standard version of the desktop program. (A free license key was also publicly provided by Google for all the earlier Pro versions.) [56] 9.0 April 2017 An entirely redesigned version of the program; Currently only available for Google Chrome and Android. The desktop application continues to be Google Earth Pro, with regular updates.
Google Earth Pro
Google Earth running on Android
Google Earth Pro was originally the business-oriented upgrade to Google Earth, with features such as a movie maker and data importer. Up until late January 2015, it was available for $399/year, though Google decided to make it free to the public.[57][58] Google Earth Pro is currently the standard version of the Google Earth desktop application as of version 7.3.[59] The Pro version includes add-on software for movie making, advanced printing, and precise measurements, and is currently available for Windows, Mac OS X 10.8 or later, and Linux.[60]
Google Earth Plus
Discontinued in December 2008, Google Earth Plus was a paid subscription upgrade to Google Earth that provided customers with the following features, most of which have become available in the free Google Earth.[61] One such feature was GPS integration, which allowed users to read tracks and waypoints from a GPS device. A variety of third-party applications have been created which provide this functionality using the basic version of Google Earth by generating KML or KMZ files based on user-specified or user-recorded waypoints.
Google Earth Enterprise
Google Earth Enterprise is designed for use by organizations whose businesses could take advantage of the program's capabilities, for example by having a globe that holds company data available for anyone in that company.[62] As of March 20, 2015, Google has retired the Google Earth Enterprise product, with support ended March 22, 2017.[63] Google Earth Enterprise allowed developers to create maps and 3D globes for private use, and host them through the platform. GEE Fusion, GEE Server, and GEE Portable Server source code was published on GitHub under the Apache2 license in March 2017.[64]
Google Earth 9
Google Earth 9 is a version of Google Earth first released on April 18, 2017, having been in development for two years.[65] The main feature of this version was the launching of a new web version of Google Earth, which is currently only available for Google Chrome.[66] This version added the "Voyager" feature, whereby users can view a portal page containing guided tours led by scientists and documentarians.[67] The version also added an "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, represented by a die, which takes the user to a random location on earth along with showing them a "Knowledge Card" containing a short excerpt from the location's Wikipedia article.[67]
Google Earth Plug-in
The Google Earth API was a free beta service, allowing users place a version of Google Earth into web pages. The API enabled sophisticated 3D map applications to be built.[68] At its unveiling at Google's 2008 I/O developer conference, the company showcased potential applications such as a game where the player controlled a milktruck atop a Google Earth surface.[69] The Google Earth API has been deprecated as of December 15, 2014 and remained supported until December 15, 2015.[70] Google Chrome ended support for the Netscape Plugin API (which the Google Earth API relies on) by the end of 2016.[71]
Google Earth VR
On November 16, 2016, Google released a virtual reality version of Google Earth for Valve's Steam computer gaming platform.[72][73] Google Earth VR allows users to navigate using VR controllers, and is currently compatible with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive virtual reality headsets. On September 14, 2017, as part of Google Earth VR's 1.4 update, Google added Street View support.[74]
Google Earth Outreach
Google Earth Outreach is a charity program, through which Google promotes and donates to various non-profit organizations. Beginning in 2007, donations are often accompanied by layers featured in Google Earth, allowing users to view a non-profit's projects and goals by navigating to certain related locations.[75] Google Earth Outreach offers online training on using Google Earth and Google Maps for public education on issues affecting local regions or the entire globe. In June 2008, training was given to 20 indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest, such as the Suruí, to help them preserve their culture and raise awareness for the problem of deforestation.[76]
Non-profit organizations featured in Google Earth via the Outreach program include Arkive, the Global Heritage Fund, WaterAid, and the World Wide Fund for Nature.[77][78]
Google Earth Engine
Google Earth Engine is a cloud computing platform for processing satellite imagery and other geospatial and observation data. It provides access to a large database of satellite imagery and the computational power needed to analyze those images.[79] Google Earth Engine allows observation of dynamic changes in agriculture, natural resources, and climate using geospatial data from the Landsat satellite program, which passes over the same places on the Earth every sixteen days.[80][81] Google Earth Engine has become a platform that makes Landsat and Sentinel-2 data easily accessible to researchers in collaboration with the Google Cloud Storage.[80] The Google Earth Engine provides a data catalog along with computers for analysis; this allows scientists to collaborate using data, algorithms, and visualizations.[82] The platform uses Python and Javascript application programming interfaces for making requests to the servers.[83]
Google Earth Engine has been used multiple times as a tool for tracking deforestation. Initial applications of the engine have included mapping the forests of Mexico, identifying water in the Congo basin, and detecting deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.[84] Using the Google Earth Engine to track global forest loss or gain, the University of Maryland reported an overall loss in global forest cover.[85] The Carnegie Institute for Science's CLASlite system and Imazon’s Sisteme de Alerta de Deforesation (SAD) are two institutions that partnered with Google in the development of Google Earth Engine. Both organizations use the program to build maps of forests that measure environmental disturbances.[86] Additionally, Google Earth Engine has been expanded to further applications. These range from: Tiger Habitat Monitoring,[87] Malaria Risk Mapping[88] and Global Surface Water.[89]
Controversy and criticism
The software has been criticized by a number of special interest groups, including national officials, as being an invasion of privacy or posing a threat to national security. The typical argument is that the software provides information about military or other critical installations that could be used by terrorists. Google Earth has been blocked by Google in Iran[90] and Sudan[91] since 2007, due to United States government export restrictions. The program has also been blocked in Morocco since 2006 by Maroc Telecom, a major service provider in the country.[92]
On the other side of the critical spectrum, Google Earth has been accused of collaborating with governments and military establishments in order to spy on people. Yasha Levin wrote an article in The Guardian, stating "We knew that being connected had a price – our data. But we didn’t care. Then it turned out that Google’s main clients included the military and intelligence agencies".[93]
Blurred out image of the Royal Stables in The Hague, Netherlands. This has since been partially lifted.
In the academic realm, increasing attention has been devoted to both Google Earth and its place in the development of digital globes. In particular, the International Journal of Digital Earth features multiple articles evaluating and comparing the development Google Earth and its differences when compared to other professional, scientific, and governmental platforms.[94] Google Earth's role in the expansion of "earth observing media" has been examined for its role in shaping a shared cultural consciousness regarding climate change and humanity's capacity to treat the earth as an engineerable object.[95]
Defense
On February 13, 2019, 3D imagery was launched in 4 of Taiwan's cities, that being Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan, and Taichung. This has caused concerns from Taiwanese officials, such as Taiwan's Defense Minister Yen Teh-fa, saying that the 3D Imagery exposed some of it's Patriot Missile Sites. 10 Days later on February 23, Google has confirmed that it'll be removing the 3D imagery in the Republic.[101][102][103]
National security
Other concerns
Operators of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia asked Google to censor high-resolution pictures of the facility. [113] They later withdrew the request. [114]
They later withdrew the request. In 2009, Google superimposed old woodblock prints of maps from 18th and 19th century Japan over Japan today. These maps marked areas inhabited by the burakumin caste, who were considered "non-humans" for their "dirty" occupations, including leather tanning and butchery. Descendants of members of the burakumin caste still face discrimination today and many Japanese people feared that some would use these areas, labeled etamura (穢多村, translation: "village of an abundance of defilement"" ), to target current inhabitants of them. These maps are still visible on Google Earth, but with the label removed where necessary. [115]
caste, who were considered "non-humans" for their "dirty" occupations, including leather tanning and butchery. Descendants of members of the burakumin caste still face discrimination today and many Japanese people feared that some would use these areas, labeled (穢多村, ), to target current inhabitants of them. These maps are still visible on Google Earth, but with the label removed where necessary. Late 2000s versions of Google Earth require a software component running in the background that will automatically download and install updates. Several users expressed concerns that there is not an easy way to disable this updater, as it runs without the permission of the user.[116]
See also
Similar programs
ReferencesPeter Horne returns from injury to start at fly-half for Glasgow Warriors at the Kingspan Stadium tomorrow afternoon.
The news comes as a boost to Gregor Townsend’s men as they travel to Belfast to face play-off chasing rivals Ulster.
Fresh from signing a new three-year-contract with Glasgow, Horne makes his return to the
Warriors starting XV following a spell on the side-lines with an ankle injury.
The Scotland international’s return to fitness comes ahead of schedule following successful surgery on an injury sustained the Guinness PRO12 fixture against Munster at the start of December.
Brandon Thomson will make his Glasgow Warriors debut at full-back having joined the club last week on a short term deal from the Stormers.
Lee Jones and Sean Lamont start outside of Thomson on the wings and Mark Bennett returns from international duty to start outside of Nick Grigg in the centres.
Henry Pyrgos will pair up with the returning Horne, captaining the side at scrum-half.
In the front-row Sila Puafisi returns to the starting XV at tight-head, with James Malcolm at hooker and Alex Allan at loose-head.
Once again Brian Alainu’uese and Scott Cummings combine in the second-row and at open-side flanker Simone Favaro is released from Italy duty to play his first game for the Warriors since the beginning of January.
Rob Harley and Adam Ashe start as the other loose forwards.
On the bench Namibian international Tjiuee Uanivi features for the first time since injuring his shoulder in the reverse fixture against Ulster back in September.
Hooker Corey Flynn is called up to the bench and Rory Hughes will cover the back-three.
Glasgow Warriors head coach Gregor Townsend said: “Peter Horne is one of our hardest working players and a leader on and off the pitch, so his return will give everyone a boost. It’s a credit to our medical staff that Peter and Tjiuee (Uanivi) are both available for what is a crucial match."
“Brandon (Thomson) has integrated really well since his arrival and showed a good level of physicality while playing for Stirling County at the weekend. He has a very good rugby brain and is a quick learner, and is relishing the opportunity to play for the club.
“It’s also great to be able to include Mark (Bennett) and Simone (Favaro) who both played Test match rugby last weekend. We will require everyone in our squad to play with huge commitment, effort and belief as we look to bounce back from last week’s disappointing result."
Glasgow Warriors team to play Ulster in the Guinness PRO12 at the Kingspan Stadium, Saturday 18 February, live on Sky Sports (kick-off 3pm). You can also follow the action on Twitter @GlasgowWarriors. Glasgow Warriors appearances in brackets:
15. Brandon Thomson (0)
14. Lee Jones (48)
13. Mark Bennett (64)
12. Nick Grigg (12)
11. Sean Lamont (109)
10. Peter Horne (106)
9. Henry Pyrgos (118)
1. Alex Allan (42)
2. James Malcolm (17)
3. Sila Puafisi (35)
4. Brian Alainu’uese (8)
5. Scott Cummings (10)
6. Rob Harley (154)
7. Simone Favaro (28)
8. Adam Ashe (33)
Replacements
16. Corey Flynn (11)
17. Jamie Bhatti (2)
18. D'arcy Rae (18)
19. Tjiuee Uanivi (3)
20. Lewis Wynne (11)
21. Grayson Hart (30)
22. Richie Vernon (86)
23. Rory Hughes (19)
Not available due to injury: Sam Johnson (ankle), Pat MacArthur (head), Peter Murchie (hamstring), Greg Peterson (shoulder) and Leonardo Sarto (shoulder).The words “In Syria, Russia has responsibility for killing half a million people” are indefensibly false. The total war dead for the entire conflict, which began in 2011, is estimated at around 470,000, though some estimates are slightly higher or lower.
For Russia to be responsible for anything near 500,000 (half a million) people, Russia would have to be to blamed for nearly every single death in the entire conflict. Though Russia has aligned with the internationally recognized Syrian Arab Republic, Russia’s direct military involvement did not even begin until September 30th, 2015, over 4 years after the war began.
Even if one were to indirectly blame Russia for every death at the hands of the Syrian Arab Army, there is still no way the number could be so high. Kinzinger’s assesses the Syrian conflict as if it has only one side.
Were any Syrians killed by the Al-Nusra front, which has been funded by Saudi Arabia? Were any Syrians killed by ISIS, some of whose members received training within the United States? Were any Syrians killed by the “moderate rebels” being directly supported by the United States?
According to Kinzinger, the CIA’s training camps in Jordan, the constant inflow of foreign fighters, are all somehow irrelevant. In his bizarre fantasy world, the only party that is responsible for any deaths is Russia.
Despite this statement being wildly inaccurate, CNN’s Jake Tapper did not even question it. He simply proceeded with the interview. One must ask, what would Tapper’s response have been if a similar allegation had been made against Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? Would a wild, extreme allegation against US leaders be simply allowed to pass?
The Numbers Game & Soviet History
Interestingly, numbers and statistics are the basis for a great deal of Anti-Russian propaganda in the United States. For example, the phrase “Stalin was worse than Hitler” was often repeated on American television during the onset of the Ukraine crisis. The phrase served as a passive apology for the US alliance with pro-Hitler elements in the Right Sector and Azov Battalion.
Even if every allegation against Stalin is accepted as absolute fact, the statement has obvious historical flaws.
Hitler is universally known to have rounded up people on the basis of their race or ethnicity, put them on to trains, and transported them to death camps where they were exterminated in homicidal gas chambers. Even Stalin’s harshest critics have never accused him of such a deed.
Those who compare the USSR’s gulags to Hitler’s concentration camps ignore the fact that the gulags did not have gas chambers. In fact, most gulag prisoners were released within a few years and returned to normal life. The rate of incarceration in the USSR during the height of what some historians call the “Great Terror” was much lower than the current rate of imprisonment in the USA.
Furthermore, those who argue that the moving of Soviet citizens on the basis of their nationality during the Second World War amounted to “ethnic cleansing,” have never alleged that any ethnic groups or nationalities were exterminated. The policy of relocating Soviet citizens on the basis of their nationality was arguably very effective in defeating the Nazi invaders, and isolating pro-Nazi insurgents in certain regions. The policy also saved many Soviet Jews from being captured by the Nazi invaders.
The allegation that “Stalin was worse than Hitler” is based on calculated death numbers. The fact that starvation took place throughout the Soviet Union during the early 1930s is said to be responsible for millions of deaths, and these numbers are said to be larger than the number of those who died in Hitler’s concentration camps.
The argument falls to pieces when one recognizes that problematic economic policies are simply not the equivalent of death camps.Prior to the Russian Revolution deaths due to malnutrition occurred on a regular basis. During the early 1920s when the Soviet Union faced an economic blockade from the western countries, there was also mass starvation in the USSR. It wasn’t until the collectivization of agriculture, starting in the early 1930s, that Russia and the surrounding countries developed an effective, modern farm system. Collective Farms sold their produce to the state after the middle class landowners, or “Kulaks” were eliminated from the economy. Many Kulaks violently resisted efforts to adopt a collective farm system. The Red Army was dispatched on many occasions to fight against middle class peasants who took up arms to keep the primitive, ineffective, starvation creating farm system intact.After the collectivization, as Stalin’s Five Year Plans moved forward, ox-drawn plows were replaced with modern tractors across the countryside. During this period the population of the USSR gained universal housing, employment, running water, and electricity. The huts of rural villages were replaced with modern apartment buildings. In Ukraine, the famous Dneiper Dam was constructed, which at the time, was the largest hydro-electric power plant in the world. Stalin ultimately brought Russia out of its primitive agricultural system and transformed it into an industrial power. The chaotic events of the early 1930s resulted in famine and starvation, but the ultimate result was a much stronger and effective agricultural system.
Critics of Stalin claim that he collectivized too rapidly, causing chaos in the countryside which led to a famine. Trotsky’s writings allege that Stalin “zigzagged” between the slogans of “peasant enrich yourself” and “abolish the Kulaks as a class.” Ukrainian Nationalists point out that the Orthodox Church was persecuted in the process, in response to allegations of supporting the Kulaks. Others allege that the Red Army committed atrocities throughout the process of collectivization. Even if all of these allegations are true, they do not make “Stalin worse than Hitler.” To equate “forced collectivization” of agriculture resulting in chaos with death camps and gas chambers is not historical honesty.
The only basis for making this claim so is to compare numbers of deaths in the early 1930s famine with the numbers who perished in Nazi concentration camps. Even this faulty logic has its flaws. There is no universally recognized manner in which the number of deaths that took place during the famines is calculated. Anti-Stalin historians present a variety of figures that are many millions apart, based on many different methods of determining how many people died. Some figures presented by Anti-Stalin historians go as far to include children who were not born because parents did procreate. The equating of Stalin with Hitler is not logical, especially when one takes into account the huge economic achievements that also took place during the 1930s. The life expectancy of the Soviet people nearly doubled. The end result of the collectivization was the creation of an agricultural system that was far more efficient than any that had ever existed in Ukraine, Russia, or any of the surrounding countries. In order to create a new agricultural system, and take solid measures to end starvation, Soviet leaders felt it was necessary expropriate middle class peasants.
When details are presented, even accepting the anti-Stalin assumptions and narrative, this often repeated phrase is revealed to be quite a sweeping generalization. Much like Kinzinger’s fantastic and fictional statistic regarding Syria, the phrase “Stalin was worse than Hitler” has obvious factual weaknesses.
What About Clinton’s Man Made Famine?
Furthermore, if problematic economic policies are the equivalent of genocide, as western media alleges, why is Bill Clinton not considered responsible for a genocide of Russians during the 1990s? From 1992 to 2006, Russia’s population decreased by 6.6 million people, roughly 10 percent.Why did the population decline so rapidly? The policies being pushed on Russia by the unpopular President, Boris Yeltsin, who was backed and funded by the Clinton administration, had catastrophic economic results. According widely respected author Naomi Klein, during the Yeltsin years “more than 80 percent of Russian farms had gone bankrupt and roughly seventy thousand state factories had closed creating an epidemic of unemployment.” Meanwhile, drug addiction increased by 900%, HIV infection went from a mere 50,000 to millions, and the suicide rate doubled.Under Clinton’s direction, Boris Yeltsin privatized state run industries, eliminated social services and pensions, and made life unlivable for millions of Russians. According to Naomi Klein, only 6% of the Russian population supported these policies, but the Clinton administration financed Yeltsin’s political party and worked to secure his election and re-election as President.The term “Economic Genocide” was used by Russian Vice-President Alexander V. Rutskoi and US economist Andre Gunder Frank to describe what the Yeltsin administration carried out, at the behest of the United States.
While Russian history books available in the United States are filled with extreme allegations against Stalin, barely any talk about the “Man-Made Famine” of the 1990s. Estimates about how many people died due to the Yeltsin-Clinton policies are not presented. No talk of a “man made famine” caused by Yeltsin and Clinton is raised in western media.
The next time American audiences hear a statistic raised by an anti-Russian politician or pundit, it should be treated with suspicion. The Pentagon’s anti-Russian propaganda numbers game is largely based on extreme assumptions. Frivolous allegations are repeated without any thought or challenge, as the US public is psyched up into a hostile, anti-Russian mood.Alena Avdeeva, 26, mother of three, pictured with her two youngest children. Picture: Telefakt
Alena Avdeeva, 26, from Chelyabinsk region, has medical documentation from doctors showing she was pregnant with twins. In early January, nine months pregnant, she went to City Hospital Number 2 in Miass, where she had undertaken her first ultrasound.
Doctors told her that the fetal heart beat faint, so she need to go through the urgent caesarean section, according to reports. After the operation, she was shocked to be informed that it was a false pregnancy, and a cyst had been removed instead.
Doctor in Karabash saw her four times, and she was given blood and urine tests, none of which revealed there was anything amiss. Pictures: Odnoklassniki
Doctors in her home town Karabash were surprised when she returned without children. It then emerged that the medical records relating to her ultrasound had disappeared.
The chief doctor of Karabash hospital - where she had been treated during her 'pregnancy' filed a complaint with the police, demanding checks into this'strange case'.
Next there were accusations that the woman, a mother of three, had forged the results of the ultrasound at the hospital in Miass. 'She did this to keep her husband in the family,' said one source.
'In reality the woman was diagnosed with a cyst in Miass. With this diagnosis she then came to the hospital in Karabash.' Picture: Telefakt
Using this medical paper, she was treated by a gynaecologist in Karabash hospital. This doctor saw her four times, and she was given blood and urine tests, none of which revealed there was anything amiss. 'She went through only general clinical tests, and refused others,' said a source.
Investigators are continuing to seek the truth on a case they describe as'murky', as are the Ministry of Health.
'There was no pregnancy,' said a source. 'In reality the woman was diagnosed with a cyst in Miass. With this diagnosis she then came to the hospital in Karabash. Why the doctors here recorded her as pregnant only on the basis of false ultrasonography will be understood by the Health Ministry.'0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
Former President Jimmy Carter was on CNN’s Reliable Sources today where he took aim at both Fox News and Glenn Beck for what he described as deliberately distorting the news. Carter said,”The talk shows with Glenn Beck and others on Fox News, I think, have deliberately distorted the news.”
Here is the video courtesy of Media Matters:
When asked by Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz about his comments in his recent book critical of the 24 hour news networks’ reliance on dramatization and exaggeration, Carter let loose on both Glenn Beck and Fox News, “The talk shows with Glenn Beck and others on Fox News, I think, have deliberately distorted the news. And it’s become highly competitive. And my Republican friends say that MSNBC might be just as biased on the other side in supporting the Democratic Party, the liberal element. But that’s part of give and take. And I think CNN, more than others, has kind of tried to play the middle to their detriment as far as viewership is concerned and profits are concerned. So, I think that describes maybe more than I — more than my credentials warrant about what I think about — quickly the balance.”
It is interesting that Carter would go on to include MSNBC in the discussion. Many on the left including MSNBC hosts like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann have decried the false equivalency that was first brought up by Jon Stewart at his Rally to Restore Sanity between MSNBC and Fox News, but President Carter didn’t actually say that he believed that MSNBC distorted the news like Fox does, but that Republicans believe that MSNBC does the same thing that FNC does, which is a very accurate statement.
Republicans do love to lump MSNBC and Fox News together, but beyond the basic format of presenting programming from a partisan perspective, the two networks could not be more different. Fox News operates as not just a Republican information source, but the network institutionally engages in fund raising and political activity for the Republican Party. MSNBC may put liberal hosts on the air, but they have never fund raised for candidates, nor has MSNBC promoted something like the Tea Party Express.
President Carter’s bigger point is dead on. As more Americans limit themselves to news sources that reinforce their partisan biases, whether they be on the left or right, facts become distorted and warped as they are presented through the prism of partisan narrative. The news has gone from being about what is happening in the world to information that is used on both sides to attribute credit or blame for what is happening in the world to an ideology.
When people stop agreeing on facts, it tears away at the fabric of our society. If we can’t be united in agreement and acceptance of fact then the fragmentation that not only plagues our politics will spill out into the nation itself. Glenn Beck and Fox News have found that distorting the news is a very profitable enterprise. They don’t care about the toxic waste their enterprise is leaving behind. They are the foremost intellectual polluters of the American mind, and it is encouraging to see Jimmy Carter call them out.
If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As the Democratic primary race heats up between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the delegate estimate between the two remains extremely close. For the first time, Democratic superdelegates may decide their party's nominee.
But what exactly is a delegate and why are they so important to Obama and Clinton, and Sen. John McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on the Republican side?
The magic number of delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination is 2,025 out of 4,049 total number of delegates.
For Republicans, the number needed is much less -- 1,191 delegates to secure the party's nomination out of 2,380 total delegates.
CNN has compiled a list of questions and answers regarding the complicated world of delegates.
Q: What's the difference between delegates and superdelegates?
A: There are different set of rules for the Democratic and Republican parties.
For Democrats, there are two types of delegates within the Democratic Party: pledged and unpledged.
Both of them cast votes for presidential candidates at the national convention, but the methods by which they are selected differ.
A pledged delegate is elected to his or her position with the understanding that he or she will support a particular candidate. Over 80 percent of the total delegate votes at the convention are from these pledged delegates.
In caucus states, pledged delegates are elected through a series of local-level meetings and conventions and then are allocated to the candidates based on the candidate's showing in the caucuses.
In primary states, voters are actually voting for a candidate's slate of pledged delegates. The number of delegates who get to attend the national conventions is proportional to the candidate's share of the primary vote.
Although pledged delegates make a "pledge" to support a certain candidate, they are not required or bound by the |
’s Jackson scratching at a scab. He’s using a phrase that hints at homosexuality but trying to use it in a song apparently about a relationship with a woman, which works, I guess, until you come to this lyric:
Just promise me, whatever we say
Or do to each other
For now we’ll make a vow to just
Keep it in the closet
He never evinced much of a predilection for what today we’d call trolling. And this was before any of his scandals presented itself to the public. But it’s still an uncomfortable passage from someone who we know, even if he didn’t molest kids, took liberties he should not have. Was he writing from his subconscious? Practicing his lines? We’ll never know. Besides the accusations of those kids (all boys), which is something, there’s no evidence I know of that Jackson was gay besides some unsubstantiated tabloid stories. For what it’s worth, the raids on Jackson’s Neverland ranch by police produced a lot of hetero pornography. (Some of the boys testified that he’d show them porn.) The track has Princess Stéphanie of Monaco, who had some success in Europe as a pop star, contributing some breathy words.
83. “Whatever Happens,” Invincible (2001):
Not a terrible song: “Whatever happens / Don’t let go of my hand” is a clear and plaintive image. Carlos Santana plays through the track and whistles too. Tacky ending with Jackson and Santana thanking each other.
82. “Can’t Let Her Get Away,” Dangerous (1991):
Jackson was addicted to putting little sonic fanfares at the beginnings of his songs. You get one of those here, and then another aggregation of the best beats and melodies money could buy at the time. You have to give him credit. This is one of the least-interesting non-ballads on Dangerous, and it’s still a very crisp and professional production. This is all courtesy of Teddy Riley. He’d started in an R&B group called Guy, whose aggressively sparkling production and crisp edges was a precursor to a lite ‘90 genre called New Jack Swing. I think Jackson takes him to a harder place here than normal.
81. “All the Things You Are,” Music & Me (1973):
A showcase for Jackson’s piercing, ever-expanding vocal abilities; the backing track is too heavily orchestrated, but again, here’s a 15-year-old doing justice to a Kern-Hammerstein Broadway tune.
80. “Give In to Me,” Dangerous (1991):
Jackson is all upset yet again. My sense is that Quincy Jones, on the hilariously titled Bad, knew it was all posturing and produced accordingly; here, in Dangerous, it feel more like Jackson was browbeating his producers to make him seem more, you know, dangerous. Jackson was a great singer, and he’s sorta convincing, if you take the songs discretely. But en masse it all seems poised and melodramatic. As is typical on the album, he veers here between an overdone defiance and a tearful choke in his voice. Slash wanders in again and plays an awful lot of notes to underscore how desperate the singer is. FWIW, though, it’s probably the most coherent (and, not incidentally, ferociously fast) of his solos for Jackson.
79. “Heartbreaker,” Invincible (2001):
Jackson spent more than three years and untold millions on his final solo album, Invincible. In the U.S. it’s probably sold two-and-a-half million, between six or seven percent of that of Thriller. “Heartbreaker” is drony, with Jackson restating his thesis over and over.
78. “For All Time,” Thriller outtake (1982):
Sounds like it wants to be a good song, but there’s just no magic there, and it didn’t make the cut for Thriller.
77. “Someone in the Dark,” The E.T. Storybook (1982):
While they were supposed to be finishing up Thriller, Jackson and Jones started working with Steven Spielberg on an audiobook LP to make a little more money in the wake of the incredible success of Spielberg’s film. This created a distracting legal battle when MCA put out this album, and even tried to release an accompanying single, right when Thriller was coming out. This was the single, which is annoying even before E.T. comes in.
76. “(I Can’t Make It) Another Day,” Michael (2010):
Another Invincible outtake, this one a composition of one Lenny Kravitz. By this time, Kravitz was long past whatever low creative peak he had ever hit; the chances that he would suddenly be writing hot material for Michael Jackson was doubtful, a suspicion a quick listen to the song confirms.
75. “Heaven Can Wait,” Invincible (2001):
If you thought Meat Loaf had given us the definitively overwrought performance of a song called “Heaven Can Wait,” think again. Another sign of Jackson’s’ decline; just unintelligible pop-song gibberish, dispensed over ’90s R&B wannabe-isms. It took more than half a dozen people to write this overlong and over-verbal mess.
74. “Break of Dawn,” Invincible (2001):
Lots of bird noises at the beginning, but they sound harsh and unnatural. The whole thing tries to be all New Jack Swing-y, but just wait till you hear Jackson try to pull off the line, “Gotta make love to the break of dawn.” Hence the birds, I guess. Jackson wrote this with Dr. Freeze, the auteur behind “I Wanna Sex You Up.” (Also Bell Biv DeVoe’s vastly better “Poison.”)
73. “They Don’t Care About Us,” History (1995):
This is one of those decent but flawed later Jackson songs. It has an undeniably efficient backing track, and the chorus certainly has a hook. History — whose official title was, wait for it, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I, inconsistent on so many levels — was half greatest-hits set, half new work, and a perfect example of how Jackson and his record company couldn’t maintain a coherent marketing strategy for him amid the controversies over the molestation charges. (Why not do a greatest-hits set for one holiday season, a studio album for the next?) Jackson spent untold millions on the new album, and then blew punishing amounts of money commissioning gigantic Stalinist-style statues of himself and sending them all over the world. His fights with the label devolved into a nasty name-calling spat with Sony’s then-chief, Tommy Mottola. Producers tell Knopper that the backing track of “They Don’t Care About Us” boasts more than 20 percussion tracks alone. But despite all the time and money and producers, no one looked over Jackson’s lyrics! One went: “Jew me / Sue me / Everybody do me / Kick me / Kike me / Don’t you black and white me.” It’s one of those delightful moments when bad art backfires on its creator. The defense of the lines is that Jackson was saying, “Go ahead and call me a Jew, call me a kike.” Outside of being presumptuous, the problem is that the term “Jew me” has a plainly anti-Semitic meaning, which he was not successful in displacing with his own lyric. And he’s also equating the use of the word “kike,” a slur, with the word “Jew,” which isn’t a slur. In his various statements about the issue Jackson showed he was incapable of marshaling a rational argument in his defense. It was quite a PR mess, and another step along Wacko Road. And it should be noted that, even despite this, it’s a weird song. The first half of the chorus is lazy (“All I wanna say is that…”) and the second half (“They don’t really care about us”) is precisely the sort of thing a predator would say to a kid to separate him from his parents.
72. “The Girl Is Mine,” Thriller (1982):
Thriller’s selling spree began with this amiable, just-this-side-of-novelty track featuring the two most popular and harmless dudes in the world swapping aw-shuckses with each other. As far as star duets go however, this is the gold standard; two winsome personalities, their voices highly distinct. For the record, “the doggone girl is mine” is a terrible lyric. Thriller was released a month before Christmas in 1982 — late for that Christmas season, by industry standards, but that wasn’t what Jackson, Jones, and Sony were looking at. They were looking at 1983, a year the record dominated perhaps as no other record ever had. After softening up the market with the “The Girl Is Mine,” which gave Jackson the imprimatur of Paul McCartney, the hits just kept on coming. “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” “Wanna Be Starting Something,” etc. etc. — seven top-ten hits in all. On the record’s cover, Jackson — his face matured and sculpted and (not least) deracinated by facial surgery — came across to Middle America as fun and sexy, a master of aural if not physical charms. We soon discovered that that picture of his body jacketed a pop-song cycle of undeniable power and pleasure. It all became clear with the second single. When the insistent bass line, jittery strings and surprising self-definition (“I am the one,” he sang, “Whocoulddance onthefloor intheround“) of “Billie Jean” pulsed into our collective consciousness; when, the day after Jackson delivered his famous performance of that song on a Motown TV special, at a time when there was no Facebook or YouTube, and when VCRs had not yet penetrated American life, we went into school or work the next day to exclaim, “Did. You. See. That?” — there was, beside the simple pop pleasures imparted, something delectable, historically satisfying in seeing a black performer stand, titan-like, astride the world.
71. “Rockin’ Robin,” Got to Be There (1972):
Another Jackson solo hit from the first album, a cover of an R&B novelty song. Boy, this is rough going, but you have to credit his professionalism and manic devotion, right up to the rockabilly vocal tricks.
Here’s the original, which I think is a little subtler:
70. “Threatened,” Invincible (2001):
The standout track on Invincible, perhaps the best of Jackson’s monster songs; the chorus is one of the most subtle of his late period, and the snatches of the lyrics you can catch keep the song abstract, without the self-aggrandizement he toys with in so many of his later songs.
69. “Xscape,” Xscape (2014):
Tries to drum up some energy; am I the only one who finds the horns a bit retro? The breakdown is wan indeed. The low guttural voice Jackson sometimes affects has never sounded so uninteresting. Another song where our Michael is a victim — of a lying, greedy woman, of the media, of business pressures. A lot of people bought into this nonsense. In the wake of his death, particularly at his funeral, you heard a lot of talk about Michael the victim, Michael who was so beset by all these unfair things. No one said what those trials were exactly. Jackson sought his celebrity, fueled it in the most ridiculous ways, and, leaving aside some childhood trauma we don’t know or understand, brought his problems on himself. Consider his personal and professional circle. Reading through Sullivan’s in-depth Unbreakable is like spending time at a Twin Peaks cast party. Has-been celebrities; sleazy record-industry personnel; cultural punch lines; lawyers, plastic surgeons, and spiritual advisers to the stars; blowsy actresses; gullible foreigners and opportunistic politicians; arrant frauds, assorted poltroons, and the author of Kosher Sex appear, disappear and reemerge as if on a tabloid merry-go-round. Jackson’s various managers and top advisers include a one-time Sony promotions man named Frank DiLeo, invariably described as looking the part of the cigar-chomping former bookie he was; Jackson’s younger brother, Randy; someone named Trudy Green; a pair of Germans; a Korean lawyer; a Palm Beach billionaire said to have been an associate of Meyer Lansky’s; another adviser who has to leave Jackson’s employ after it is revealed he has a sideline in the gay porn industry; a man of Lebanese descent named Dr. Tohme Tohme, who claimed to be a Senegalese ambassador; a former press secretary who worked for Marion Barry while he was in prison; and others I am forgetting. Some of this crew didn’t make sure Jackson filed tax returns, and others ended up in court trying to get back money they advanced to Jackson, so it’s hard to feel sorry for most of them. Something of a low point is hit when the Nation of Islam shows up. It seems that Dr. Tohme Tohme might have been the most honest — and Jackson’s last, best hope for survival. But he, too, is eventually supplanted by a resurgent DiLeo, and left somewhat forlorn. We never find out what he was a doctor of, however.
68. “Bad,” Bad (1987):
While everyone liked Thriller, of course, Bad was always a bit ridiculous from the start. Sure there were some good tracks, but it’s hard to respect a guy who spends the first four minutes of his Big Next Statement wailing “I’m bad, I’m bad, I’m really really bad,” particularly while posing in his Cutest Little Biker in Encino getup. The biographies say that Jackson and Jones met with Prince to discuss a duet of the pair for this song. My sense is that Prince, who knew something about being bad, couldn’t have taken the proposal seriously. The video — I’m sorry, “the short film” — is directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Richard Price, the novelist, who serves up some tasty urban patois. (“Hunt’s up homeboy! We got victims out there waiting for us!”). It’s an interesting video to watch today. It’s big-budget and highly silly, with an expanding cast of Village People rejects serving as dancers and a little more “Be Cool” West Side Story choreography than is strictly necessary. For what it’s worth, though, this is now a fine wet spring of a man. Jackson’s post Jheri-curled hair is at its most luscious; even his somewhat forced sneers can’t mar that handsome face; and his leonine mien millions found highly fuckable, at least in their dreams. But it makes you sad, too, in retrospect. You notice that he managed to do something to lose that broad, transporting smile; later in life, his upper lip seemed permanently curled down over his upper teeth.
67. “This Time Around,” History (1995):
Great groove — there’d better be, given the number of top-line producers who worked on this thing. Shitty rap from Biggie Smalls. The subject matter is another aggrieved rant. “They falsely accused me.” Did I mention the great groove?
66. “Money,” History (1995):
In History Jackson had free reign to work out his anxieties and write about things that were on his mind. The trouble is that they all weren’t that interesting. Here he is accusing other people of being obsessed with (his) money. In the end, wasn’t it his responsibility to surround himself with better people? Boy that’s a dulcet chorus, though.
65. “Come Together,” History (1995):
Aerosmith had already done the rocker version of this song. It dates back to the 1980s, when Jackson did it for his weird film Moonwalker.
64. “Slave to the Rhythm,” Xscape (2014):
An unnotable midtempo jam with a crowded, overproduced backing track, and a dramatic intro at odds with the subject of the song itself. The song itself isn’t bad, just another slightly depressing example of the non-A stuff Jackson had apparently toyed with during his lifetime picked over by large groups of producers after his death.
63. “You Are Not Alone,” History (1995):
This ballad is drony and unpleasant, but it became Jackson’s last No. 1 hit, courtesy of songwriter R. Kelly, who, among other things, shared a fondness with Jackson for underaged kids. (R. Kelly had already illegally married the 15-year-old Aaliyah at the time Jackson recorded this, but had not yet been exposed as the child predator and sexual deviant he is known to be today.) The video, another of Jackson’s bizarre public presentations, is notable in that it showed Jackson full face, with a porcelain visage — a key moment when his face began to look beyond unnatural. There’s also Lisa Marie Presley, lolling around naked with Jackson against a Maxfield Parrish–style background, and trying desperately not to get caught up in the major freak show that was just getting started.
Then came another molestation charge. This time, Jackson had befriended a young cancer patient. Again the family became enmeshed in his lavish lifestyle. David Gest’s movie, Life of an Icon, is avowedly on Jackson’s side in telling this story, but it’s valuable in that it gives penetrating defenses of Michael from everyone involved in his camp. But there’s still an aura of Trumpian ridiculousness. For example, one of Jackson’s assistants says he was there when Jackson went to bed with the boy and a friend, and tells an elaborate story of how Jackson made sure the boys slept in the bed while he and the assistant slept on the floor. Hey — here’s an idea. How about if the kids sleep with their family and you two adults go sleep in your own fucking bedrooms? Besides the two public molestation charges, there’s at least one other boy, then a 13-year-old in England, featured in both Sullivan and Knopper’s books, who says Jackson crossed sexual lines with him over the phone and hasn’t used it for any financial gain, so it’s doubtful there’s no truth to any of the Jackson molestation charges in their most extreme versions. (It’s patently true that he did things with children adults shouldn’t do, and that he compromised families in the process, and it’s certainly possible he paid off other victims secretly.)
62. “Tabloid Junkie,” History (1995):
Jackson goes back to the “Leave Me Alone” well for another rant against the media: “Just because you read it in a magazine or see it on a TV screen / Don’t mean it’s factual.” This was 30 years before the fake news era, and actually, most stuff you did read back then was factual. There’s even a whispered line “They say he’s homosexual!” The nature of Jackson’s sexuality has eluded his biographers. It’s really none of our business, but since he brought it up we can duly note that there’s really little on the record about his having had a routine relationship, heterosexual or homosexual. It is Sullivan’s conclusion that Jackson might have died a virgin, heterosexually speaking. (Jackson himself said that one night when Tatum O’Neal tried to seduce him he covered his face with his hands until she went away.) In the second edition of Tarborelli’s book, Lisa Marie Presley suddenly goes out of her way to attest that the pair had a sex life, but it still sounds a little awkward. Not quite “Yes, yes, we did the sex! “— but not quite convincing either, like the pair’s kiss at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards.
61. “2 Bad,” History (1995):
More Jackson audacity in the Trumpian mold: Prince typography, Prince harmonies, Minneapolis producers, all to create a setting for the sort of whining Prince himself, regally, eschewed. Jackson’s complaining again, resentfully, being attacked on all sides, with another celebrity on hire to add a little rap rawness to the mix. (In this case it’s bad boy Shaquille O’Neal.) But it lacks something so many Prince songs have, which is joy and mischievousness — the dense mix of writers and producers here would seem to make that hard to create.
60. “Too Young,” Music & Me (1973):
This is a Nat King Cole hit from the 1950s, which Donny Osmond had a hit with in 1972. You might wonder why Motown would have Jackson record it again. But it’s not as bad as you might think; he turns it into a barnburner.
59. “Loving You,” Xscape (2014):
A very lite midtempo pop song, with an oddly retro — and unsubtle — backing from Timbaland.
Reading the biographers one is struck by Jackson’s lack of regular old friends. Someone I know went as part of a couple to Jackson’s house for dinner one night back in the day. Jackson’s own date for the evening was Frank DiLeo, that cigar-chomping manager. Conversation at dinner was halting; during a house tour the person I know said they caught Jackson making a cut-off gesture to his manager in a mirror. Jackson disappeared, and they were shown to the door by DiLeo. Doesn’t really sound like a life with a lot of friends. Reading about Jackson’s life is an amusement-park ride through a hall of random and not-all-that-celebrated celebrities, including cultural blips like Rodney Allen Rippy (look him up), Tatum O’Neal (introduced in a hot tub at a Hollywood party), and Emmanuel Lewis (on Jackson’s lap on a date with Madonna). In the period after Jackson was first accused of child molestation, he goes to Florida to work with Lou Pearlman, the impresario behind the Backstreet Boys. It transpires that Pearlman is a crook who might have a thing for young boys himself, and Jackson flees. (Pearlman’s still in prison.) Dick Gregory pops in and out of Jackson’s life, and so, inevitably, do Al Sharpton and Donald Trump himself. Here’s Mark Lester, the star of Oliver!; there is Chris Tucker, star of Rush Hour. I wish I could have spent more time with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (that’s the self-promoter who wrote Kosher Sex), an oh-so-close friend of Jackson’s who competed with the likes of Deepak Chopra and Uri Geller to be Jackson’s number-one bestest spiritual adviser. “The hardest rocking oil sheik in the Middle East” funds various Jackson dreams for a period of time, until, $7 million later, Jackson and his entourage vanish from his domain. A lawsuit follows here, too. Who am I forgetting? Oh, yes: Grace Rwaramba, dubbed by Time magazine as “the most powerful nanny in the universe”; Anton Glanzelius, “the best-known child actor in all of Scandinavia”; and Tony Buzan, “the inventor of mind mapping.”
58. “You Can Cry on My Shoulder,” Ben (1971):
One of the more careless tracks of his first four albums. I think it sounds muffled but there’s something interesting going on in the chorus and Jackson sure delivers on the high notes. Solo writing credit to Berry Gordy.
57. “Girlfriend,” Off the Wall (1979):
One of the amazing things about Off the Wall is that Paul McCartney gave Jackson a not-bad song, and it’s one of the lesser tracks on the record. McCartney was always generous to Jackson, leaving aside some supposed enmity from when Jackson ended up owning the Beatles’ song catalogue, though this doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The Beatles had the chance to buy their catalog back in the 1960s, but John Lennon fucked it up. McCartney had both the time and money in the years after that to do something about the situation. Jackson smartly bought the company in 1985, after Thriller, but then dumbly mortgaged it to fund his lavish lifestyle. There’s a good chance he would have lost the whole thing had he lived. Jackson’s estate eventually sold most of the rest of his holdings back to Sony.
56. “Smile,” History (1995):
This song was written originally by Charlie Chaplin. (Chaplin did the music; the lyrics, which were added later, go, “Smile / If your heart is breaking” etc. etc.) What could have been a charming, analog outing becomes almost unlistenable under the weight of the strings and intrusive percussion, not to mention Jackson’s unnuanced delivery. Barbra Streisand could listen to this and say, “Ugh, have some taste.” There’s a nice touch of what could have been at the end, when a solo piano comes in.
55. “Unbreakable,” Invincible (2001):
Not a terrible beat, and fairly distinctive. Really doesn’t sound like Jackson singing through most of it, however. That’s Biggie Smalls on the rap. Note that it’s another song about being beset and bothered.
54. “I Wanna Be Where You Are,” Got to Be There (1972):
A so-so soul song, with Jackson’s voice pitched almost unnaturally high, but he basically pulls it off. There’s a busy string arrangement. It was a minor single hit for Jackson. Lots of help from songwriter Leon Ware, who would go on to collaborate with Marvin Gaye at a crucial transition in the latter’s career.
53. “This Is It,” This Is It (2009):
The This Is It album was a greatest-hits collection with one original song—this wan concoction. It tries to be a rousing “Man in the Mirror”–style thing, and jeez you can hear Jackson trying, but it doesn’t stay with you. Worse, it sounds dated — it’s another song he wrote with Paul Anka in the 1980s. (Anka has said the track came from a tape Jackson had purloined from him and had been used on the album without his permission. He eventually came to an arrangement with Sony.) “This Is It” became the title of what was supposed to be a comeback series of shows at the O2 arena in London. In hindsight it was clear Jackson wasn’t going to have the stamina to perform anywhere near 50 shows — he was a mess during the rehearsals. But he was hemorrhaging money, and Dr. Tohme had finally gotten him to understand that, since the high costs and low sales had stunted his recording career, he had no alternative but to get his ass back out on a stage. Instead of doing something low-impact, the Jacksonian grandiosity kicked in and he allowed himself to be dragged into to a plainly overambitious endeavor. A bunch of promoters and advisers ended up getting caught in a long-running legal mess after his death (not to mention Jackson’s doctor), and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer group of people.
52. “Doggin’ Around,” Music & Me (1973):
One of the more charming early Jackson deep cuts. It’s kind of a blues tune, annoyingly arranged, but it’s fun to hear the then-15-year-old Jackson hit all his marks and generally work it on out.
51. “You Rock My World,” Invincible (2001):
This is a half-irresistible Jackson track with a good, unrelenting melody, a strong beat, and a groovy chorus. Marred by a long, embarrassing intro between him and actor Chris Tucker, with them both boasting about how lucky they are going to get, or something.
50. “Workin’ Day and Night,” Off the Wall (1979):
A piece of fluff, but energetic and solid. Written by Jackson.
49. “You Are My Life,” Invincible (2001):
I spent a while trying to figure out what previous Jackson song this reminds me of, but it’s just one of his treacly, unconvincing tracks. The unholy trinity of Jackson, Babyface, and Carole Bayer Sager wrote it.
Once Jackson broke with his family, they were left in a frustrated purgatory, with virtually every member (Janet prominently excepted, and Randy having something like an independent career) trying to get back into his orbit. Over the last ten years of his life, as his detachment proved permanent, devolution occurred. It’s hard to be cruel to a family that has given us so much pleasure over the years, but the combination of various screws being loose and the lingering fallout from the Thriller period compromised almost everyone and drove several brothers and even their parents into bankruptcy. (Joseph and Katherine extracted an extravagant fee from some determined South Koreans by promising to get Michael to play concerts there, which of course never happened; they were eventually found in judgment for some $13 million.) And this isn’t to mention all the other nonsense, like Jermaine’s wife running him over at a drive-in movie theater after she caught him with Paula Abdul. My favorite part of Sullivan’s book is the portrait of the bedlam at Havenhurst, the family’s Encino mansion, in the 21st century. Michael’s mother Katherine presides over a human circus of children, grandchildren, hangers-on, and staff. (It isn’t made clear why so many grandchildren live with Katherine; father Joseph had been exiled to Las Vegas long before.) The group also includes a woman who, in Sullivan’s account, few wanted in the house but who happened to be the mother of no fewer than four Jackson grandchildren after being involved with both Jermaine and Randy; a young man named Donte, whose parentage is unknown, but was suspected to be a child of Joseph’s perhaps via a housekeeper; and one Omer Bhatti, described as a “Norwegian rapper,” whom it is said Katherine is fond of. Michael’s death left Katherine, on the cusp of 80, in custody of his three kids — who came with that no-nonsense supernanny, and new heights of chaos ensue.
48. “Why You Wanna Trip on Me,” Dangerous (1991):
A heavily clichéd piece of guitar shredding starts this out, about as bad as most Jackson heavy-metal lagniappes. This is a good song otherwise. Mike’s still upset about things, here specifically about why people are criticizing him while, you know, babies are starving.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and can think of very few problems Jackson had that weren’t of his own making. Once we get into the realm of Dangerous and beyond, Jackson’s behavior curdles. From the mid-’90s on, it’s plain his face had been wrenched beyond repair. He developed an odd habit of wearing a weird little mask in public. In the garish tribute concert held at MSG, you can see him, seemingly involuntarily, continually holding his hand up to cover his face. (The film of the event has obviously been edited to exclude any close-ups.) In 1995, he appeared on a Diane Sawyer interview to try to talk his way out of the charges of sleeping with young boys. Sitting next to him listening, then-wife Lisa Marie Presley sports an expression that will seem familiar to anyone who has watched Melania Trump in public.
47. “Carousel,” Thriller outtake (1982):
“I lost my heart on a carousel / To a circus girl who went away.” Just another Michael Jackson boy-meets-carny, boy-loses-carny song. A two-minute fragment.
We might as well talk about Jackson’s father. The best film about Michael Jackson has been overlooked. It is called Michael Jackson: Life of an Icon. In another one of the celebrity-footnote absurdities in Jackson’s life, it was made by David Gest, best known for being the odd-looking man who married Liza Minnelli, with Jackson and Liz Taylor standing up for the pair, and then divorced her 18 months later, citing physical abuse. Who knew that Gest had been close to the Jackson family since their arrival in Los Angeles, and could call on virtually all the people who actually knew and worked with Jackson over his career? The movie has insights no other Jackson movie does. One potent example: In Gest’s movie a family friend from Gary details Joseph Jackson’s anger — but also has this to say about Michael Jackson’s stern father: “I seen the steel mill. I’m-a tell you, it’s like working for Satan. So his vision, I respect.” None of that excuses Joseph Jackson’s violence toward his kids, stories of which have come from every family source. (“The man was evil,” Bobby Taylor said — and claims he once pulled a gun on the elder Jackson to get him out of the studio.) Were they just the beatings that any father of the time might have delivered, as Joseph says they were? Or something a little too violent, like the stories Michael has told? There are worse allegations, too: The TV tabloid reporter Diane Dimond asserts in her book on the Michael Jackson molestation trial (ominously titled Be Careful Who You Love) that Rebbie Jackson, the clan’s oldest child, filed a sexual-assault charge against her father at age 16. But Dimond doesn’t source the charge and says the record was “erased,” whatever that means. Later, both LaToya Jackson, Michael’s other older sister, and Jermaine Jackson alleged sexual abuse of his daughters on the elder Jackson’s part. In any case, Joseph ultimately alienated his family with his extramarital affairs … and extramarital children, too. (Sullivan says there maybe a half-dozen or more.) He has lived in exile in Las Vegas for decades. It’s a penumbral life. His personal website is a gate to a louche netherworld of not-quite luxury products. (An announcement I noticed a few years ago: “Joe Jackson today signed a marketing agreement with Manuela Koschker and Don Stardy of UD Group International for the Global Production of Joe Jackson: Champagne, Ice Cream, Jellys, Lollys, Cosmetique, Jewelry and Fashion, Children and Adult Clothing.” There seems to be no further public record of this auspicious endeavor.) Joseph is separated from his family except in high-profile occasions when his presence is required, and even then he embarrasses himself searchingly, as in the immediate aftermath of his son’s death when he began promoting his new record label whenever he got in front of a news camera. Sullivan says that custody rules worked out between Debbie Rowe and Katherine Jackson after Jackson’s death prohibit unsupervised contact between Joseph and his grandchildren.
46. “Ghosts,” Blood on the Dance Floor (1997):
Here at least we have a metaphor, though the first half of this song could fool you. It’s the “ghost of jealousy” — that’s Jackson’s contention of what was driving his supposed foes. The song did however provide fodder for one of Jackson’s best later videos, set in a big haunted house with lots of CGI and great choreography — and Jackson dressed up as a portly white guy.
45. “Another Part of Me,” Bad (1987):
Second-string but still groovy beats; aimless but still engaging singing. The most interesting thing is how he pronounced “part” (“poo-what!”) in the title phrase. Jackson wrote this, and it has the marks of his early solo compositions: the odd sentence construction (“We’re sending out a major love”) and bland encomiums to peace and love, blah de blah. At the same time, the rhymes and beats here — slightly off-kilter, with that guitar not quite in line with the bass — show how Jackson’s intensely idiosyncratic approach to the music created unusual pop songs.
44. “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing),” Thriller (1982):
The story is that Jackson wrote a song called “P.Y.T.”, but Quincy Jones turned his nose up at it. Instead, he brought in James Ingram, a noted soul singer of the time, to write a new song of the same name with Jones. It’s another unassailably sophisticated Jones production, with a note or two of quirkiness, and Jackson’s mannerisms kept to a minimum. Note how that brief guitar line at the beginning has a sound like some of the other tracks from the album, giving it an organic feel despite its varied styles. “P.Y.T.” was the album’s sixth single, and it just squeaked into the U.S. top ten. (This stuff was well-chronicled at the time.) You have to assume some behind-the-scenes manipulation by Sony to nudge it up to that position. (This was the era of the indie promo man, who would act as a middle man for payola to radio stations.) Ironically, it’s an undeniable hit single; the relative lackluster performance probably suggests Jackson fatigue finally settling in by the time. But Jackson had a secret weapon: The album’s seventh and last single, the title song, would be accompanied by the most celebrated video of the era and safely rise into the top ten as well.
43. “The Way You Make Me Feel,” Bad (1987):
Another fine hit single written by Jackson. By any standard Jackson has been misunderestimated as a songwriter — I was amazed to go back to see that, over the first four albums of his adult career, Jackson got solo writing credit for 16 songs; eight went to No. 1 on the pop charts. Twelve were top-ten hits, and a 13th stalled at 11. (Madonna, by contrast, has never written a number-one song on her own.) Jackson is unique among his peers in this one way: To a surprising extent, he wrote the hits he needed when he needed them, and essentially never missed. That said, sometimes I’m a tiny bit curious as to how Jackson actually wrote songs. You don’t see footage of him playing piano or plucking at a guitar — he couldn’t play an instrument. From the bios you get a sense that Jackson would hum or describe parts to a musical staff, who helped him get the songs out of his head and onto an instrument.
42. “Much Too Soon,” Michael (2010):
At the end of the first posthumous album comes this icky supersweet ballad, all blather about “what the future brings.” There might be an accordion on it, which I think would be a first. But thoughts of that disappear under the weight of all the other icky supersweet sounds — from the violins, the tinkling plucked guitar, the warbling harmonica.
41. “Hold My Hand,” Michael (2010):
This is a collaboration between Jackson and Akon, which you can tell because the latter sings, “Akon and MJ!” at the beginning. Also because of Akon’s freaky voice. A lot more Akon than MJ, as it happens. Harmless otherwise.
40. |
about the games.
2. Scavenger hunt
Scavenger hunts are fun and exciting! They bring out that child-like thrill in people, and encourage healthy competition.
Although you do want your team members to be a little competitive, you probably want to encourage team spirit and collaboration more. So while you will divide your team in pairs for the scavenger hunt, manipulate the situation so that no one pair wins, but the whole team. For example, try making the scavenger hunt a puzzle that the whole team can get excited about at the end.
3. Start a lunchtime yoga program
Yoga can help your team members relax and approach their work in a fresh way. Consider organizing yoga classes a couple of times per week. Yoga classes benefit both body and mind, so your team members will draw lots of benefits from them. But perhaps the greatest benefit is that with time, yoga classes will not only help team members approach their work in a different manner, but also their work relationships.
4. Volunteer together
When people come together to do something for someone less fortunate, their relationship is forged a little tighter. Volunteering together might be a touchy issue, since everyone supports different causes. But even if that is the case within your team, you can still find things that your team can do together to improve your community.
It can be as simple as planting trees together, or picking up garbage in your neighbourhood one afternoon, or preparing personal care packages for a homeless shelter nearby. Few team building tools are as satisfying, inexpensive and beneficial as team volunteering.
5. Create your own team building activity
This meta-team building activity can be a lot of fun, and it’s quite different than traditional team building activities. After you’ve divided your team members in groups two or three, each group is supposed to solve the problem of creating an interesting and fun team building activity, targeted at a specific team problem. But the exercise in itself is the team building exercise. At the end of the exercise, each team can present their activity - if the other team members like it, you can try it out next time!
Do you have any original team building activities that your team came up with? What worked and what didn't work? Share your team's stories with us in the comments below!Yesterday, two workers - Usman and Arshad - were killed and 23 others severely injured after a fire broke out at the Al Badar factory located on Sheikhupura Road near Lahore. The fire was caused by a boiler which exploded in the factory. Twelve of the injured workers are in a critical state, with more than ninety percent burns. They have, according to hospital reports, little chance of surviving.
Talking to the correspondent of Worker Nama, some of the workers said that a similar incident had taken place last year in which many workers were injured. But no action was taken against the management. This time the outdated boiler inside the factory burst and led to a fire in the whole factory. Those who have not yet died from their injures could very well do so and if not, will most probably be paralyzed for the rest of their lives, if they do not die off their injuries, that is.
[See news coverage of the accident here]
The Al Badar factory manufactures parts for the Honda motorcycles company situated nearby. Honda is more responsible for this incident than anyone else. They are using the third party contract system to increase the exploitation of the workers. Honda is earning millions of dollars in profits from the production at Al Badar every year. Yet they keep pushing the workers even more. In order to get rid of the “burden” of having a labour force and providing basic safety as well as having to pay the workers the minimm wage (mininum $140 per month), they have handed over production to a third party contractor. Many multinational companies such as Honda, Unilever, Nestle, Coca Cola are using these tactics to increase profits. In reality these workers are manufacturing products for giant businesses, but officially they are employed by a local contractor. As a result the workers receive extremely low wages - far less than the official minimum wage - they have poor safety conditions and work in very hazardous conditions. Furthermore, legally, the big companies do not have to take any responsibility for workers who are killed or injured at work.This super exploitation is the basis of their enormous profits.
This particular third party contractor violates all labour and safety laws. The workers who work here are brutally exploited. According to Pakistan’s labour laws, all workers should be registered with the Social Security department and are entitled to pension on retirement through the department of EOBI. But no such registration takes place in Al Badar and other similar contractors. The wages are below the official minimum wage and the workers are forced to work for up to sixteen hours a day. Even on Sundays they have to work to please their bosses. The Labour department in Pakistan has is totally impotent. Its officials themselves own big industries or shares in multinationals and they never allow the Labour department to interfere in their profitable businesses. In fact, labour department officials have become accomplices of the industrialists and often threaten the workers if they dare to raise their voice against the management or take any step to organise a union. The Police, Judges of labour courts and the officials of other departments all extort money from workers and brutally crush them if they raise any protests against all of the injustices they are exposed to.
Safety at the workplace in Pakistan is seriously compromised and workers are forced to work horrible working conditions. The management and the owners are mostly not bothered if some, or even all, of the workers of the factory are killed at work. They will just hire new workers and carry on business as usual. Even simple repairs for electrical wiring and other similar issues are ignored and end up leading to big disasters. The government has designated special officials as Boiler Inspectors, but as all other such positions, these are a farce. The workers continue to work in the most barbaric conditions and are treated worse slaves. The management staff regularly bully the workers, beat them up and give them life threatening punishments, but there is no one to save them.
The callous attitude of the government doesn't end here. Even after the accident yesterday, the government departments were not equipped to put out fire or to carry the injured to the hospital. At the hospital, the situation is even more shameful.
The lack of beds at public hospitals means that it is quite normal for three patients to have to share one bed. Furthermore, the medicine one receives is either very expensive or fake and often both. After this accident yesterday the injured were first taken to District Hospital in Sheikhupura, but there was no arrangement to treat these patients. So they had to be sent to Mayo Hospital in Lahore fifty kilometers away which is already overcrowded. Shamelessly, the ruling class has not built any proper hospital for such patients in a district, which has thousands of industries and more than one million workers. Of course, if any member of the ruling class as much as sneezes, they will go to Europe or the US for treatment.
The only way forward for the workers is to get organised and wage a struggle against the brutal capitalists for their rights. After the accident at Al Badar, the owners of the factory and the management of Honda are trying their best to dodge responsibility. All the media and government departments will join them in blaming the “careless workers”. These incidents have become a routine and every other day reports appear of workers burnt to death due to a burst boiler or a short circuit in a factory. No one is ever punished. In Baldia town in Karachi, nearly three hundred workers were killed in a factory fire four years ago, but no one has been held responsible. Hundreds of workers were also killed, when the roof of a multistory factory collapsed in Sundar industrial area, in Lahore two years ago. At Gadani ship breaking yard, near Karachi more than two hundred workers got killed on 1 November last year. Hundreds of “small” accidents with dozens of killed, take place on a regular basis across the country. But no one is there to listen to the screams of the workers. The government is rapidly privatising all public sector departments and sending hundreds of thousands of public sector employees to the altar of the private owners who are butchering the workers every day.
The Red Workers Front has condemned this brutal accident and places all the responsibility on the management of Honda and the government of Pakistan.ADVERTISEMENT
Hawkish Republicans and hawkish Republican donors considered Ron Paul a nuisance, though occasionally a useful and amusing one. Rand Paul, on the other hand, is a real political talent. He is less stiffly ideological than his father. He more easily translates his libertarian instincts into words the GOP base understands.
And that means that Paul the son is a threat to the hawkish wing of the GOP. If it looks like he could win more than a few primaries in 2016, chances are he'll face a tidal wave of money from neocon donors opposing him.
Last month Zeke Miller reported on the speakers at the Republican Jewish Coalition who talked about Rand Paul in a kind of code. GOP hopefuls offered the usual euphemisms about fighting "a rising tide of isolationism" in their party, or pumping America's "need to be engaged." Translated roughly: "When the time and the checks come, I'll put a knife in Rand's larynx and make a big show of it." Are you not entertained?
The donors that spoke off the record were even more explicit about their willingness to take Paul down. From Miller's report:
Several prominent GOP donors at the conference suggested that [Sheldon] Adelson, who spent more than $100 million backing Newt Gingrich and Romney in 2012, is likely to spend vast sums against Paul if he appears to be well positioned in the Republican primaries. Adelson's spending is largely motivated by his strong concern for Israel, and Paul's positions may well put a target on his back. [TIME]
For Adelson, $100 million is a small fraction of his estimated $37.5 billion net worth. And with a Supreme Court very friendly to blowing by limits on political cash, Adelson could go wild. The strategy is already being field tested in the midterms. Paul-like GOP congressmen in the House are already seeing how hard the GOP establishment will push to take them out. For example, Walter Jones and Justin Amash, two reliably anti-war Republicans, are facing well-funded primary challengers.
If I were Adelson, and I considered it desperately important to keep one of America's major parties closer to my hawkishly pro-Israel views, I would simply give a Ted Cruz-aligned super PAC $200 million at the start of the next election and pledge to give it $200 million more should that money be needed. Let Cruz's money advantage make him the more attractive "populist Tea Party alternative" to the GOP's establishment candidates. Save a few hundred million more and dangle it in front of every other GOP aspirant but Paul and watch the field unify in their opposition to the Kentucky senator and his libertarian policies. Just make it rain and watch GOP polls contort themselves.
Considerably less than $100 million could temporarily rent a huge chunk of conservative-leaning media outlets. Do you remember the way conservative site Breitbart went on a crazy binge of pro-Trump articles? Adelson's wealth, properly channeled, could make much of the dollar-hungry conservative web, fueling wall-to-wall coverage of Paul's gaffes and speculative coverage about recreational drug use.
Money can make an unflattering campaign story: "Paul lagging in funds." And money can amplify that story: Conservatives doubting Paul can overcome money hurdles.
Perhaps the Paul camp would welcome such a unified opposition. After all, it would grant his us-vs-them fundraising campaigns quite a bit of legitimacy. Surely, his grassroots-savvy team could light a few money-bomb campaigns with that. But does even Paul believe that a presidential campaign can run on $100 checks sent in by hepped-up liberty advocates?
To win, Paul and his anti-interventionist cadres must develop a fundraising apparatus as well-organized, as active, and as deep-pocketed as the one he faces. Until the media is buzzing about "Paul bundlers," "Paul angels," and "Paul-billionaires," I wouldn't bet on him winning the GOP nomination.A government task force of Kentuckians is focusing on a proposal that will legalize medical marijuana in Kentucky.
Secretary of State Alison Grimes announced Wednesday that this task force will study and propose potential ways to implement and regulate medical marijuana if legalized.
"Too many Kentuckians are suffering from debilitating physical and mental illnesses. Most have lives with the effects of these illnesses for year," Grimes said. "We must do more to relieve their pain and suffering, and there is significant evidence that cannabis is beneficial for these individuals, especially veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress."
Members of Kentucky's medical community, law enforcement, state agencies, medical marijuana advocates, and military veterans will be part of this new task force.
"Kentucky is getting left behind on this issue," said State Representative John Sims, who is co-chairing the task force with Grimes. "Already 29 states and the District of Columbia have enacted medical marijuana legislation to help their people."
Officials say significant evidence exists showing marijuana counters side effects of a large number of illnesses and diseases. This includes cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, Crohn's disease, hepatitis C and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Sims said, "The research is done. The studies have been conducted. It works, and it's time we end our idling and start having conversatioms to bring medical marijuana to the Commonwealth."
"2018 is and must be the year when Kentucky steps up on medical marijuana," Grimes said. "We have to get this done to help Kentuckians who are hurting."WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials honored slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk on Thursday with the unveiling of a new postage stamp, and called for more work to advance the cause for which he gave his life.
Representative John Lewis (Ga), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, President of the Harvey Milk Foundation Stuart Milk, Deputy Postmaster General Ronald Stroman, and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power (L to R) gesture as they unveil the Harvey Milk Forever Stamp at its dedication ceremony at the White House in Washington May 22, 2014. REUTERS/Larry Downing
Milk, one of the first openly gay politicians in the United States, was assassinated in 1978, a year after winning election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power noted at the White House event that there still were seven countries where it was legal to execute people for being homosexual.
She added her voice to a White House push for legislation that would ban U.S. workplaces from discrimination based on sexual orientation. She mentioned Michael Sam, who recently became the first openly gay player to be selected in the National Football League Draft.
“We cannot lose sight of how we have yet to go. While we now do live in an age where the National Football League has for the first time drafted an openly gay man, we still live in an age where the NFL can fire him for being gay,” she said.
“Postage stamps will not change that, legislation will.”
The stamp has a black-and-white picture of a smiling Milk and his name in large, capital letters.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, reflected on attending Milk’s funeral after he and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were gunned down.
“I thought, is this how it ends?” she said. “But it really was just the beginning of the impact that he... would have. So it’s pretty thrilling for us who knew and loved him and saw his courage first hand.”
She said being on a postage stamp was a privilege reserved for very few and said it was appropriate that Milk was one of them.
Members of Milk’s extended family attended the unveiling of the stamp, which took place in a building next to the White House.
“The United States has come a long way,” Erik Milk, 28, a grand nephew of the slain leader, told Reuters.
“Probably he never would have thought that anything like this, of this magnitude would have ever happened, but you know, all of his efforts paid off in the long run.”
Stuart Milk, president of the Harvey Milk Foundation, said the stamp would help advance the cause of gay rights abroad.
“We have to teach history so that we don’t repeat history, and so this is a great way of doing that,” he said in an interview.If you thought your internet connection was terrible – well, you may not be imagining it.
Akamai’s State of Internet report, which ranks every country’s internet speed, placed Australia 50th in the world.
The quarterly report, released last month, ranks countries based on several tests. These include peak internet speed, average internet speed and overall internet speed change.
Australia performed poorly across the board, particularly against other Asia/Pacific nations.
When breaking down average mbps, Australia (11.1mbps) lost out to neighbour New Zealand (14.7mbps) – and fell well behind region leader South Korea (28.6mbps).
To put this in perspective, an ultra HD video on Netflix requires around 25mbps to enable uninterrupted streaming.
Australia performs even worse in average peak Mbps, which explores the fastest internet speed recorded or achievable in any given country.
Australia’s paltry 55.6mbps average peak speed ranks 12th in the Asia/Pacific region – despite a 27% increase since last year.
To complicate the theory, however, the report also examines average mobile data speed – a category where Australia’s average speed beats that of Canada, China and the United States, coming in first in Asia/Pacific at an average of 15.7mbps.
Turns out it’s not just the connection speeds that are inconsistent.
That’s why we’re getting the NBN... right?
The use of outdated infrastructure has led to the embarrassing internet predicament Australia faces today.
The answer, we’ve been told, is the National Broadband Network – Australia’s largest infrastructure project in history, tasked with supercharging the country’s internet speeds up to 100mbps.
Conceived under the first Rudd Government, the NBN was pitched at an initial cost of around A$40 billion, which would see houses connected to the exchange via optic fibre.
The project changed direction under the Abbott Government in 2013.
Then Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced his Multi-Technology Mix (MTM), which opted for fibre to the node (FTTN) as the preferred technology in regions that already had underlying copper wire. This was a radical departure from the initial fibre to the premises (FTTP) setup for all households.
Already, upgrades to the FTTN section of the network are on the cards. Last month Peter Ryan, NBN Co’s chief network engineer officer, broached the somewhat taboo topic.
“I do accept that there has been some problems recently,” he said.
“We are contemplating right now as we roll out the network the ability to upgrade the network not only to meet the needs of Australians today but to future-proof the needs of Australians into decades ahead.
“We know that the technology that we are deploying is absolutely upgradeable to meet needs of Australians for the next few decades.”
FTTP: The further you are from the node – the poorer your connection will be
But that’s hard to swallow, considering that for the estimated 30-40% of homes connected to the NBN via FTTN, a complete overhaul of existing infrastructure will be required to achieve the speeds being promised.
It’s safe to say not everyone is convinced, with Laurie Patton, executive director of Internet Australia, labelling the NBN “a dud”.
“The problem we are facing is that we are now building a network based on ageing copper wires that will need to be replaced within five to 10 years of completion of project,” he said.
Patton also went on to describe the upcoming FTTN rollout in metro areas as a nightmare, adding “Internet Australia has warned the government that the level of complaints is likely to skyrocket in the next 12 months”.
So if watching Netflix on a Friday night is an exercise in long-suffering ‘buffering’, it could be that your copper is simply too slow – and the ensuing bottleneck has congested the local exchange or node.
But it’s not all bad news
Despite how frustrating the NBN’s performance has been, there are some positives here.
Mobile connection speed is among the best in the world and will continue to climb higher after Telstra announced a $3 billion investment into its mobile network.
In addition, while only 19% of Australians have access to an average internet speed above 15mbps, that figure is a 90% increase from last year.
Our development may not be keeping pace with other nations right now, but any progress is better than none.
The NBN may have taken shortcuts the first time around, and taken us on a frustrating detour, but with the mistakes now acknowledged the future is looking, well, faster.Dive Brief:
Winter demand on the Texas grid hit a new record this week, spiking to 57,958 MW on Monday during a bout of cold weather and besting the previous record of 57,265 MW set in 2011, Platts reports.
57,958 MW on Monday during a bout of cold weather and besting the previous record of 57,265 MW set in 2011, Platts reports. However, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) also said the cold front brought increased additional wind into the territory, helping set a new record for " instantaneous wind generation output."
instantaneous wind generation output." forecast peak demand this fall was more than 9% above last year's estimates Both demand and wind generation in ERCOT have been rising; the.
Dive Insight:
Records have been falling in ERCOT quickly, but at least during winter, they have tended towards the generation side as the state adds more wind facilities. But this week, spurred by the cold front that blanketed much of the country, the Texas grid operator also bested a five-year-old demand record.
On Dec. 19, demand reached almost 58,000 MW compared with the previous record set Feb. 10, 2011. "This new winter record exceeds the previous December demand record of 53,642 MW," ERCOT added in its announcement — a mark set in 2013.
But along with the demand, the grid operator said that as the front blew into the state, over the weekend, the ERCOT system "also experienced a new record for instantaneous wind generation output." Wind output reached 15,195 MW just after 6 p.m. on Dec. 17, topping the previous record of 15,033 MW set the month before.
In November, the new wind generation record meant the carbon-free power was meeting about 45% of power demand at the time. More than half the power, almost 9,000 MW, was produced in West and North Texas, according to ERCOT officials.
Last year, wind produced almost 12% of energy used in ERCOT. This October, wind generation was serving 14.7% of demand.When Jordan Ashley Barney arrived at Wheaton College in Illinois and wanted to join the Christian Feminist Cabinet, she asked what the difference was between “a Christian feminist and an actual feminist.”
“Because to me,” Barney, 20, said recently, “I don’t think there should be any sort of difference.”
But when she and co-president Krista Pedersen took over, they kept “Christian” in the name. “It makes people less worried,” said Barney, meaning less worried about the stigma associated with feminism.
But, as Barney then added, “People get worried no matter what.”
It isn’t easy being a self-described feminist on one of the most famous evangelical campuses in the country, which became even better known when its case against covering some forms of contraception reached the Supreme Court on July 3.
“I don’t know how they’d censor me, but they’d find a way.” Jordan Ashley Barney, Wheaton College student
Wheaton had objected to signing a government form that would certify the college’s objection to subsidizing some forms of birth control, which would then notify the insurer to cover it directly. Under the Affordable Care Act, women must be provided coverage for contraception by their health care plans free of charge.
The college argued that “signing the Form would be impermissibly facilitating abortions,” equating emergency contraception and the IUD with abortion in defiance of the evidence. A majority of Supreme Court Justices said Wheaton didn’t have to sign the form while its suit went forward.
Wheaton’s president even compared its suit against contraceptive coverage to the fight against slavery. “Wheaton College and other distinctively Christian institutions are faced with a clear and present threat to our religious liberty,” Dr. Philip Ryken said. “Our first president, the abolitionist Jonathan Blanchard, believed it was imperative to act in defense of freedom. In bringing this suit, we act in defense of freedom again.”
RELATED: This is the next Hobby Lobby: The fight over contraception at Notre Dame
Wheaton is an icon of social conservatism. It took until 2003 for the school to repeal its ban on on-campus dancing (except square dancing) and on adult faculty drinking alcohol. Students are bound by a community covenant, which dictates taking “care to avoid any entertainment or behavior, on or off campus, which may be immodest, sinfully erotic, or harmfully violent.”
Barney and Pedersen say they chose Wheaton for its rigorous academics, though they both came from evangelical Christian families – Pedersen’s in Miami and Barney’s just outside San Francisco. Pederson’s mother, she said, had been praying for her daughter to attend Wheaton since she was a little girl.
Both students still identify as Christian, though no longer as evangelicals. They knew, more or less, what they were in for at Wheaton.
“I wanted to bring my different background, experience, and opinions, and blend them with the larger Christian community,” said Pedersen, 20, who is studying political science and history.
“I came into Wheaton very much a feminist, and also knowing that my surroundings weren’t going to be exactly in line with my beliefs,” said Barney, who is studying communications and pursuing a newly-created certificate in gender studies. “It’s been rough in some ways.”
But she and Pedersen aren’t entirely alone: About thirty people, out of 2,400 undergraduates, show up to the Christian Feminist Cabinet’s bi-weekly meetings. Last spring, they were among a handful of students who peacefully demonstrated in response to an “ex-gay” speaker on campus.
Barney opposes the university’s contraception lawsuit, but worries that galvanizing broader pushback on campus will be tougher than it was for the “ex-gay” speaker.
“People are so adamant with everything to do with reproductive rights,” she said. “For me, even if someone is pro-life, and I consider myself pro-choice, what Wheaton is doing is not helpful at all for preventing abortion in any sort of way. I think the college should be strongly supporting the Affordable Care Act, because this is a way to prevent abortion.”
“A Christian community, supposedly centered on the theme of grace in Christ Jesus, leaves little to no grace to the college student who consents or is coerced into having sex.” Krista Pedersen, Wheaton College student
The Christian Feminist Cabinet has yet to tackle so controversial a topic. “We end up talking about women in ministry most of the time,” Barney said. She also wants to have a conversation about transgender women, and about sex and consent. “I don’t know how they’d censor me,” she said of Wheaton, “but they’d find a way.”
There is a sexual education seminar at Wheaton, Barney said, but admission is limited to students who are engaged to be married.
For everyone else, Pedersen wrote in an email, “What eventually ends up happening to students who do engage in sexual activity, mostly with no protection whatsoever (usually due to the shame of having to go buy a condom or other forms of birth control), is the high risk of pregnancy.” She added, referring to Wheaton’s specific objection to emergency contraception, “Not only do sexually active college students not have access to birth control, but they are also unable to avoid unwanted pregnancies after engaging in unprotected sex.”
“A Christian community, supposedly centered on the theme of grace in Christ Jesus, leaves little to no grace to the college student who consents or is coerced into having sex,” she wrote. “So not only is there shame about having sex, but there’s shame about preventing pregnancy, and also terminating pregnancy. This leaves little room for the Christian young adult to endure ‘error’ in their sexuality.”
Barney and a friend went to an on-campus forum about Wheaton’s suit against the Obama administration, featuring one of the attorneys in the case.
“There was a kid in the back who was a biology major,” Barney recalled. “He kept asking questions about the morning-after pill that supposedly causes abortion. And it was utterly refuted by the simple facts that this biology major had learned as a twenty one year old. And the lawyer knew nothing about the scientific facts of this so-called abortion pill … He kept saying, ‘I’m not a scientist.’”
At the time, she says, she didn’t expect Wheaton’s lawsuit to go anywhere. But then she read the Supreme Court’s ruling on the preliminary injunction it received from the Supreme Court. “The justices that dissented were the three women,” she said. “You have to think when a law like this has to do with women, and it’s being challenged like this by three women, you have to be like, what is going on here? Why are we trusting men to make these decisions?”6.
Install and test the latest Morrowind Graphics Extender. MGE requires Morrowind/Tribunal/Bloodmoon to together be patched to v1.6.1820, or it won’t run. Set the settings from your screen resolution (can go up to widescreen 1920 x 1200px), anti-aliasing, anisotropic, etc. Don’t tinker with the other default settings, just check that you’re getting the screen resolution you want, and the anti-aliasing etc.
* Troubleshooting tip 1: If you’re having problems having MGE detect the screen resolution, it’s likely because you first need to run Morrowind without MGE a few times and adjust resolution using the normal method, which then creates some Windows registry settings that MGE requires.
* Troubleshooting tip 2: Note that MGE requires DirectX 9 – yet Windows 7 only ships with later versions of DirectX, and so on a fresh install of Windows 7 this means that MGE may not launch. Install DirectX version 9c, if in doubt — it will co-exist happily with later versions of DirectX. Most recent Windows games will install DirectX version 9c as part of their install procedure, so just installing one of your other games is probably the simplest way to get DirectX 9 on a fresh install of Windows 7. As soon as MGE can “see” DirectX 9c, it will launch.
* Troubleshooting tip 3: MGE has other Microsoft dependencies, and apparently needs to be run from a desktop shortcut.
* Troubleshooting tip 4: Make sure your Morrowind.ini file is not set to ‘read only’. If it is, MGE will not be able to write the new screen resolution settings to it.
* Troubleshooting tip 5: On Windows 8, setting no Compatibility Mode worked. But setting Compatibility Mode to older versions of Windows caused MGE to crash.
MGE is in constant development, and so recommending exact settings for it here may cause problems some months down the line. However, note that MGE does gives you lots of cool options — like using the old Daggerfall combat system in Morrowind.
MGE ‘Distant Lands’ ON/OFF?
I personally prefer to play with “View Distant Lands” set to OFF; I find that viewing distant lands is more trouble than it’s worth. And in the past it’s also been quite a tricky MGE feature for newbies to set up correctly. It also, in my opinon, made the landscape look rather “bald” and un-mysterious. There was no foggy covering, no anticipation, no imagination in play about “what might be over the next hill”. You saw everything already from a distance, and thus there was no mystery about what was coming. Seeing distant lands was a visual “spoiler”, in my opinion.
And MGE used its own water, which just couldn’t begin to compete with Morrowind‘s own water.
However, these problems may now have been fixed in the latest versions of MGE – so I suggest giving “View Distant Lands” at least one chance. I’m now told…
“for some months now MGE has its own feature to adjust fog according to the weather”
and that…
“MGE’s water was changed extensively during the last development cycle, and maybe your strong rejection of it was based on a previous version. In that case I’d encourage you to try the latest MGE release. Harlanrm is also working on a tweaked [water] shader which was received very well lately.”
A full guide to the various MGE settings can be found here.
Problems?
Both the game and the Morrowind Graphics Extender must usually be run with “administrator” rights under Windows. I can confirm that both Morrowind and Oblivion work fine on Windows 7.
If speed seems to be an issue, try getting FRAPS and then run it with “administrator” rights under Windows. To do this, right-click the desktop icon for FRAPS, click “Properties” then “Compatiability”. Tick ‘Run this program as administrator’ and ‘Disable desktop composition’. Click Apply and then OK. You can now use FRAPS to test if the slick Windows Aero interface is slowing the game down – just run it, enable in-game FPS display, and then start Morrowind. The Windows Aero desktop looks great, but hogs a lot of resources — which can slow games down.
Still have problems?
* Did you install the game and its retail expansion packs in exactly the right order?
* Be sure to disable any legacy graphics enhancements for Morrowind you may have set via the Nvidia control panel. MGE is now controlling how Morrowind looks.
* Do you have some bloated anti-virus/firewall installed like Norton? Is there a “I’m playing games now, so don’t be such as assh*le” button you can click to make it less intrusive or less of a system-hog?
* Getting a “can’t find animation” crash when you open a door to an exterior and see a cliff-racer or seagull ahead of you? Try decreasing the MGE setting for ‘view distance’. “100” seems to be recommended in the forums.
* There is a NO-CD fix for Morrowind + Tribunal + Bloodmoon, but I don’t recommend it. For me, it screwed up the mouse cursor in the initial menu systems and thus made the game unstartable. Useless. It will also likely conflict with the unofficial code patches we’ll install in a moment.
* The dreaded “crash on opening the ship’s hatch” bug at the start of the game…
(1) It may be the ffdshow bug, which was common to Mass Effect and Fallout 3. Fix.
(2) It may be the video drivers need updating – which was what fixed it for me. If using Vista, update and fully patch Vista using Windows Update (Microsoft released a fix for the notorious Nvidia NVLDDMKM bug in Sept 08), then get the latest Nvidia graphics card drivers. That completely cured the problem for me.It’s Pumpkin Time! Even if you are not a big fan of pumpkin pie, MY version will have you coming back for more! The key for this recipe and all of my recipes, is to taste each individual layer for sweetness and adjust accordingly. You may need to add 1 or 2 more servings of Stevia but just don’t add too much! I also use 1/2 tsp of molasses on the pecans to help them caramelize. It really doesn’t make a difference in the carb count and offers great flavor. You can omit the candied nuts on top or just use plain pecans.
RECIPE MODIFICATIONS
This recipe is delicious as listed but can be modified to fit your specific dietary needs and goals. Here are a few modifications that I KNOW will work. If you modify it in any other way, please let me know in the comments below.
Sweetener : Use any sweetener you choose. Be sure to check out THIS post about why I use stevia and VERY small amounts of either raw honey or organic coconut sugar in recipes. As always, taste EVERY layer for sweetness and adjust the sweetness to your liking. Fruit : I used canned pumpkin but you could also use cooked sweet potato or even butternut squash. Nut-Free: For nut-free, substitute ground raw sunflower seeds in the place of the almond flour in the crust. Also use raw sunflower seeds in the place of the chopped nuts for the “candied” nuts if you so desire.
This would be the perfect dessert for Thanksgiving or any holiday meal! Enjoy!
Southern Pumpkin Delight w/ "Candied" Pecans 2014-09-01 12:36:00 Serves 12 Write a review Save Recipe Print Ingredients Crust 1-1/2 cup almond flour
1 cup chopped pecans
6 tbsp butter, soften (I used salted)
1/8- 1/4 tsp. Stevia Select Stevia (or sweetener of choice), to taste
1/8 tsp. salt Whipped Cream Cheese Mixture* 12 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
12 oz. heavy whipping cream, chilled
Scant 1/2 tsp. Stevia Select Stevia or sweetener of choice, to taste
1/2 tbsp. vanilla Pumpkin Layer 1 cup plain pumpkin
3/4 cup Whipped Cream Cheese* (from above recipe)
3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. Stevia Select Stevia or sweetener of choice, to taste "Candied" Pecans 1/2 tbsp. salted butter
1/2 cup pecan halves
1/2 tsp. molasses (or honey)
3-4 servings Stevia Select Stevia or sweetener of choice, to taste Instructions Crust Mix ingredients well and taste for sweetness/saltiness. Adjust if needed. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Press crust into 9 inch pie dish or equivalent oven safe dish. Bake for 15-17 minutes until the outside edges begin to brown. Remove and allow to cool completely. Whippped Cream Cheese Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add heavy whipping cream, Kal Stevia and vanilla. Whip until thickened. Taste for sweetness and adjust if needed. Reserve 3/4 cup mixture for Pumpkin Layer below. Pumpkin Layer Fold pumpkin, the 3/4 cup Whipped Cream Cheese Mixture* and remaining ingredients and blend well. Taste for sweetness and adjust if needed. "C |
Levandowski had already been removed from working on the self-driving car technology at the heart of the suit.
He started working at Uber in August 2016, when the firm bought Otto, the self-driving truck start-up he had created in the six months after leaving Google.
He declined to testify earlier this year, citing his right to avoid self-incrimination.
Uber maintains its technology is different to Waymo's and says there isn't evidence the files are on its servers. But its search did not include Mr Levandowski's computer.
Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Engineer Anthony Levandowski has declined to testify in the legal battle between his two former employers
Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing the case in San Francisco, earlier ordered Uber to return the thousands of "pilfered" files in question by the end of the month.
A spokeswoman for Uber said the firing occurred after Mr Levandowski failed to meet the deadline that would allow Uber to cooperate with the judge's order.
Word of the firing was sent to employees on Tuesday.
Attorneys for Mr Levandowski could not be reached for comment immediately.My wife and I were recently in the opera - admittedly, a rare occurrence. She hates the government-subsidized but generally uncomfortable seats, the lack of leg room and the smell of sweat mingling with bad perfume. Furthermore, she often finds the musical presentation slightly over the top and void of fun. But despite all this, she does have a favorite opera - "Nabucco."
In the production of the work by Giuseppe Verdi that we saw, the prisoners' chorus is made up of bumble bees, who bounce into the audience shaking their stingers. My wife shrieked with delight at the sight.
Then her neighbor began to cough, and violently at that. "Come on - it's funny!" my wife scolded him - as if speaking in a concert auditorium were the most normal thing in the world. Others in the hall began to cough. But I think those sudden attacks were directed less towards my wife and more towards the bumble bees. Or the staging. Or perhaps the director himself.
Hans Neuenfels' production of "Nabucco" at the Deutsche Oper Berlin
Confined by good manners
In our age, a night out for a symphony or an opera can amount to an experience that's more confining than pleasurable. That was perhaps less the case in Mozart's era, when such events were associated with promenading, lively chatter and having a drink or two.
The 19th century brought changes, with rules of etiquette playing a stronger role in the concert experience. And those who dared to spurn classical music altogether ran the risk of being ostracized by the economic, intellectual and moral elite.
"With music it does not only matter what is consumed; the way this consumption is socially understood may be even more important," writes Andreas Wagener of the School of Economics and Management at the University of Hannover, in his recent paper titled, "Why Do People (Not) Cough in Concerts? The Economics of Concert Etiquette."
Wagener was out to examine the meaning and purpose of current concert etiquette, reminding readers in his paper that etiquette and the concert form itself are social constructs.
No accident
Andreas Wagener: Coughing has a voluntary element to it
Concert associations, musicians and music journalists endeavor to the present day to educate their audience with rules, gestures and admonishments. Musicians are obliged to give their all and to translate the score with truth and meaning. The audience therefore should concentrate on the music, be serious and silent. All this ultimately takes its toll: Wagener cites studies showing that people cough twice as much in concerts as they do in everyday life.
Pianist Alfred Brendel is particularly touchy when it comes to unwanted noises in his concerts. During one performance in Hamburg, he stopped playing and barked at the audience: "Either you stop coughing or I stop playing!" Silence reigned for the remainder of the concert. And that fact speaks volumes for Andreas Wagener.
"Coughing and its suppression are to a substantial degree willful actions. Experimental evidence shows that humans are not only able to activate but also to suppress cough on demand, independently of sensory stimulation," writes Andreas Wagener, who contrasts coughing with other actions like sneezing or hiccupping that cannot be "willfully produced with their complete pattern."
Participatory gesture?
Wagener, however, does go on to admit that coughing is as much part and parcel of the concert experience as the music itself. "Given that it may always be viewed as a physical reflex, coughing is one of few acceptable ways of active participation within strict concert etiquette," he writes.
The German comedian Loriot composed what he dubbed a "Coughing Symphony" as a present for the Berlin Philharmonic's 100th birthday. The intent was "to integrate typical concert noises to enrich the work," the humorist said.
"The volume of coughing increases with the complexity and unfamiliarity of the music performed," says Wagener, getting right to the heart of the modern concert reality. Perhaps that's one reason pianist Alfred Brendel was moved to write an enraged poem, whose title in German translates as "The Coughers of Cologne." In it, he suggests listeners have acquired intricate knowledge of the pieces on the program "so that at the quiet junctures - particularly during the grand pauses - they can cough the loudest."
Can coughing during classical concerts be seen as some kind of statement? Is a connoisseur showing some sort of displeasure with the production or with the work itself? Can coughing be regarded in that case as a way of reassuring other concert-goers of one's critical attitude?
The more unsure an audience feels, says Wagener, the greater the likelihood of a coughing fit emerging.
Pianist Alfred Brendel prefers concert-goers who are quiet and obedient
'No sense of humor'
In an interview with DW, Wagener said he is pleased with "the wide and international reaction to my paper which, in itself, deals with something relatively mundane. It doesn't happen to an economist all that often that his intellectual ideas are taken seriously within the cultural scene."
It's evident that coughing in concerts is a pain, just as it's evident that concerts depend for their survival on audiences making their way to the performances. And often, Wagener argues in his paper, their attendance is less about listening and more about solidifying social roles: "Music and its perception define individual and group identities, convey prestige and status, allow for demarcation as well as inclusion, produce conformity, and affirm individual and social values."
That description, among others in the economist's paper, have struck a sour chord with some German music critics.
"He connects classical music only with the upper class and combines that with allegedly very mannered behavior which does nothing but display a kind of social exclusion," bit back columnist Helmut Mauro in the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Wagner calls such responses typical of the German media, who, in contrast to foreign press outlets that covered his paper, tend to regard his paper as a dry study and view it "with no humor or sense of fun at all."Bryan Cranston in the short film “Writer’s Block.” (Youtube)
When “Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston isn’t winning Golden Globes or shooting new projects, the award-winning actor apparently devotes himself to making the dreams of his underlings come true.
“Writer’s Block,” a 13-minute short film starring Cranston, was directed by a self-taught, 20-something production assistant, on Cranston’s request. During a break in filming “Cold Comes the Night” last year, Cranston told the film’s PAs that he would read scripts from each of them and act in his favorite. The winner, by Austin, Tex., native Brandon Polanco, chronicles a writer’s struggle for inspiration — “a chaotic love affair that evokes my true feelings toward writing,” as Polanco put it to the Austin Chronicle in November. The resulting black-and-white film is evocative, strange, and, as you might imagine, really well-acted.
Polanco is now, according to his LinkedIn bio, a freelance filmmaker and producer. Cranston, meanwhile, just won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Walter White in “Breaking Bad.”
“I literally had to pull myself away from my computer last night,” Polanco wrote on Facebook this morning. “The amount of support and buzz that has been swirling around this little film… well I just don’t know what to say other than thank you.”
You can see some scenes from the making of “Writer’s Block” below.In the United States the median age at which colon cancer strikes is 69 for men and 73 for women. In Chad the average life expectancy at birth is about 50. Children who survive childbirth — and then malnutrition and diarrhea — are likely to die of pneumonia, tuberculosis, influenza, malaria, AIDS or even traffic accidents long before their cells accumulate the mutations that cause colon cancer.
In fact, cancers of any kind don’t make the top 15 causes of death in Chad — or in Somalia, the Central African Republic and other places where the average life span peaks in the low to mid-50s. Many people do die from cancer, and their numbers are multiplied by rapidly growing populations and a lack of medical care. But first come all those other threats.
How different this is from the United States, where oncologists are working to rid a 91-year-old former president of metastatic melanoma, one of the deadliest cancers. One of Jimmy Carter’s drugs, a new immunotherapy agent called Keytruda, has been priced at $12,500 a month, in addition to the cost of his surgery and treatment with computer-guided radiation beams.
Mr. Carter, a religious man, says he is prepared to meet his maker. But he is among the fortunate who first have the luxury of exhausting the most expensive remedies medicine has to offer.In a one-star Yelp review, Californian Daniel Lui reported that he was visiting Starbucks's new Reserve Roastery on Capitol Hill on March 11 when an employee accused him and a friend of trying to steal company secrets to pass to China.
Lui recounted the bizarre exchange on Yelp this way, posted March 26:
"...the man stopped and looked at us [Lui and his friend]. "You're part of the business, right? The coffee business, right?"
My friend and I looked at each other confused. Before we could answer him, he cut us short and said, "Look- you are completely free to copy all of the stuff we have here and the equipment we have in China. We're an open book. If you want to steal our stuff for your store in China, go ahead, we're fine with that."
He smiled, hoping to get a laugh from us... not that funny (me and my friend are both Asian... but definitely not in the coffee business).
We decided to let it slide, so gave him a short chuckle and ignored him.
That was bad enough. We could have just shrugged it off- i've met tons of ignorant people before. BUT THEN, 15 minutes later, he creeps up behind both of us and put his hands on our shoulders (hella creepy). He then proceeded to paternalistically lecture us (who he thought were chinese spies trying to steal secrets... I guess we just smack of yellow peril), "Look. You can take all of our equipment. You can copy everything we have. You can even steal our beans and our suppliers. But let me tell you what you CAN'T get if you copy us in China- our training. Just remember that, you won't get our training in China, and that's something we'll never give to you."
Once the review was picked up by the blog Angry Asian Man, the story blew up, Lui told The Stranger. He said he’d felt degraded at first, though eventually, "the [Starbucks] customer service rep apologized. I felt honored that they followed up on it. They wanted to get more of a description of the guy who did it and said they’d be fully investigating who that person is. They also said that they’d be putting some sort of gift in my Starbucks Gold account."
But particularly in light of the recently failed #RaceTogether campaign, Liu would like more than latte points: "I'd like to see them follow through in terms of the integrity of their corporate leadership," he told The Stranger. "That's the difficult part—not just changing your image, but the way you practice and think."If you are drone owner and Facebook user, you probably have heard of the Danny Batchelor ’s Facebook groups. These groups are places where drone professionals and enthusiasts can interact, discuss their problems, and share their works. Danny’s groups are some of the largest and most developed on Facebook, so we interviewed Danny and find out what it took to build his thriving online drone communities.
We Talk UAV: Hi Danny! Thank you for taking the time to have a short talk with We Talk UAV! Let’s start from the very beginning. When and how did you get into the drone business for the first time?
Danny Batchelor: I am not in the drone business, but my first interest would have been in Sept 2014 when I saw a Phantom 2 for sale in the FB group Pattaya stuff for sale. I read about the GPS and return to home functions so looked up DJI on Google and focused in on the Vision Plus, and was blown away with the technology. By the end of the month, I had a Vision Plus delivered to my door.
We Talk UAV: When did you first decide to start a Facebook group? What was your first group’s name?
Danny Batchelor: Being a member of the Vision plus group I was well aware of the Phantom 3 release rumors and in March as I enjoyed the group so much decided to get in early and start a P3 group. I posted a few links, got banned from a few groups but most were happy to let me post. I also got slated by people who said I was stupid to be starting a group for something that didn’t yet exist, but within a couple of weeks, DJI revealed there would be a product release on 8th April 2015 and it did turn out to be 2 Phantom 3 models. At that point, member requests went through the roof and in no time we had 1,000 members and I was over the moon. And of course, I pre-ordered mine.
We Talk UAV: How many groups do you have now? In total, how many people are in your communities (not counting audience overlaps between groups)?
Danny Batchelor: 14 groups with 75,859 members, with hundreds of new members added weekly. Impossible to calculate the overlap but there obviously are people who are members of multiple groups.
Here are the groups and number of members next to every group name:
We Talk UAV: Some of your groups that have only couple hundred members. Why are you making so many groups when you have only 3-4 “main” Facebook groups?
Danny Batchelor: I had some requests to start the P4 Pro group as well as some of the regional groups, and most of these are quite new but starting to grow quicker now.
We Talk UAV: Along the lines of the last questions, where did your GoPro Karma and Yuneec Typhoon H groups go?
Danny Batchelor: The more I read about the Typhoon H the more it seemed to be doomed, membership requests were very few and there were hardly any posts. As far as GoPro goes, I gave up with that when the Karma was recalled.
We Talk UAV: Tell us more about your competition. We understand that DJI MAVIC is a largest Mavic group on Facebook. How about other groups and your competitors?
Danny Batchelor: Most of them have banned me haha, so I cannot really comment.
We Talk UAV: You are selling DJI products via affiliate links. Why only DJI? Have you ever thought about becoming an official dealer?
Danny Batchelor: I would love to be an official dealer with my own shop, but to qualify I think you need a lot of capitol and I just don’t have access to the finances right now. When I started the GoPro group my e-mail requesting to join the affiliate program was ignored.
We Talk UAV: I remember one of your posts describing admin’s life that was pretty interesting.
What is the most difficult part of being a community manager? How much time does it take per week to maintain your groups?
Danny Batchelor: It’s not really difficult. In the early days, I used to get quite hurt by some of the abuse I got, but now its water off a ducks back. When you are managing nearly 80,000 members you will never please everybody. The one thing that does really annoy me is people who complain about my links. I put over 10 hours each and every day into these groups, posting, vetting members, all keeping the groups as free as possible from spam, some of which can be really gross, and as a result these groups have a lot less rubbish posted than most, yet those who complain seem to have no idea of the time and effort involved. Orders from the links were good in Nov and December but have slowed to a trickle now.
Danny Batchelor: I would also like to say thank you to my 2 admins, Phil Bedford and Scott Green for all the help they have given me. It’s quite interesting that all 3 of us are originally from the UK. However I’ve been living in Thailand for 15 years, Phil lives here in Ko Samui too (another island in Thailand). Scott is based in the UK, but he comes to Thailand on holidays.
We Talk UAV: Yes, It’s great to have teammates that you can rely on! Thank you very much for keeping the community clean, as it’s not as easy as it seems to be.
Thank you very much for reading!A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has affirmed a federal district court’s nationwide injunction against the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program in Texas v. United States. Twenty-six states filed suit against the program on both procedural and substantive grounds. The Fifth Circuit’s decision yesterday increases the likelihood that the lawfulness of DAPA will be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court, perhaps even as early as next spring (depending on how the administration responds to the ruling).
In an extensive, 70-page ruling, Judge Jerry Smith (joined by Judge Jennifer Elrod) concluded that the states had standing to challenge DAPA and were likely to succeed on both their procedural and substantive claims. Among other things, Judge Smith concluded that DAPA is not authorized under existing law, nor is it justified by historical practice. In reaching this conclusion, Judge Smith cites King v. Burwell, among other recent Supreme Court decisions.
From the majority opinion:
DAPA would make 4.3 million otherwise removable aliens eligible for lawful presence, employment authorization, and associated benefits, and “we must be guided to a degree by common sense as to the manner in which Congress is likely to delegate a policy decision of such economic and political magnitude to an administrative agency.” DAPA undoubtedly implicates “question[s] of deep ‘economic and political significance’ that [are] central to this statutory scheme; had Congress wished to assign that decision to an agency, it surely would have done so expressly.” [FN: King v. Burwell] But assuming arguendo that Chevron applies and that Congress has not directly addressed the precise question at hand, we would still strike down DAPA as an unreasonable interpretation that is “manifestly contrary” to the INA.... The interpretation of those provisions that the Secretary advances would allow him to grant lawful presence and work authorization to any illegal alien in the United States—an untenable position in light of the INA’s intricate system of immigration classifications and employment eligibility. Even with“special deference” to the Secretary, the INA flatly does not permit the reclassification of millions of illegal aliens as lawfully present and thereby make them newly eligible for a host of federal and state benefits, including work authorization. Presumably because DAPA is not authorized by statute, the United States posits that its authority is grounded in historical practice, but that “does not, by itself, create power,” and in any event, previous deferred-action programs are not analogous to DAPA. “[M]ost... discretionary deferrals have been done on a country-specific basis, usually in response to war, civil unrest, or natural disasters,” but DAPA is not such a program. Likewise, many of the previous programs were bridges from one legal status to another, whereas DAPA awards lawful presence to persons who have never had a legal status and may never receive one.... Historical practice that is so far afield from the challenged program sheds no light on the Secretary’s authority to implement DAPA. Indeed, as the district court recognized, the President explicitly stated that “it was the failure of Congress to enact such a program that prompted him... to ‘change the law.’” At oral argument, and despite being given several opportunities, the attorney for the United States was unable to reconcile that remark with the position that the government now takes. And the dissent attempts to avoid the impact of the President’s statement by accusing the district court and this panel majority of “relying... on selected excerpts of the President’s public statements.”... Through the INA’s specific and intricate provisions, “Congress has ‘directly addressed the precise question at issue.’” As we have indicated, the INA prescribes how parents may derive an immigration classification on the basis of their child’s status and which classes of aliens can achieve deferred action and eligibility for work authorization. DAPA is foreclosed by Congress’s careful plan; the program is “manifestly contrary to the statute” and therefore was properly enjoined.
Judge Carolyn King authored a 50-plus page dissent. Of note, Judge Smith refers to Judge King’s opinion as “a careful dissent, with which we largely but respectfully disagree. It is well-researched, however, and bears a careful read.” It is rare, yet refreshing, to see such a statement in an opinion.
An early Associated Press story on the decision can be found here. The Post’s early coverage is here.Image copyright Getty Images
Formula 1 is gearing up for a new addition to its calendar that would be perhaps the glitziest race in the 66-year history of the sport - a Grand Prix on the streets of Las Vegas.
This weekend F1's attention is focused on the Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, but behind the scenes a race of a different kind is taking place.
Plans for a Grand Prix in Las Vegas have hit top gear, as organisers have revealed that a Chinese conglomerate has agreed to commit the £100m needed for the race to get the green light.
They add that Las Vegas could appear on the calendar as soon as next year, giving F1 a record 22 Grands Prix.
The showpiece event would rival even F1's flagship, the Monaco Grand Prix, as it would see cars hurtling down the world-famous Strip, past landmark casinos like the Bellagio and Caesar's Palace.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A Las Vegas race would take in the view of casinos like the Bellagio
A race on the streets of Las Vegas is a long-time dream of F1's chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, but it has failed to get the green light so far as local organisers struggled to secure funding.
In March Ecclestone joked that the race contract hadn't been signed as "the trouble is the pen. The organiser hasn't got a pen."
However, American entrepreneur Farid Shidfar, founder of organising group P2M Motorsports, says this is no longer a roadblock as he has an "agreement in principle" with a Beijing-based conglomerate.
"They are very close to Las Vegas and have got businesses in media, sport, technology and entertainment, so they are a massive conglomerate.
"They came to us out of the blue late last year, because of the initiatives they are involved with in the state of Nevada, and we have been in due diligence since then. The benefits they will derive are very strategic so that's why they are very excited about it."
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Organisers say they have designed a racetrack that is partly on the Las Vegas Strip
It is the latest in an accelerating number of Chinese investments in overseas sports. Investors from China already have minority stakes in several football clubs including Manchester City, Atletico Madrid and New York City FC, while Chinese electronics retailer Suning announced on Monday that it had bought a 68.55% stake in Inter Milan.
F1's previous race in Las Vegas was a nail-biter in 1982 that handed the title to Keke Rosberg, father of current championship leader Nico.
Image copyright Getty Images
1982 Las Vegas Grand Prix: Rosberg takes the title
Keke Rosberg needed to finish in the points (which were then awarded to the top six finishers) to claim his first championship. His closest competitor, McLaren's John Watson, needed to win the race and his rival to finish out of the points in order to take home the title.
Watson was known for his incredible starts and accelerated into third place from ninth on the grid. To win he needed to pass the Tyrrell of Michele Alboreto and former champion Alain Prost, who was hampered by tyre vibrations.
Alboreto and Watson passed the Frenchman on laps 51 and 54 respectively, of the 75-lap race.
Unfortunately for Watson, he could not overtake Alboreto and his second place finish handed the championship victory to Rosberg, who finished the race fifth.
Despite being a thrilling climax to the season, the race failed to get support from within F1 due to the makeshift nature of the course, which was in the Caesar's Palace car park. The sport won't repeat this mistake.
"We have successfully designed a racetrack which is partly on the Las Vegas Strip and does not impact any resort," says Peter Wahl, managing partner of F1's track designers Tilke.
"The track definitely has its own character and shall provide drivers high-speed challenges with different sharp corners. Best part, the track is designed to host large numbers of spectators, and I can't wait to see the first car fire up. I believe the Vegas race will become one of the highlights of the F1 calendar."
Image copyright AFP Image caption Could Nico Rosberg soon be taking his rivalry with Lewis Hamilton on to the streets of Las Vegas, the scene of his father's championship winning race?
P2 Motorsports co-founder Russell Dixon says "the race will cost investors nearly $150m (£103m) including hosting fees".
Farid Shidfar adds he is still fielding calls from other interested parties. However, he says that the state needs to boost its efforts in order to get the race off the grid.
"The key party in terms of making this happen is the state. It's not the investor. The investor is happy to proceed so long as there is some formality about the contribution from the state."
It is important as the only revenue that organisers receive from F1 races tends to come from ticket sales. Revenue from television broadcasts, trackside advertising and corporate hospitality during the race is generally retained by F1 itself, which also receives the hosting fees.
Ticket sales cover the running costs of a Grand Prix while governments foot the hosting fees as the races promote their countries to F1's 400 million television viewers and typically generate annual economic impact of about £200m.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Monaco Grand Prix currently has the reputation for the most glitz and glamour
Funding usually comes from central government, but in some countries, such as Canada, the contribution comes from local authorities. The same is true in the US where the state of Texas pays around £14.5m annually to organisers of a Grand Prix in the capital of Austin, which is currently the only F1 race in the country.
According to Shidfar, "the [Nevada] government is showing interest in putting money in," as F1 would also help to reverse declining gaming revenues in Las Vegas.
Last year Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval commissioned a study for economic diversification in the state that recommended a F1 race as it would attract a high number of international visitors. Sandoval has also written to Ecclestone to offer "support and interest in bringing Formula One Grand Prix to the world famous Las Vegas Strip".
Shidfar says "the resort community has shown interest in helping subsidise this" as it would boost their bookings and gambling takings. He adds that at a meeting of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority in 2014, "every major resort unanimously voted in favour of carrying out F1 racing on the Strip."
They may soon get their wish as he adds: "There has been discussions of 2018, but it could be as early as 2017. We need roughly 14 months to prepare for this race."For the nine years that Christina Cortez worked at a McDonald’s in her hometown of Minneapolis, she wasn’t able to take a single sick day off work, even when she had the flu.
When Minneapolis passed a bill last year giving residents paid sick leave, Christina was relieved. But now, Republicans in the state Legislature have introduced a new bill that would strip cities’ ability to create their own labor laws.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Pat Garofalo, is one of a growing number of “pre-emption bills” being pushed by conservatives in the state Legislatures. They prevent local governments from creating their own laws, on everything from gun control to sanctuary cities to pesticide control. On pre-empting paid sick leave, 15 states have already passed these kinds of bills, and 10 more states are considering it.
The fight for a higher minimum wage and paid sick leave has been gaining traction in progressive cities across the U.S. But some conservative state Legislatures, such as Minnesota’s, have found a way to rein in cities’ progressive impulses. VICE News’ Alexandra Jaffe reports from Minneapolis, where House File 600 would kill Minneapolis’ newly established paid sick leave ordinance before it goes into effect this July.
This segment originally aired March 27, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201609/1860/1155968404_5142528379001_5142535594001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Clinton to Trump: Apologize to workers you stiffed
Hillary Clinton on Monday called on Donald Trump to apologize to people who have worked on the real estate mogul's properties who have not been paid in full.
Do "the thousands of people that you have stiffed over the course of your business not deserve some kind of apology from someone who has taken their labor, taken the goods that they've produced and then refused to pay them?" Clinton said at the first debate of the general election. "I can only say that I'm certainly relieved that my late father never did business with you."
Story Continued Below
Over the course of the campaign, reports have emerged about Trump refusing to pay what some vendors said he owed them.
"I have met a lot of the people who were stiffed by you and your businesses, Donald," Clinton said, adding that there was an architect in the audience who wasn't fully paid by Trump for designing a clubhouse at a Trump golf course. "It's a beautiful facility. It immediately was put to use. And you wouldn't pay what the man needed to be paid what he was charging you."
"Maybe he didn't do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work," Trump responded.
Trump went on to suggest that he had only taken that route four times, and that he was within his legal rights to do so.
"My obligation right now is to do well for myself, my family, my employees, for my companies," he said. "And that's what I do. But what she doesn't say is the tens of thousands of people that are unbelievably happy and they love me."Shares 41 Google+ LinkedIn Print
The sitcom Red Dwarf has an episode where the crew boarded a derelict ship and discovered the remains of research into positive viruses, like luck, inspiration, and sexual magnetism. Scientists are finding that the writers were correct: some infections can increase your attractiveness.
The Sexual Magnetism Virus
Red Dwarf – Quarantine. © BBC TV / BBC Worldwide. Uploaded under the UK Fair Dealing provision for Criticism, review and reporting current events
The sexual magnetism virus has already been discovered, and it has a name. It’s called the Cucumber Mosaic Virus, but you don’t have to be a cucumber to catch it. Sadly, you do have to be a plant.
Cucumber Mosaic Virus infects a lot of plants, but when it does it’s bad news. It seriously harms the plant, stunting its growth and damaging its fruits. Yet it’s also difficult to remove. For some reason, it’s really infectious, and now we might know why. The virus changes the smell of a plant’s flowers, making them much more attractive to pollinators.
Dr. John Carr, Head of Cambridge’s Virology and Molecular Plant Pathology group said: “We were surprised that bees liked the smell of the plants infected with the virus – it made no sense. You’d think the pollinators would prefer a healthy plant. However, modelling suggested that if pollinators were biased towards diseased plants in the wild, this could short-circuit natural selection for disease resistance.”
By getting more pollinators to the sick plants, the virus is making the bees select the most suitable hosts for the next generation of virus. The reduced seed set isn’t so much a problem if the plants are getting pollinated much more often. The virus is effectively breeding a variety of plant to produce more suitable victims.
The way the virus works is through ‘volatiles’: these are the chemical scents that plants produce in their flowers. Get the chemistry right, and your flower is irresistible to passing pollinators like bees. However, it’s not just the flowers that give off volatiles. Research just published has looked at microbes living in the flower nectar, and found that attraction could also be the result of a yeast infection.
The Sexual Magnetism Yeast Infection
Yeasts are single-celled fungi and the organisms that convert sugar into alcohol, giving Holsten Pils its distinctive second-hand taste. Nectar is basically a sugary soup, so it’s perfect. Or at least it would be, if it weren’t such a temporary environment. These habitats don’t last long, so as soon as yeast arrives in the nectar, it needs to start working on hitching a lift back out. What Caitlin Rering and her colleagues have found is that it’s not just the flowers that work to attract pollinators. The yeast is signalling too.
The team tested a variety of microbes inhabiting nectar, including Metschnikowia reukaufii, a yeast that specialises in nectar and relies on pollinators to move it from one flower to another. They did this by collecting bees, feeding them to make sure they were healthy and then starving them for two hours, so they could be sure they were ready for a meal. They then provided them with sugar solutions with either nothing special, or various microbes in it – which would be signalling.
On the whole, the bees preferred their sugar solution uninfected, with one exception. Sugar solution containing the Metschnikowia reukaufii yeast was more attractive than the control sample. Whatever scent the yeast was giving off, it was attracting the attention of the bees.
At the moment the research is in the early stages, so Rering’s team are open to the idea that Metschnikowia reukaufii isn’t so much attractive as not giving off something repulsive to bees like other microbes might. Still, it looks like plants can be made more attractive if scientists can work out what a suitable infection for a plant is. That might sound like something only a microbiologist could be interested in, but it could have an impact across agriculture.
Why Do We Need Sexy Plants?
While he has no desire to infect plants with the current Cucumber Mosaic Virus, John Carr is eager to learn the way it works. “Better understanding the natural chemicals that attract bees could provide ways of enhancing pollination, and attracting bees to good sources of pollen and nectar – which they need for survival,” he said.
The payback is that when you attract the bees, you also help target pollination to the plants that matter to you. Enhanced pollination could help improve crop yield and bring down the price of a lot more than cucumbers and tomatoes in your local supermarket.
We tend to think of infections as malevolent. That’s no surprise when they tend to make us feel unwell as they use our bodies for their own means. However, it’s better to think of them as selfish. That means they’re capable of having some positive effects, if it serves their own means. We’ve domesticated animals and plants. Is Red Dwarf right to suggest the next step is to domesticate microbes and infections?
You can find out more about Red Dwarf, including where and how to watch it at the Official Site.“People always say they’re going to go get local, grass-fed beef, but no one says they’re going to their SPCA to get their local dog meat,” says Nassim Nobari. She is program director and co-founder of the Millahcayotl Association, a group that, according to its website, “seeks to foster sustainable and just food systems that are independent of animal exploitation.”
Nobari was speaking December 6 at the People’s Harvest Forum in San Francisco, a weekend conference organized by Millahcayotl to address food justice, housing issues and urban agriculture through the lens of animal liberation. She says she hopes to adapt the food sovereignty movement—which calls for food production to be healthy, environmentally conscious and, crucially, democratically controlled—so that it no longer looks towards animals as food sources.
The conference also aimed to give animal advocates insights into other agricultural issues. Getting a bunch of vegans to come hear about the Zapatistas’ struggle for autonomy in Mexico, or a San Francisco group working to increase fruit and vegetable access in the (incongruously named) Tenderloin neighborhood—as the People’s Harvest Forum did—creates a rare opportunity for dialogue, says Millahcayotl co-founder Chema Hernández Gil. In fact, Gil and Nobari say they believe their conference is the first to bring together these issues.
The forum began with journalist Christopher Cook, author of Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis (the subtitle has changed since publication, it was originally “How the Food Industry is Killing Us”). Cook, whose work has also appeared in In These Times, painted a grim picture of U.S. agriculture: poor labor conditions, unhealthy food, environmental pollution and increased corporate control—and still people are left hungry.
Society should not blame abuses solely on bad actors, |
Montreal's chief of police has suspended a high-ranking police officer accused of fraud and breach of trust.
The officer's suspension is effective immediately and will be in place until an investigation is complete, Chief Philippe Pichet said in a statement tweeted from the force's Twitter account Friday morning. Pichet didn't give the name of the officer.
However, earlier Friday, Pichet confirmed provincial police are looking into allegations involving issues with overtime hours and bonuses received by his right-hand man, Imad Sawaya, in 2015.
Pichet said those issues have already been verified and there were no anomalies. But someone tipped off a mixed police squad, headed by the Sûreté du Québec and set up by Public Security Minister Martin Coiteux to investigate the force's internal affairs, to potential problems.
Sawaya has not been arrested and the Montreal police are collaborating with the SQ in the investigation, Pichet said.
When asked about the raid, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said that if laws are broken, there are consequences. But he reiterated that the accusations have not been proven and there's a process that must be respected.
"I'm the mayor of Montreal, I'm not in charge of police operations, so we'll let the process go and we'll see what happens," he said.
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre urged the media to let the legal process run its course Friday after a Thursday night raid by the SQ on Montreal police headquarters. 0:49 Coderre commended the police chief for quickly making himself available to answer reporters' questions.
"At the end of the day, Mr. Pichet showed his openness, and I trust not only the institution but the director himself."
The head of Montreal's police officers' union, Yves Francoeur, declined to comment on the matter. Coiteux also declined to comment.
Police headquarters raided
Members of the SQ's team raided the downtown headquarters of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) Thursday in connection with the probe.
The SQ's deputy chief informed Pichet around 4 p.m. ET Thursday that search warrants would be executed at different buildings belonging to the City of Montreal in connection with the probe.
Members of the SQ's team arrived at SPVM headquarters around 6 p.m. Pichet said he was still at his office at the time.
They were looking for a specific file, he said. Pichet also said the investigation has no impact on the day-to-day service the force provides Montrealers.
"I know it's big, seeing the headquarters of the SPVM being searched, but... [investigators] are doing their job, they're going to look at all the information and it's important to make sure we're [shedding] light on the file," he said.
Pichet said to his knowledge, this is the first time the SPVM's headquarters have been searched.
Ongoing investigation
Pichet said he was informed the raids would occur a couple of hours before the Sûreté du Québec investigators showed up at headquarters. (Radio-Canada) Pichet spent the night meeting with other high-ranking officers and said he has to inform the people concerned before speaking further about the case.
The SQ team searched the third and seventh floors, where the operational planning division and human resources are located, Pichet said.
Radio-Canada originally reported the raids targeted the building's fourth and ninth floors.
The fourth floor is where internal affairs was located until last winter. Meanwhile, the ninth floor is for the top brass.
The SQ also conducted searches at a local police station, a municipal building, and the Montreal police's archives. No private homes were searched, he said.
The raids come as Montreal police attempt to improve transparency in the wake of scandals involving its internal affairs division.
'It's the principle'
Retired Montreal police officer Guy Ryan said the investigation may not be about the money.
"It might be about a few hundred dollars, but it's the principle," he said, adding that his rank in the police service would send a message to other officers.
When asked if the investigation would jeopardize Pichet's standing as chief, Ryan said "it doesn't help." He also said these are things that a police chief doesn't want to have to handle.Memorial Day Weekend is just around the corner and to celebrate we're bringing the traveling merchants back and introducing the following zone bonuses for the next two weeks!
The event will run from today, May 16th through Tuesday, May 31st.
Notes
The traveling merchants have returned to their usual spots and are offerring their excellent selection of wares to any and all! They've even discounted their Darkness Falls weapons! Albion: Outside Castle Sauvage Midgard: Outside Svasud Faste Hibernia: Outside Druim LIgen
Bonuses
50% bonus to RP gain in all NF zones (including the Labyrinth)
50% bonus to RP gain in all battlegrounds
100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons
50% bonus to normal BP in all NF zones
50% bonus to normal BP in all battlegrounds
100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons
50% bonus to normal BP gain in the capital cities
50% bonus to normal RP gain in the capital cities
40% Bonus to Crafting Speed
20% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain
20% Bonus to Crafting Speed
10% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain
On Ywain:On Gaheris:In each Capital City:In all Housing Zones:Knoxville — There was a lot of talk about Peyton Manning or John Gruden being in Knoxville this weekend, but turns out there was a royal celebrity in town that most people missed!
Turns out that Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, watched the Tennessee game at Neyland Stadium!
Our friends at B97.5 snapped a photo of Fergie outside one of the luxury suites and noted there was some extra security on the floor.
Turns out the duchess was a guest of Moll Anderson, an interior designer and author from East Tennessee. She posted about the visit on her Instagram account:
A post shared by Moll Anderson (@mollanderson) on Nov 19, 2017 at 5:42pm PST
"So about last night!! Surprise!!! what do you do when the "Duchess of York" wants to surprise your #sisterfriend @janmiller3525? You say, "YES! Come on to #Tennessee and go to your first #collegefootball game, @sarahferguson15!” she wrote. "What an amazing time and such a blessing to get to know this amazing woman! I think we may be headed on some amazing adventures...she's an Angel!! Here we go! Best houseguest ever!!!!"
There's no word on whether the duchess enjoyed the game, but as you can see from the photo--- even royalty is not exempt from Neyland Stadium's clear bag policy!!
Radio station B97.5 posted this photo of Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, at a UT football game at Neyland Stadium.
B97.5
Anderson wouldn't comment further about the visit when we asked but said, "She's a dear friend and she wanted to experience her very first football game with us!"
Sarah Ferguson was married to Prince Andrew, Duke of York, the younger son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. They have two daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York, who are respectively seventh and eighth in the line of succession to the British throne.On Saturday hundreds of Pakistani Ahmadis walked into India to experience a week of religious freedom in the secular republic. The group was part of the 1,800 Ahmadis who have been given visas by the Indian government to attend their annual convention in the Indian Punjab.The three days event will run from 29th to 31st December.
The annual event is significant for the Ahmadis from Pakistan who saw their faith outlawed by Pakistan in 1974, while their annual gatherings were subsequently banned in 1984. This is why many of them each year make the journey from Pakistan to Qadian, India, a town 65miles east of Lahore.
Long lines on #Wagah border between India & Pakistan as thousands of Pakistani #Ahmadiyya Muslims cross into India to attend their annual convention which was banned by Pakistan in 1984 https://t.co/a6w6uKUr4P pic.twitter.com/62Z0ZqFvLe — Rabwah Times (@RabwahTimes) December 24, 2017
Pakistani Ahmadis travel to India for a week of freedom https://t.co/a6w6uKUr4P pic.twitter.com/iDC4esHL74 — Rabwah Times (@RabwahTimes) December 24, 2017
During their time in India, they get to enjoy a week of religious freedom where they can freely offer five daily prayers and greet each other with the Islamic greetings, small acts which can land them in Jail back home.
In India, they are warmly received not just by fellow Ahmadis but also by the local Sikhs and Hindu population along with leaders and politicians. Past convention speakers include prominent Indian actor Vinod Khanna, cricketer and TV personality, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Member of Parliament Pratap Singh Bajwa, BJP Leader Master Mohan Lal and Cabinet Minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan.
The Ahmadis who identify themselves as Muslims are unable to practice their faith in the Islamic republic and each year in December thousands of them make their way to India to attend the annual Ahmadi convention in Qadian, a town 65miles east of Lahore.
In 2016 India issued over 5,000 vias to Pakistani Ahmadis but not a single one of them could attend the event due to security concerns, however, an estimated 6,000 Ahmadis attended the same conference back in 2015.
The surge of Pakistani visitors in the town of Qadian can be compared to the Pakistani town of Nankana Sahib which also hosts a large number of Sikhs pilgrims from India.Cousins is a 1989 American romantic comedy film directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Ted Danson, Isabella Rossellini, Sean Young, William Petersen, Keith Coogan, Lloyd Bridges and Norma Aleandro. The film is an American remake of the 1975 French comedy Cousin Cousine, directed by Jean-Charles Tacchella. It was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada but set in Seattle.
Plot [ edit ]
Larry Kozinski (Danson) and Maria Hardy (Rossellini) meet at the marriage of Larry's uncle Phil and Maria's mother Edie (Aleandro). Newly made cousins-by-marriage, they find they have more in common than expected as their respective spouses, insecure Tish (Young) and boorish Tom (Petersen) begin an affair. Over a series of ritualized family events, dreamer Larry and repressed Maria decide to exact revenge on their spouses by pretending to have an affair themselves. Their good-natured plan takes on unexpected gravity when they learn not only are they great friends, but they realize they're falling in love with each other.
They consummate the affair, but the ramifications shake their families, including Larry's artistic son Mitch (Coogan) and Maria's adorable but aggressive daughter Chloe (Isabelle). They end the affair to bring stability back into their families' lives. Meanwhile, (after the sudden death of Uncle Phil), Larry's father Vince (Bridges) becomes interested in his widowed sister-in-law Edie and courts her.
Larry and Maria meet again some time later at Vince and Edie's wedding. Encouraged by Tish (who had split from Larry earlier in the film), he asks Maria to "dance with him", angering Tom but convincing Maria to break free from her unhappy marriage. In an epilogue, Larry and Maria are seen sailing away with their children, living a fantasy they had shared from their earlier affair.
Cast [ edit ]
Production [ edit ]
The film was directed by Joel Schumacher, known mostly for his works St. Elmo's Fire and The Lost Boys. Although not identified as such, the locations were primarily shot around Vancouver, Canada, among the first times the city was featured so prominently, and led to the city being used as a film location much more. The soaring score was composed by Angelo Badalamenti, who was extremely popular at the time from his work with Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet director David Lynch. Film Score Monthly described Badalamenti's melodic score as a definite asset to the film, underscoring several scenes with comical, Henry Mancini-like cues, and others with a delicate, poignant theme that blossoms into a waltz over the end credits.[1]
Reception [ edit ]
The film has received mixed reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 50% of 8 film critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.8 out of 10.[2] The film received two thumbs up from Siskel & Ebert, who were the only major critics to respond enthusiastically to the film upon its theatrical release. The film grossed a total of US$22 million, with an opening weekend of $3.5 million.[3]
Individual praises were held as well, particularly praised was Rosellini, whom critics found able to create a sweet, affectionate role after appearing in David Lynch's Blue Velvet.[4] Other comments called the film "underrated" and "While not amongst the great movie romances, there is something undeniably touching—and dare I say heart-warming—about Cousins".[4]Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Quentin Sommerville said villagers brought their dead children to the governor's office shouting: "See they aren't Taliban"
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has forcefully condemned the killing of 14 civilians in the south-west of the country in a suspected Nato air strike.
Mr Karzai said his government had repeatedly asked the US to stop raids which end up killing Afghan civilians and this was his "last warning".
A Nato spokesman said a team had been sent to Helmand province to investigate the attack carried out on Saturday.
Afghan officials say all those killed were women and children.
The strike took place in Nawzad district after a US Marines base came under attack.
The air strike, targeted at insurgents, struck two civilian homes, killing two women and 12 children, reports say.
"The president called this incident a great mistake and the murdering of Afghanistan's children and women, and on behalf of the Afghan people gives his last warning to the US troops and US officials in this regard," his office said.
The White House said it shared Mr Karzai's concerns and took them "very seriously".
A group from Sera Cala village travelled to Helmand's capital, Lashkar Gah, bringing with them the bodies of eight dead children, some as young as two years old, says the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul.
"See, they aren't Taliban," they chanted as the carried the corpses to local journalists and the governor's mansion.
While insurgents are responsible for most civilian deaths in Afghanistan, the killings of Afghans by foreign soldiers is a source of deepening anger, our correspondent adds.
President Hamid Karzai has criticised Nato for not doing enough to prevent such deaths, especially during "night raids" and has called on the country's ministry of defence to stop what he described as "arbitrary" operations by foreign forces.
Daud funeral
In the country's north, security was extremely tight for the funeral of Gen Mohammad Daud Daud, the police commander for northern Afghanistan who was killed in a suicide bomb attack on the provincial governor's compound in Takhar province on Saturday.
Image caption Gen Daud was buried on Sunday after being killed in a suicide bomb attack on Saturday
He was one of at least six people killed in the attack, which was claimed by the Taliban.
The location of the funeral itself was not announced in advance for security reasons.
Shopkeepers closed their doors and hung pictures of the general as he was buried, and mourners waved black flags in his honour, Reuters news agency reports.
The governor of Takhar province, Abdul Jabar Taqwa, dismissed allegations that "rogue" elements were involved in Saturday's attack in Taloqan.
He said intelligence officials knew about the mission and even had the telephone number of the suicide bomber several days before his attack.
"We sadly failed to catch him before he could carry out his mission," the governor, whose face and hand were burnt in the attack, told reporters in Taloqan on Sunday.Sydney (AFP) - Iran coach Carlos Queiroz bit his tongue about Asian Cup referees on Wednesday under the watchful eye of tournament organisers following his outburst earlier this week.
Asked whether he had any concerns about the refereeing for Thursday's game with Qatar, Queiroz confined himself to some sarcastic comments.
On Sunday, the former Real Madrid and Portugal boss launched into a tirade against the officiating of Australia's Ben Williams in the 2-0 win over Bahrain.
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"I don't know if we're entitled to give opinions about refs," he said, turning to the press conference moderator for confirmation. "No? All right so I didn't know that. Better not to comment."
"It's clear even if you talk politely, with respect, education, calm, cool, you're not entitled to talk about the referees," Queiroz added.
"After 32 years of my work in football I was never told I cannot give an opinion about the game. Maybe it's only because of the sponsors," he said, gesturing to the screen of brand names behind him.
Queiroz, nicknamed "Rottweiler" by Alex Ferguson during his times at Manchester United, did not hold back last week when he accused Williams of inconsistency over Bahrain's "dangerous" play.
It was one of a series of negative comments about Asian Cup referees with Japan's Keisuke Honda, Oman coach Paul Le Guen, and South Korea boss Uli Stielike also finding fault with the officials.
An Asian Football Confederation (AFC) official said coaches had been encouraged not to talk about referees during press conferences at the Asian Cup.
Iran could book their spot in the quarter-finals with a win against Qatar on Thursday but Queiroz said he wouldn't follow Australia coach Ange Postecoglou by rotating his players.
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"My group is quite different from Australia's. In our group we have four candidates with the possibility to go to the second round, so we cannot take chances," he said.
"This will be the opportunity also to establish and keep the core of the team because we've not been playing so much.
"Most of the players played for the first time together in the game against Bahrain so I need to take advantage of that situation. But there will be a couple of tactical adjustments."
Queiroz added that he has the luxury of a fully fit squad to choose from, with Andranik Teymourian declared healthy despite missing training on Wednesday.
"They (Qatar) lost the first game against UAE and they're going to try their absolute best tomorrow to achieve the result because tomorrow's going to be the final chance," said the former Bolton Wanderers midfielder.
"If they want to qualify for the second round, they need to come up with the best performance tomorrow."A mother of three shot pepper spray to keep shoppers from grabbing a video game system she wanted during a Black Friday sale, leaving 20 people with minor injuries, authorities said.
The incident occurred shortly after 10:20 p.m. Thursday in a crowded Los Angeles-area Walmart as shoppers hungry for deals were let inside the store.
Police said the suspect shot the pepper spray when the coverings over the item she wanted were removed.
"Somehow she was trying to use it to gain an upper hand," police Lt. Abel Parga told The Associated Press early Friday.
He said she was apparently after an Xbox 360 and used the pepper spray to keep other shoppers at bay.
More On This... ‘Occupy’-Inspired Campaign Urges Boycott of Black Friday
Officials said 20 people suffered minor injuries. Fire department spokesman Shawn Lenske said the injuries to least 10 of them were due to " rapid crowd movement."
Parga said police were still looking for the woman who was with her children at the time and reviewing surveillance video of the incident.
The store remained open and those not affected by the pepper spray continued shopping.
The Associated Press contributed reporting to this story.RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Sept. 5 (Korea Bizwire) – North Korean athletes arrived in Rio de Janeiro Sunday for the Summer Paralympics, which will run from September 7 to September 18.
This year’s North Korean team is comprised of two athletes, Kim Cheol-ung (5,000 meters, men) and Song Kum-jong (discus, women), and 13 staff members.
The team was greeted by locals at the Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport, with some of the welcoming party holding the ‘Peninsula Flag’ that represents the unified Korea, although no arrangements have been made this year for any sports activity collaboration between the two Koreas.
This is the second time that North Korea makes an appearance at the Summer Paralympics, with the London 2012 Paralympics being the first.
“Just watch (the games), I will claim the medal,” said Song Kum-jong in an interview with Yonhap.
Image Credit: Yonhap / photonews@koreabizwire.comOur son spent the long weeks of last year's summer holidays bunkered in his room — mastering foreign domains, roaming landscapes full of gunfire and explosions, fighting alongside teammates with American accents.
Given six weeks of freedom, he spent as many hours in those worlds as possible, progressing from occasional Minecrafter to proper gamer.
I was freaked out, yet I wasn't quite sure why.
Then I remembered that when I was around 12, I'd planned a manifesto on "How Kids Think". At its heart was a longing for adults to regard my interests as seriously as I did. If my fate was to become a dull, unknowing grown-up, I wanted a bridge back to the other side.
Clearly I needed to have a proper conversation with my son about his gaming, to find out what was so damn fascinating about it that he rarely touched a book, a bike, or anything that wasn't virtual.
I also needed to satisfy myself he was safe, and that his personality wasn't being warped in some major way.
He was more than happy to sit down with me for a long chat about it.
Through talking in an intentional way about his gaming, I won a deeper understanding of my son, and, to a degree that respects his privacy, we restored the open communication we had when he was younger. The process was a great relief to both of us.
For anyone feeling a million miles from the digital world of their gamer kids, I urge you to start talking with them.
How to have a conversation about gaming
1. Convince your child you're interested
If in the past you've mostly referred to their favourite hobby as a pointless waste of time, you may need to open with a mea culpa.
Then, explain that you genuinely want to find out about what they're playing — and make a date with them for a conversation.
You'll need a proper amount of unimpeded time (we talked for four hours over two days). At first, get them to talk to you, not show you on the computer. Bring excellent snacks.
2. Make them the expert
For young people, one of computer gaming's major appeals is the sense of agency they have in their on-screen lives.
They get to trial an independence that's barely, if ever, present in reality. Each time they play, even the youngest child is questing, decision-making and accruing experience.
Let them bring that authority into your relationship for a while. Allow them to be the expert in this thing that matters to them, while you ask the dumb questions.
There will be so much stuff you don't understand, and that they'll love explaining. Let go of your pride; let yourself be awkward and daft.
Share You're talking about a game — don't ask them to justify its educational aspects.
3. Shut up and listen
Remember when they were learning to walk? Learning to play violin, ride a bike, or do that dance? You paid so much attention, your eyes could have burst. Give them a bit of that again.
At first what you're hearing may be about as interesting as your uncle's account of his latest surgery, but keep listening, and keep asking questions.
And pay proper attention, because you'll get bonus points with your gamer for remembering the details and referring to them later.
4. Look for the buzz
When your kid is describing something that gives them a buzz, go with it: get them to tell you the best fun they ever had in that game, the highest score, the best rank.
If something makes your child this proud and happy, you want to know about it, right? Whatever you do, try not to mock.
Listen out for what they define as achievements, and try acknowledging or praising them in the same way you would with any other hobby.
Do they play a game that's sounds completely ridiculous and nonsensical? Cool. Remember you're talking about a game, and don't ask them to justify its educational aspects.
5. Don't panic
Digital natives are constantly being lectured about cyber safety, at school and elsewhere. They think they're all over it, and that you can't tell them anything, so you may as well acknowledge this situation out loud.
You might also want to remind them it's your job to help them stay safe, and see if you can't find a balance between responsible parenting and being a total buzzkill.
Share Games can provide connection between parent and child when other parts of life go pear-shaped.
Agree on limits around protecting privacy together. Go over your family's baseline rules for being a decent human and socialising with others. These should apply in virtual interactions as much as in real life.
Then agree to trust your gamer to manage themselves online and come to you if there's a problem. Make it clear it's your job to intervene when necessary.
For all the cautionary tales of grooming and bullying, I'm willing to bet there are many more kids making real online friends, and finding social confidence and capital they don't have in the schoolyard.
And the less you panic about this stuff when you have these early conversations, the easier it is for them to come to you if things get weird.
Conversation starters
What do you play? You'll likely discover your gamer has a whole suite, or library, of games of endless variety. Start by asking them to categorise the different types, or genres, of games they play — shooters, role-playing games and so on — and then get specific within the genres.
How do you play? What are you good at? What would you like to improve at?
Who do you play with? Do you play regularly with real people? Maybe in a squad, or a clan? What's it like playing against anonymous people, and bots? What sort of avatars do you have?
What do you wish I understood about gaming?
What next?
Once you've acknowledged gaming is serious fun for your young person, and can conceive of it as time spent — rather than time wasted — it becomes much easier to negotiate which games are allowed and how much time is devoted to playing them.
Put yourself right out there, and ask your gamer to teach you how to play. You may negotiate a swap: you'll spend two hours playing Bastion and they'll agree to spend time trying something you want to teach them..
For younger teenagers, you could make a grand gesture to demonstrate that you "get it" and throw a birthday or unbirthday party that includes gaming.
Look into game design workshops, summer schools, code camps, and other meet-ups that will expand on any expressed interest in game making.
There's also tremendous leverage here. You can use gaming time as a bribe, a reward... and a connection point when other parts of life go pear-shaped.
And if you are worried about anything that comes up when you're talking with your gamer, find a third party who can help you work through the issues.As you might have seen, in April I started a Homebound Developers Club for Columbus, Ohio. There were about eight other people who showed up, ate, and chatted for a while. Come join us again in May for conversation, food, and the chance to get out of the house for a bit. This month it will be May 6th, starting at 11:30 am, at Polaris Mall Food court. We’ll collect on the northeast corner of the foodcourt — the corner next to the parking lot entrance. It turns out that the northwest corner contains the kids rides and there’s more traffic and noise than I expected.
If you have questions, reach out to me on Twitter, leave a comment, or read the FAQ from my last post. I hope to see you there!Here are some of the books that I regularly recommend...
Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy, by David Burns. The best book out there on what cognitive behavioral therapy is, how it works and how to use it to improve self-esteem and your mood.
The Verbally Abusive Relationship, by Patricia Evans. How to recognize verbal abuse (you might be surprised) and how to respond in a non-defensive, self-respectful manner.
Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay, by Mira Kirshenbaum. A clear step-by-step guide to help decide whether to stay in or get out of your relationship.
Controlling People, also by Patricia Evans. How to recognize, understand, and deal with people who try to control you. It's not about assigning blame, it's about taking responsibility.
Codependent No More, by Melodie Beattie. How to stop controlling others and start caring for yourself.
Stop Walking On Eggshells, by Paul Mason & Randi Kreger. Taking your life back when someone you care about has Borderline Personality Disorder.
Getting the Love You Want, by Harville Hendrix. A guide for couples to understand why we choose the people we marry and, if you are ready to work at it, how to build a "passionate friendship."
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, (and it's all small stuff), by Richard Carlson. A classic little book with a big message.Yesterday (7th) night, EXO-M’s member Huang Zitao updated his weibo profile, but his profile description doesn’t look very happy, why is this so?According to fans, Huang Zitao accidentally “liked” a fanfiction (T/N: The chinese phrase used means they are paired together in the fic) about EXO-K’s member Oh Sehun and him, and got teased by fans, hence he changed his profile, to show his gloominess: “ Don’t want to explain anything anymore, don’t know anything. Can only say that weibo is a “pit”!! (T/N: The phrase “pit” means trap.)Regarding Huang Zitao’s rant, fans on one side are consoling him: “Don’t mind us, everyone is just playing around”, but on the other side did not forget to tease him: “Taozi is too Tsundere.” What will Huang Zitao think after he knows about this? But this is also a way that fans are showing their love for Huang Zitao, hope he doesn’t mind.T/N: He has now changed his profile and it just says "Don't want to explain anything anymore""[FANFIC PARTIAL TRANS][M-18] Hey I miss you.Taking away public holidays, Tao has never left Sehun for a day. They skipped lessons together, fought, went to PC rooms. They pretty much did anything boys their age would have done. Of course, including things that they are not supposed to do. Like holding hands, like hugging, like kissing, like doing//it…Their first time was on Sehun’s 17th birthday, and it wasn’t that long ago that it happened. When it entered his body, it was painful as hell and he cried really hard. He wanted to back out but instead shouted, “Don’t stop”. He is afraid of pain, really, but he is also as tolerant. When the deed was done, even when his butt was hurting, he still could hop and jump around his hyung, smiling and asking for a present.*Sehun bit his own tongue accidentally in school while eating”Tao bent down and enclosed that naked tongue that was sticking out and sucked it, licking it with his own, and then loosening his mouth to look at the flushed face.“It’s no longer painful right?”original poster: 亦鹿冲天trans: @exonyeoshidae"at(news article) exonyeoshidae ; posted byatWhen I found out that Mitch McConnell would be giving Murray State’s commencement address, I nearly crashed. And I mean that literally, because I was driving when I got a text message informing me that the Senate Minority Leader would be on campus in the flesh May 11.
What a stark change from McConnell’s normal behavior, which includes spending most of the year out of the Commonwealth and in Washington, D.C., doing his best to stonewall the president’s agenda for the past four years (even if that means voting against bills he used to support!)
Mitch McConnell headlining Murray State’s graduation might be less egregious if he hadn’t made his entire political career flipping students the bird.
As Kentucky’s representative in the Senate, McConnell has voted against legislation that would keep student loan interest rates low, voted against expanding pell grants and voted against providing emergency funds for schools and teachers sufferring as a result of the Great Recession.
But it’s not just students that Mitch McConnell has flipped the bird to over the years he’s represented Kentucky in the Senate. McConnell is quite the lady killer, too. In just the last four years, McConnell voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act not once, but twice. He voted against fair pay legislation for women in 2009, 2010 and 2012.
Students and women aren’t the only ones that Mitch McConnell has flipped the bird to, either. McConnell voted to give millionaires and billionaires tax cuts twice, while also voting against raising the minimum wage.
McConnell is a bona fide champion of the 1 percent, voting to end the Estate Tax, a tax on the fortunates of the ultrarich that prevents people like Paris Hilton from getting all of daddy’s fortune when he passes away. McConnell also nobly voted to give billions of taxpayer dollars to failing Wall Street firms when the economy imploded as a result of McConnell and George W. Bush’s economic policies.
Speaking of Dubya, Sen. McConnell was joined at his hip the entire time he was president. In addition to his wife serving as Labor Secretary for President Bush, McConnell was a cheerleader for Bush’s disastrous economic policies that crashed the economy, put us billions in the hole and made the rich richer at the expense of everyone else.
Eager to criticize the president for out-of-control spending, McConnell raised no complaint when President Bush borrowed and spent more money than all the presidents before him combined. McConnell suffers from attention deficit disorder – that is, he only pays attention to the deficit when a Democrat is in the White House.
Every single student on this campus should be up in arms about this. Mitch?McConnell has continually given students the finger. Why should he speak at our graduation?
Column by Devin Griggs, opinion editor. Devin serves as vice president of finances for the Murray State College Democrats.From WikiLeaks
WIKILEAKS STAFF (Wikileaks)
September 17, 2008
The internet activist group 'anonymous', famed for its exposure of unethical behavior by the Scientology cult, has now gone after the Alaskan govenor and republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
At around midnight last night some members affiliated with the group gained access to governor Palin's email account "gov.palin@yahoo.com" and handed over the contents to the government sunshine site Wikileaks.org.
One of the family photos from the account
Governor Palin has come under media criticism in the past week for using private email accounts to avoid Alaskan freedom of information laws. The contents of the mailbox show this to be true and also hold clues of at least one other Yahoo based mail account held by Palin, "gov.sarah@yahoo.com".
The zip archive made available by Wikileaks contains screen shots of Palin's inbox, two example emails, address book and a couple of family photos. The list of correspondence, together with the account name tends to re-enforce the earlier criticism of Palin's email use.
The list of emails include an exchange with Alaskan Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress. Another screenshot shows Palin's inbox and an e-mail from Amy McCorkell, whom Palin appointed to the Governor's Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007.
The e-mail, a message of support to Palin, tells her not to let negative press get to her and asks Palin to pray for McCorkell, who writes that "I need strength to 1. keep employment, 2. not have to choose."
According to Kim Zetter of Wired Magazine, McCorkell confirmed that she did send the e-mail to Palin.
Subsequently tests by Wikileaks reveal that both Palin's "gov.palin@yahoo.com" and her unrelated "gov.sarah@yahoo.com" account have now been deleted, almost certainly by Palin herself.
According to the Guardian, who has looked at the Wikileaks data, among the emails in Palin's account were several from addresses belonging to her aides, including a draft letter to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a discussion of nominations to the state court of appeals, and several bearing "DPS", the acronym for the Alaska Department of Public Safety.
DPS supervises the Alaska state troopers. Could the e-mails in question be relevant to the brewing ethics storm over Palin's push to sack her former brother-in-law from the force?
The contact list included also holds accounts for other official representative's private email accounts, including those of Alaska's Kris Perry and Sharon Leighow.
Screenshots and other details follow:
The inbox showing the password change confirmation on the top
An excerpt from a mail between Parin and Alaska's Sean Parnell
Mail from Amy McCorkell, a Palin supporter, to Sarah Palin
A larger excerpt from the mailbox index
Mail from anonymous to Ive Frye, Palin's assistant, to make her aware of the password change
Note that the 'ctunnel.com' reference in the browser screen shots is to a proxy service used to prevent the activists from being traced.
Wikileaks may release additional emails should they prove to be of political substance.
Account information used by the anonymous 'hacktivists':
Sarah Palin account info: gov.palin@yahoo.com DO |
try to push through a £50 million deal for the unsettled Argentina winger.
Olivier Létang, the PSG sporting director, flew to London to meet Ed Woodward, United’s executive vice-chairman, on Monday.
Louis van Gaal, the United manager, would be happy to keep Di María but the player is known to be eager to leave Old Trafford after a difficult past 12 months in Manchester in the wake of his £59.7 million move from Real Madrid. PSG are believed to be proposing an initial fee of around £42 million that could rise to about £50 million, although United are holding out…Matt Marotta did what he was supposed to do, like he's done throughout his minor hockey career at the end of a game.
His Viking Construction Tier 1 peewee Cougars had just lost 3-2 in overtime to the Nanaimo Clippers in the fifth-place playoff Sunday at the 43rd annual Coca-Cola Peewee Hockey Classic tournament. Marotta skated out to the blueline, kneeled and waited to shake hands with the Clippers.
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But he was all alone. None of his 11-and-12-year Cougar teammates and none of his coaches joined him to uphold that post-game tradition. They'd already left the ice and went to the dressing room.
"He showed the epitome of sportsmanship, he did what was right and not what everyone else was doing," said Garnett Ryshak. "In a minute and 30 seconds, Matt changed the lives of numerous people."
Ryshak, who lives in Vernon, was at the Vernon Civic Centre Sunday after arriving early to watch the Vernon Peewee Vipers play their final game of the season against the KC Lancers from Edmonton for third and fourth place.
There was a delay though. The Clippers were in double overtime, tied 2-2 with their Prince George opponents. The Clippers won a draw in their own zone with less than 15 seconds still showing on the clock in three-on-three overtime.
"A Clipper forward grabs the puck and they are away 2-on-1," Ryshak said, from his home in Vernon. "[They] pass across the slot, a one-timer [on the] short side hits the back of the net."
The Clippers had scored the winner.
According to spectators, a timekeeper forgot to start the clock at the face-off.
"The Cougars disputed the goal and time clock, as it showed 7.5 seconds remaining," Ryshak said. "The referees met and reviewed the goal and time remaining only to deem the goal good.
"It was a celebration for the Clippers. Prince George remained seated on the bench."
Ryshak and the entire crowd were waiting in the stands for the traditional handshakes and awards ceremony.
"The Cougars skated off to their change room, smashing their sticks in disgust along the way without honouring their opponents [with] the traditional handshake," he said. "I could not believe what I was seeing. Nanaimo could not believe what they were seeing, the Prince George players parents could not believe what they were seeing. This was not the way the game is supposed to end.
"Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Matthew kneeling. Nanaimo surrounded him, it was just like he scored the game-winning goal. We all stepped back and cheered, 'way to go number 2.'"
Ryshak, was emotional in the stands as he watched Marotta mobbed by the Clippers.
"I shook his [Matt's] dad's hands, we had tears streaming down our faces and we're both grown men. It was a touching moment. I'd never seen anything like this and had never seen a kid stand up like he did. Matt stood by what's right."
Prince George Minor Hockey Association president Alec Hartney said there could be disciplinary action handed to the team's coaches as a result of their conduct in Vernon but the minor hockey executive will not make any decision until the incident is thoroughly investigated.
"I don't really want to comment until we get all the facts straight," said Hartney. "We want to talk to the parents who were actually at the tournament to figure out what actually happened.
"I know everyone says the coaches should be fired, but I can't jump out and say 'you guys are done.' Were they yelling and screaming? I can't answer that because I don't know that. Coaches get heated. Look at John Tortorella. We're trying to resolve it as soon as possible.
"It's unfortunate this got into the media. If they would have shook hands, none of this would have happened."
Hartney said although the minor hockey executive met Monday and Tuesday nights, the purpose of those meetings was to review the policy manual, not to discuss the incident in Vernon. On Wednesday night, Hartney planned to interview all of the parents who attended the game to get their version of what happened before the executive makes any ruling on possible disciplinary action.
"We could give them a suspension but that doesn't really do anything because they can still go out and practice with the team, they don't have any games until provincials [at spring break],'" said Hartney.
"It doesn't look good on Prince George and it doesn't look good on Prince George minor hockey. All this came to light Monday afternoon and Tuesday. We're volunteers and we have to work during the day and deal with this stuff when we have free time in the evening. Hopefully by the next two or three days it's done."
Cougars head coach Ryan Arnold said nothing about what happened as he left practice at Kin 3 rink Tuesday night.
"No comment," he said as he walked away.After they were attacked and beaten by a mob, two teenage bloggers were arrested for allegedly posting “derogatory comments against Islam and Prophet Mohammad” on their Facebook accounts, according to Bangladesh's English daily Dhaka Tribune.
Fellow bloggers allege that an Islamist student organization distributed false propaganda material which rallied the mob against the two bloggers and led to their arrest. The mainstream media has largely refrained from reporting this story.
Bloggers say [bn] Kazi Mahbubur Rahman Raihan (Rahi) and Ullash Das, both secondary school students at Chittagong College, went to their school on March 30 to collect admission cards for upcoming Higher Secondary Certificate (college-qualifying) exams. They were then attacked by a mob of activists from the Islami Chhatra Shibir, a student organization aligned with the country's largest Islamist party. They were dragged on to the street where they were beaten.
Police intervened to rescue them, but later arrested the two teenage bloggers. They were sent to jail the following day, without bail, under Article 57 of the Information and Communications Technology Act, which criminalizes “publishing fake, obscene or defaming information in electronic form.”
Their defense lawyer Abu Bakar Siddique Azim says that Raihan writes on the Bangla blogging platform Istishon Blog under the pseudonym ‘Ghurnayoman Electron’ (Rotating Electron). Das uses only Facebook as a writing platform. He also said: “As far as we have seen, neither of them wrote any kind of public writing that goes against anyone’s religious belief.”
The controversial Article 57 and other amendments to ICT Act were made by presidential decree in September 2013, despite broad criticism from legal and human rights experts. The law also allows police to arrest a suspect without any means of judicial approval and to detain that person, without bail, for an indefinite period of time.
The event has sparked much controversy among bloggers in the country. Blogger Midnight Train writes about the circumstances that led to their arrest on the Istishon blog:
রাহীর ব্লগ এবং ফেসবুক ঘেঁটে আমি এমন কোন লেখা দেখলাম না যেটা ধর্মের বিরুদ্ধে কটূক্তি বলে মনে হতে পারে। বরং ইন্টারেস্টিংলি তার লেখার মূল বিষয় ছিল জামাত-শিবির। [..] গতকাল সকালে রাহী তার বন্ধুদের সাথে কলেজে যায় এইচএসসি পরীক্ষার এডমিট কার্ড আনার জন্য। সেখানে আগে থেকেই ওৎ পেতে থাকা শিবিরের ক্যাডার বাহিনী তাকে এবং তার বন্ধু উচ্ছ্বাসকে ধরে পার্শ্ববর্তী পাহাড়ের উপর নিয়ে অমানবিকভাবে পিটায়। পিটানোর এক পর্যায়ে পুলিশ এসে তাদের উদ্ধার করে থানায় নিয়ে যায়। থানায় আগে থেকেই তার নামে প্রায় ৩০ পৃষ্ঠার মতো নথিপত্র জমা দেওয়া ছিল, যেখানে মূলত রাহীর জামাত-শিবিরের পেইজ বাঁশেরকেল্লায় করা কমেন্ট এবং অনলাইনে জঙ্গি হিসেবে পরিচিত ফারাবীর বিভিন্ন লেখায় করা কমেন্টের স্ক্রিন শটের প্রিন্ট কপি ছিল। এরপর ৫৭ ধারায় তার নামে মামলা করা হয়েছে। উচ্ছ্বাস সম্পর্কে খবর নিয়ে জানা গেছে সে শুধুমাত্র জামাত-শিবির নিয়েই লেখালেখি করত। ধর্ম নিয়ে সে কখনই কিছু লিখেনি এবং পুলিশও তার বিরুদ্ধে ৫৭ ধারায় মামলা দেওয়ার মতো কিছু খুঁজে পায়নি। অথচ তাকেও ৫৭ ধারায় মামলা দিয়ে চালান দেওয়া হয়েছে।
I have analyzed the writings on Rahi's blog and Facebook and didn't find anything that may be deemed as derogatory to Islam. But interestingly he wrote against Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami [the largest Islamist political party in the country] and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir regularly. Yesterday morning Rahi went to college to collect the admission card for the upcoming HSC examination. At one point he and his friend Ullas were attacked by armed activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir and were beaten mercilessly by them. The police intervened to rescue them and took them to the police station for questioning. There was already a written complaint of about thirty pages against them lodged to the police station. The main accusations included screenshots of comments by Rahi on the Jamaat-shibir Facebook page Basherkella and comments on the Facebook page of Farabi, an accused Islamic extremist activist online. They were later booked under the article 57 of the ICT Act. The other boy (Ullas) also wrote extensively against Jamaat-Shibir. He did not write anything against religion and the police did not find anything against him. But he was also booked under the 57 article.
On the Istishon blog, Sumit Chowdhury writes that the attackers used propaganda leaflets against the bloggers:
প্রায় ৫ থেকে ৬ পাতার একটি প্রচারপত্র তারা বানায়। যেখানে প্রথম মন্তব্যটি যেকোন মানুষকে ভড়কে দিতে যথেষ্টই নয় বরং তার চাইতেও বেশি। [..] প্রথমে টেক মসজিদের ভেতরে নিয়ে মারধোর করতে করতে তাদের মূল রাস্তায় নামিয়ে আনলে, সেখানে পূর্ব-পরিকল্পনা মাফিক অপেক্ষারত আরো কিছু বেজন্মা জারজের বাচ্চারাও তাতে অংশ নেয়। এদিকে আগে থেকেই ছেপে রাখা প্রচারপত্রগুলো জনসাধারণের মাঝে বিলি করতে থাকে বেজন্মারা। স্বভাবতই “ধর্মানুভুতি”(!)তে চরম আঘাত পায় কড়া মাপের আস্তিকীয়রা।
They prepared and distributed a leaflet of 5-6 pages. The first comment highlighted in that leaflet was enough to shock any person, maybe more than that. [..] They were first taken to Tek Mosque and were beaten mercilessly and later they were dragged to the street. Some others joined the mob in the street. They started distributing the pre-printed leaflet to the crowd. So obviously the people's “religious sentiments” were hurt.
The blogger also writes :
এই ব্যাপারটি এখনো কেনো মিডিয়াকে জানানো হয়নি এমন প্রশ্নে ঐ থানার একজন কর্মকর্তা বলেন সাম্প্রদায়িকতা উস্কে যেতে পারে এমন ধারণায় তারা ব্যাপারটি প্রকাশ্যে আনতে চায়নি।
I asked the police why this news was not reported in the mainstream media and an officer from the police station commented that the police was cautious so that religious riot don't erupt over this issue.
According to Chowdhury, the victims are not getting any help:
পুলিশের কাছে তদবির করা মাত্রই পুলিশ ঐ প্রচারপত্রটি দেখিয়ে দিচ্ছেন! ফলে ব্যাপক অসহায় হয়ে পড়েছে রাহি এবং উল্লাস। সবচেয়ে আশ্চর্যান্বিত হয়েছি উল্লাসের পরিবার থেকে নিয়োগকৃত উকিলের ব্যবহারে! ঐ উকিল স্পষ্টই জানিয়ে দিয়েছে সে আর এই মামলা নিয়ে লড়বে না। কেননা তারা তার ধর্মের বিরুদ্ধে কথা বলেছে। সে তার ধর্মের উর্দ্ধে গিয়ে কিছু করবে না।
The police is showing the pamphlet whenever anyone tries to talk in the arrested bloggers’ favor. So Rahi and his friend are helpless. I was pretty surprised by the advocate appointed by Ullas's family. He declared that he will not work on this case anymore because they have attacked his religion. He will not go beyond his religion.
The truth seeker Sabyasachi, a commenter on that post, asked:
তার বয়স আঠারো হয়নি তবে কেন তাদের জেলে পাঠানো হল? আর এখন সত্যি সত্যি মনে হচ্ছে ৫৭ ধারাটা আমাদের জন্য বুমেরাং হয়ে দাঁড়িয়েছে।
Their age has not crossed 18 so why have they been sent to prison? Now we are feeling that the article 57 has become a hunting weapon against us.
M R Khan commented:
আমি মনে করি জেল হেফাজতে পাঠানোর চেয়ে শিশু/কিশোর সংশোধনাগারে পাঠানোই মনে হয় ঠিক হতো।এটা মনে হচ্ছে শত্রুতা বশত করা হয়েছে। ধর্ম নিয়ে বেশি বাড়াবাড়ি মনে হয় এদেশ থেকে মুছবে না।
I think instead of sending them to prison they should have been sent to juvenile correction centers. This appears to be a case of enmity between known persons. It seems excess of religion is a perennial problem in this country.
Blogger Shehab at Sachalayatan blog has uploaded copies of the police complaint and the application to the court detailing the incident as seen by police. The complaints include several details alleging that both bloggers have posted blasphemous content online.Get a Peer Mentor
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Last Updated: 10/10/2017This won’t be the first time that the company has dabbled with 3D Touch technology. Samsung Display has reportedly been tasked with developing a pressure-sensitive OLED panel for the upcoming iPhone 8 and even produced one for the Huawei P9 last year.
If a new report originating from South Korea is anything to go by, it would appear that Samsung’s baking a 3D Touch sensor into the bottom of the Infinity Display on the much-rumored Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus. They’re supposedly doing this in order to make the “ virtual home button ” respond to different levels of pressure.
After the partial adoption on its next flagship, sources say that Samsung’s likely to embrace the technology for the entire screen on the Galaxy Note 8, which could also sport a fingerprint scanner beneath the display — a feature that was reportedly scrapped from the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus at the last minute.
Aside from a pressure-sensitive panel, the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus are both also rumored to sport a Snapdragon 835 octa-core CPU, a 12MP rear-facing camera, an 8MP selfie shooter and super-fast face recognition. The former should ship with a 3,000mAh battery, and the latter a 3,500mAh one.
An exact release date?
Samsung will take the wraps off the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus at a dedicated event in New York City on March 29. Unfortunately, we don’t have any information with regards to an exact release date. Although, it typically takes around two-to-four weeks from the time of announcement for a handset to hit the shelves.When City of Sydney’s anti-illegal rentals task force looked behind the scenes of a low-rent supermarket in the city’s centre, rather than cans of food and crates of produce, they found a store room set up with four bunk beds.
The shop’s disability toilet had been converted into a makeshift bathroom, complete with shower and plastic covering the walls.
Its proprietor Amr Hassan was this week convicted and fined $100,000 – plus legal costs of $61,426 – in the Downing Centre Local Court for converting part of the ‘Banana Supermarket’ in Regent Street, Chippendale for residential use.
“This result was thanks to a long and resource-intensive investigation,” former Scotland Yard detective Roy Cottam said.
Mr Cottam, 47, is the investigative specialist on the City of Sydney’s Illegal Accommodation Strike Force.
“Amr Hassan had established the largest syndicate of unsafe and illegal accommodation that we have identified in our area to date,” Mr Cottam added, explaining that the discovery of the supermarket store room had led to investigations of a number of other potentially illegal doss-houses.
“This is a fantastic result for the City,” said Mr Cottam, “particularly in light of the lengths the defendant was prepared to go to in order to avoid liability.
Mr Cottam told Fairfax Media Hassan was originally due to appear in February when he pleaded not guilty. The case was delayed until this week when Hassan said he was too ill to appear in court.
However, the magistrate, having allowed several hours for Hassan to be contacted and brought to court, decided to proceed with the case, which ended in the conviction and fine.
“It is hoped that this conviction and penalty imposed by the court sends out a strong message to the community, that this type of criminal and dangerous activity will not be tolerated,” Roy Cottam added.
Since it was established in May 2015, the City has successfully disrupted a number of large-scale illegal accommodation networks, says a spokeswoman.
It has executed 30 search warrants and interviewed suspects as it gathered evidence for at least two more significant cases that have yet to come to court.
Meanwhile the team has also inspected more than 100 separate premises and issued over 80 notices and orders and issued fines totalling $75,000. It is currently undertaking criminal proceedings in the NSW Land and Environment Court in relation to unauthorised use of an industrial estate for short-term accommodation.
It was just over a year ago that the squad discovered 58 people living in a non-descript house in Ultimo. Then, in the course of executing 20 search warrants, they also found 10 people sharing one bedroom as well as others sleeping in bathrooms, and in one case, a pantry.
The City is the first council in NSW to establish a dedicated investigation team to crack down on illegal and unsafe short-term accommodation networks.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore said this week’s court victory demonstrated how seriously the City takes the risks to the safety of Sydney’s most vulnerable young residents.
“This case sends a message that illegal, dangerous accommodation networks will not be tolerated in the city, and the people who profit from them will be prosecuted,” the Lord Mayor said.
Ned Cucher, Senior Policy Officer with NSW Tenants Union, told Domain that sometimes he hears from people who live in such places, asking about their tenancy rights.
“Invariably, they’re in that kind of accommodation because they can’t find affordable housing through mainstream sources,” he said.
“Their rights are extremely limited, if they have any at all,” he added. “Fair Trading is currently reviewing the state’s renting laws, from which such accommodation is excluded. They’d do well to consider changing that.”... and what Hollywood actress Emma Watson observed in her speech on feminism at the UN is that it’s not just women who get victimised. A look at the issues that plague men and often go unreportedIn a bid to redefine feminism, Hollywood actress Emma Watson touched upon gender issues that affect men and never get spoken of. Men, just like women, are bound by an image in the society, which portrays them as a provider and as one who shows no sign of weakness. Depression, sadness and tears are never seen as part of man’s makeup. And if he does exhibit any of those signs, he’s looked down upon by family and friends. Unlike women, who choose to speak out, men do the opposite — they ignore the signs, which result in psychosomatic and mental illnesses, addictions to substances and suicide in a increasing number of cases. Let’s take a look at some of the issues that men are afraid to talk about...In most cases, men have been seen as perpetrators of violence — physical or mental. However, Mumbai-based psychologist, Dr Harish Shetty, says, “I have seen several cases in my three decade long career of men being the affected party. Domestic violence has increased in families. Men are beaten by teenage children and by spouses. They are emotionally bashed at the workplace by their bosses. There are instances where friends of their girlfriend come and bash them when things go bad, but these things go unsaid. They suffer in silence.” This often leads to a vicious cycle of ailments, depression and psychosomatic illnesses like ulcers, heart related diseases and diabetes. “Men don’t seek help when they are depressed, irritable or angry. They either fall prey to addictions or commit suicide,” adds Dr Shetty, who says that more men commit suicide than women.A direct cause of the increasing pressures that men face is depression. City-based psychologist Dr Yusuf Matcheswala says that while the occurrence of depression is common in men, they do not realise that they are suffering from it. “Men being men, feel they will be perceived as weak if they seek help from a psychologist and don’t want to accept there is any weakness in them. Even though it’s okay for men to be metrosexual, do manicures, pedicures and wear strawberry lip balm, sadly, seeking help is not,” says Dr Matcheswala.Seeking help can sometimes cause complications. “Men become quieter and lose interest in life; they begin lying about their jobs. They tend to eat more, drink more alcohol and crib about office all the time. They avoid responsibilities and feel worthless and hopeless,” says Dr Shetty, adding that these problems can be avoided if there is enough awareness. “A simple trip to a friendly neighbourhood counsellor can do the trick,” he adds.An alarming number of young boys find themselves a victim of sexual exploitation. Dr Shetty says that unless those who are exploited seek help and attain closure, the effects of such trauma can be lasting. “I have seen cases where men, who were assaulted when they were young, lose interest in marriage. At times, boys who’ve been abused sexually, grow up with an unhealthy idea of sex.” Such experiences scar a person for life and prevent them from leading a productive life.The pressures of modern life can take a toll on men and increase if they have a family to support. In a fast-paced city like Mumbai, the struggle and stress starts with the morning commute and continues through the day, with work pressures mounting. With the onus of financial responsibility and upkeep of the family on him, a man has to keep it all together. In Mumbai, members of the Save Our Family Association meet every Sunday to talk about these issues and share their problems. Says a member, Jinesh Zaveri, “We see cases where fathers are denied rights to meet their children after a divorce. We listen to them, console them, and suggest the best possible course of action. These men are so affected that initially, they barely speak and are tight-lipped. But later, they open up and even cry, forgetting their image of being a tough man.” He feels that besides counselling, men also need support and an eager ear to listen to their issues.I realised that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society, despite my need of his presence as a child, as much as my mother’s. I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness, unable to ask for help for fear it would make them less of a man. In fact, in the UK, suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20 to 49, eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease. I’ve seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality, either. We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes, but I can see that they are, and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence.Inspired by Vim Koans.
Silence
A Python programmer handed her ~/.gitconfig to Master Git. Among the many lines were the following:
[alias] ; Explicit is better than implicit. If we want to merge ; we should do so ourselves. pull = pull --ff-only
Master Git nodded. “ git pull origin master,” said the programmer.
Master Git pulled down the latest changes on master and automatically merged them with the programmer’s changes.
“But Master Git, did I not say to only fast-forward in my configuration?!” she cried.
Master Git looked at her, nodded, and said nothing.
“Then why did you not warn me of a problem with my configuration?” she asked.
Master Git replied: “there was no problem.”
Months later the programmer was reading git --help config for a different reason and found enlightenment.
One Thing Well
A UNIX programmer was working in the cubicle farms. As she saw Master Git traveling down the path, she ran to meet him.
“It is an honor to meet you, Master Git!” she said. “I have been studying the UNIX way of designing programs that each do one thing well. Surely I can learn much from you.”
“Surely,” replied Master Git.
“How should I change to a different branch?” asked the programmer.
“Use git checkout.”
“And how should I create a branch?”
“Use git checkout.”
“And how should I update the contents of a single file in my working directory, without involving branches at all?”
“Use git checkout.”
After this third answer, the programmer was enlightened.
Only the Gods
The great historian was trying to unravel the intricacies of an incorrect merge that had happened many months ago. He made a pilgrimage to Master Git to ask for his help.
“Master Git,” said the historian, “what is the nature of history?”
“History is immutable. To rewrite it later is to tamper with the very fabric of existence.”
The historian nodded, then asked: “Is that why rebasing commits that have been pushed is discouraged?”
“Indeed,” said Master Git.
“Splendid!” exclaimed the historian. “I have a historical record of a merge commit with two parents. How can I find out which branch each parent was originally made on?”
“History is ephemeral,” replied Master Git, “the knowledge you seek can be answered only by the gods.”
The historian hung his head as enlightenment crushed down upon him.
The Hobgoblin
A novice was learning at the feet of Master Git. At the end of the lesson he looked through his notes and said, “Master, I have a few questions. May I ask them?”
Master Git nodded.
“How can I view a list of all tags?”
“ git tag ”, replied Master Git.
“How can I view a list of all remotes?”
“ git remote -v ”, replied Master Git.
“How can I view a list of all branches?”
“ git branch -a ”, replied Master Git.
“And how can I view the current branch?”
“ git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD ”, replied Master Git.
“How can I delete a remote?”
“ git remote rm ”, replied Master Git.
“And how can I delete a branch?”
“ git branch -d ”, replied Master Git.
The novice thought for a few moments, then asked: “Surely some of these could be made more consistent, so as to be easier to remember in the heat of coding?”
Master Git snapped his fingers. A hobgoblin entered the room and ate the novice alive. In the afterlife, the novice was enlightened.
The Long and Short of It
Master Git and a novice were walking along a bridge.
The novice, wanting to partake of Master Git’s vast knowledge, said: “ git branch --help ”.
Master Git sat down and lectured her on the seven forms of git branch, and their many options.
They resumed walking. A few minutes later they encountered an experienced developer traveling in the opposite direction. He bowed to Master Git and said “ git branch -h ”. Master Git tersely informed him of the most common git branch options. The developer thanked him and continued on his way.
“Master,” said the novice, “what is the nature of long and short options for commands? I thought they were equivalent, but when that developer used -h you said something different than when I said --help.”
“Perspective is everything,” answered the Master.
The novice was puzzled. She decided to experiment and said “ git -h branch ”.
Master Git turned and threw himself off the railing, falling to his death on the rocks below.
Upon seeing this, the novice was enlightened.TORONTO – Star Wars excitement is it a fever pitch, and ticket scalpers are putting fandom to the test with some eye-popping price hikes for this week’s premiere of The Force Awakens.
Fans have snapped up advance tickets at an unprecedented pace, and scalpers are trying to capitalize on the demand by charging a massive markup.
READ MORE: Has ‘Star Wars’ marketing gone too far, or is it genius?
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Earth. In The Wars of Gods and Men, too, Anzu, the leader of the revolt is a descendent of Alulu (his grandson); in this version Anzu’s an orphan adopted by the Mars Service, rather than Anzu the pilot who took Ea to Earth and stayed on Mars to die with Alalu [page 97].
Both Nannar and Ea would have benefited if Anzu vanquished Ninurta. But it was Nannar, not Ea, that Enlil exiled in the aftermath of the Igigi revolt. [The 12th Planet, pages 107 -116].
Anthropologists will recognize Enki’s description as a classical system of segmentary patrilineal (agnatic) lineages. In segmentary patrilineages, collateral lines (like those that descend from Ea and Enlil) cite alliance through different mothers to other royal patrilineages. The Ea lineage within the Anu clan, and especially the Marduk line of the Ea’s lineage, is allied with the Alalu clan for leverage against the Enlilites within the Anu clan). In anthropology, Marduk’s line is a matrifiliate of Alalu’s clan. Matrifiliated alliances give lineages external allies as they vie for precedence in authority within their patriclans. ** Sitchin, in The Wars of Gods and Men, 1985, page 97, says Ninurta’s mother was Sud, not Ninmah. Since The Lost Book of Enki is later, it’s probably correct, incorporating newer translations. Ninurta’s mother was Ninmah. Go BackBreaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
April 29, 2015, 8:51 PM GMT / Updated April 29, 2015, 9:48 PM GMT / Source: NBC News
Israeli police Wednesday released shocking security video of a woman setting a gasoline pump on fire in Jerusalem — allegedly because a man refused to give her a cigarette.
Amazingly, no one was hurt, police said.
The woman was arrested after the incident Tuesday and denied having set the blaze intentionally, Micky Rosenfeld, foreign spokesman for Israel's police forces, said in a statement.
"A woman approached a man while filling his petrol tank and asked for a cigarette. When he refused to give it to her she pulled out a lighter from her pocket and ignited the petrol pump," Rosenfeld said.
"The car owner reacted quickly by pulling the pump that was on fire from his tank and fleeing. Petrol station workers extinguished the fire."Police are searching for robbers who exchanged gunfire with a store employee Tuesday night in the Portage Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side. Chris Hush reports. (Published Thursday, Dec. 8, 2016)
'What Would You Do?': Liquor Store Owner Exchanges Gunfire With Robbers
Police are searching for robbers who exchanged gunfire with a store employee Tuesday night in the Portage Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side.
The gunfire erupted between the suspects and the worker about 9:20 p.m. in the store in the 4200 block of North Milwaukee, according to Chicago Police. The robbers made off with cash and merchandise.
"At first I thought it was a joke," Sarkon Khoshava, store owner and victim told NBC 5.
The robbers told Khoshava to keep his hands up and told him not to move—but as they were leaving with the cash he reached for his own gun. No injuries were reported, police said.
"He left me no choice, what would you do?" Khoshava said of his predicament. "They don't care if they kill you for $2, or $5, or $10, you know what I mean?"
Khoshava said he exchanged gunfire with the robbers and that he hit their getaway vehicle's rear window.
A description of the robbers was not available Wednesday morning and no one was in custody as Area North detectives investigated.
Copyright SunTimes / NBC ChicagoWhat would you say if a billionaire wanted you to pay for his next venture? As anybody familiar with the ubiquity of taxpayer-subsidized sports stadiums can tell you, it’s something that has already happened. In fact, it’s happening again except this time you’re not being asked to pay for an arena, but the new headquarters of Amazon.
In September, Amazon announced its intent to build a second headquarters somewhere in North America, though where exactly is still undetermined. A set of requirements were put forth by the online shopping giant, including: a metropolitan area with a population in excess of one million, within 45 minutes of an international airport, and up to 8 million square feet for the new campus.
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These requirements listed in the
Request for Proposal
(RFP) point, unsurprisingly, to a desire for the office to be in a major population hub. Contained elsewhere in the RFP is a section entitled “Key Preferences and Decision Drivers” wherein Amazon comes just short of saying to states, cities, and taxpayers: “Offer me your taxpayers’ money and maybe I’ll come.”
In the Capital and Operating Costs decision driver, the RFP states, “Incentives offered by the state/province and local communities to offset initial capital outlay and ongoing operational costs will be significant factors in the decision-making process.”
On its own, this seems benign enough and could easily refer to a mere business-friendly tax structure, which is a perfectly reasonable request. In the following decision driver titled Incentives, Amazon reveals their wish for special treatment in the form of corporate welfare:
"Identify incentive programs available for the Project at the state/province and local levels. Outline the type of incentive (i.e. land, site preparation, tax credits/exemptions, relocation grants, workforce grants, utility incentives/grants, permitting, and fee reductions) and the amount. The initial cost and ongoing cost of doing business are critical decision drivers.”
Amazon boldly states they want to pay less taxes than their competition, that they don’t exactly want to pay for the new site on their own, and that they want grants which will come directly from the taxpayers. Dangling tens of thousands of jobs over their heads, cities are taking Amazon’s bait.
For instance, Stonecrest, Ga., has offered to give up a few hundred acres of its land so Amazon can have its own city named Amazon. New York City lit up some of their major landmarks in orange, Amazon’s signature color. Birmingham, Ala., ran a campaign where they built giant Amazon Dash buttons which send flirty tweets to Amazon, such as “We are Chipotle and these other cities are Taco Bell, Amazon.”
These marketing campaigns are humorous but that’s not the full extent to which cities are going in their bid. They read Amazon’s RFP carefully and clearly came away with the impression Amazon wanted them to have by reading between the lines: when Amazon says “incentives,” they’re referring to corporate welfare.
Newark, N.J., offered $7 billion in tax breaks to Amazon; Philadelphia, Penn., offered a tax exemption of $2 billion and that’s on top of Pennsylvania’s “more than $1 billion in tax breaks.” And as reported by the Baltimore Sun, Maryland is offering incentives “in the billions of dollars.”
With these sort of incentives, the free market suffers. These tax breaks and exemptions help Amazon, but they hurt businesses trying to compete with Amazon by having the government favor one supplier of goods over another. When it comes to competition, government would be wise to keep its thumb off the scales. What makes the private sector great is that it’s private and it should stay that way. Cities are engaging in a grotesque circus wherein they come up with “cute” marketing campaigns and offer billions of dollars to Amazon without so much as asking the people paying for it — the taxpayers. All this for a company which, in the United Kingdom, earned more through government grants than it paid in taxes in 2013. Do Americans want a similar story in our newspapers a couple years from now?
If our elected officials, from the local to the federal level, were to stop favoring one business over another for a political calculus, we would finally have a system that is not merely business-friendly, but market-friendly too. Until then, it should not come as a surprise when businesses try to play the existing system. Today it’s Amazon. Tomorrow it could be Google, Apple, or a myriad of others.
Surely, Amazon will bring prosperity to the community who wins the bet. However, what are the unseen consequences of giving taxpayers’ money to one company over another? These resources could have remained in the hands of workers and business people who also could have created jobs. We will never know about this since one flashy project attracts the politicians, media, and the public. Is an adherence to free market principles, that we know leads to prosperity, too abstract to become attractive?
Amazon is engaging in crony capitalism and people are falling for it because they appreciate the services provided by Amazon; because Amazon has become an important part of many Americans’ lives. Look at the HQ2 situation from a bird’s eye view and it’s abundantly clear that, due to the gangrenous cronyism run rampant in our current institutions, Amazon won’t care if the location is business-friendly, so long as it’s Amazon-friendly.
Michael Hall is the North American Communications Associate with Students For Liberty (SFL).De Jong: Faces months on sidelines
Newcastle midfielder Siem de Jong could be out for "a number of months" with a thigh injury sustained in training.
The Magpies confirmed on their website on Friday that the 25-year-old Holland international has damaged his right thigh and faces a lengthy recovery period with a December return being predicted for the Dutchman.
A spokesman said: "Siem de Jong sustained an injury to his right thigh in training earlier this week and is to be assessed further at the start of next week.
"Initial indications are that he is likely to be out for a number of months."
The timing could hardly have been worse for manager Alan Pardew at the end of a week during which the transfer window closed without another striker being recruited, while at the same time Hatem Ben Arfa was allowed to join Hull on loan.
De Jong was seen as the man to link midfield with attack, playing behind loan frontman Emmanuel Riviere.
Newcastle have stuttered through the opening weeks of the new season, failing to score in either of their opening two Premier League games and being denied victory at the death in their third, a disappointing 3-3 home draw with Crystal Palace.
Pardew will now have to hope new recruits Ayoze Perez and Facundo Ferreyra, as well as midfielder Remy Cabella, can plug the gap.
De Jong missed much of last season at Ajax through injury and sat out a significant proportion of the Magpies' pre-season campaign with a foot problem.
His absence will do little to quell growing frustration among large sections of the club's support which reached new heights on the final day of the transfer window when the striker and defender they hoped might arrive failed to materialise and instead, Ben Arfa and central defender Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa departed on loan to Hull and Roma respectively.Expand Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the second working session of the G20 Summit near St. Petersburg on September 6, 2013. © 2013 Reuters
It’s not what Vladimir Putin’s New York Times op-ed says that’s so worrisome; it’s what it doesn’t say. As a Russian and as someone who has been to Syria multiple times since the beginning of the conflict to investigate war crimes and other violations, I would like to mention a few things Putin overlooked...
There is not a single mention in Putin’s article, addressed to the American people, of the egregious crimes committed by the Syrian government and extensively documented by the UN Commission of Inquiry, local and international human rights groups, and numerous journalists: deliberate and indiscriminate killings of tens of thousands of civilians, executions, torture, enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests. His op-ed also makes no mention of Russia’s ongoing transfer of arms to Assad throughout the past two and a half years.
The Russian president strategically emphasizes the role of Islamic extremists in the Syrian conflict. Yes, many rebel groups have committed abuses and atrocities. Yet Putin fails to mention that it is the Syrian government that is responsible for shooting peaceful protesters (before the conflict even started) and detaining and torturing their leaders – many of whom remain detained – and that the continued failure of the international community to respond to atrocities in Syria allows crimes on all sides to continue unaddressed.
Putin’s plea to use the United Nations Security Council to resolve the conflict sounds great, until you remember that, from the very start of this conflict, Russia has vetoed or blocked any Security Council action that may bring relief to Syria’s civilians or bring perpetrators of abuses in Syria to account.
While Russia’s proposal for international monitoring of Syria’s chemical weapons is a welcome step, it will do nothing to bring justice to hundreds of victims of the latest attack, let alone to thousands of others, killed by conventional weapons. And when Putin squarely blames the opposition for the August 21 chemical attack – against all available evidence and without presenting a shred of his own evidence – one can only wonder why Russia remains so vehemently opposed to referring Syria to the International Criminal Court, an action that would be fully in line with international law, which Putin seems so keen to uphold in his op-ed, and would enable an investigation into abuses by both sides of the conflict.
Finally, the sincerity of Putin’s talk about democratic values and international law is hard to take seriously when back home his own government continues to throw activists in jail, threatens to close NGOs, and rubber-stamps draconian and discriminatory laws.
President Putin should give more credit to his audience: Russia will be judged by its actions, both on the international arena and domestically. So far, Russia has been a key obstacle to ending the suffering in Syria. A change towards a more constructive role would be welcome. But a compilation of half-truths and accusations is not the right way to signal such a change.Technology companies led U.S. stocks higher Wednesday in a broad rally that helped nudge the Dow Jones industrial average to a new high.
In remarks before Congress, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen raised the possibility that the central bank would consider slowing the pace of its interest rate increases if inflation remained persistently below its target level.
The move assuaged concerns among some traders worried that the Fed has been moving too quickly to raise interest rates despite a slowdown in inflation and the U.S. economy’s sluggish growth of just 1.4 percent in the first quarter.
Yellen’s remarks put investors in a buying mood and sent bond yields lower, stoking demand for real estate companies, utilities and other high-dividend paying stocks. Materials companies also posted hefty gains.
“Investors would prefer lower interest rates, particularly if the economy isn’t gaining the kind of traction that would warrant a faster rate-hike path,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial. “This is positive for the markets.”
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 17.72 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,443.25. The Dow rose 123.07 points, or 0.6 percent, to 21,532.14, a record high. The average, which had been up more than 171 points, last set a record high on June 19.
The Nasdaq composite added 67.87 points, or 1.1 percent, to 6,261.17. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks picked up 11.27 points, or 0.8 percent, to 1,424.32.
The stock market looked poised for a big move early on, climbing in premarket trading as investors began to size up Yellen’s prepared remarks, which were released ahead of her testimony.
The indexes opened higher across the board and stayed in the green the rest of the day. All 11 sectors in the S&P 500 index notched gains.
In her semiannual testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Yellen said the central bank expects to keep raising a key interest rate at a gradual pace, and raised the possibility that the pace of rate hikes would be slower than previously expected should inflation remain below its target level of 2 percent annual growth.
Many economists believe the Fed, which has raised rates three times since December, will increase rates one more time this year.
Yellen’s remarks suggest the central bank may not need to raise interest rates as much as the market has been expecting, said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategy director at U.S. Bancorp Wealth Management.
“By holding rates lower, that means capital or investment remains somewhat cheaper for companies and the economy should be able to do well with rates perhaps not rising as much as some of us had feared,” Haworth said.
Yellen also said she plans to start trimming the Fed’s massive bond holdings this year.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.32 percent from 2.37 percent late Tuesday. Yields affect rates on mortgages and other consumer loans.
Technology companies led the market higher. PayPal gained $1.79, or 3.3 percent, to $56.55. Nvidia rose $6.63, or 4.3 percent, to $162.51. Activision Blizzard added $3.04, or 5.2 percent, to $61.02.
Real estate investment trusts and other high-dividend paying stocks benefited from rising bond prices, which pulled bond yields lower. Crown Castle International rose $1.76, or 1.8 percent, to $100.05. American Tower climbed $2.95, or 2.3 percent, to $133.88.
NRG Energy was the biggest gainer in the S&P 500. It soared 29.4 percent after the company said it plans to raise up to $4 billion through asset sales in order to lower its debt. The stock climbed $4.79 to $21.09.
Several airlines also rose after American Airlines Group and United Continental reported solid results for June. American Airlines gained $2.19, or 4.2 percent, to $53.80. United Continental picked up $3.61, or 4.7 percent, to $80.53. Delta Air Lines rose $1.20, or 2.2 percent, to $55.48.
Oil prices wavered early Wednesday, but recovered following a report showing that U.S. crude oil inventories declined sharply last week.
Benchmark U.S. crude rose 45 cents, or 1 percent, to settle at $45.49 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 22 cents, or 0.5 percent, to close at $47.74 per barrel in London.
Major stock indexes in Europe also posted solid gains Wednesday.
Germany’s DAX up 1.5 percent, while France’s CAC 40 gained 1.6 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 1.2 percent.
Markets in Asia finished mostly lower. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.5 percent and South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.2 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.6 percent.
The dollar fell to 113.25 yen from 113.84 yen late Tuesday. The euro weakened to $1.1416 from $1.1476.
Gold rose $4.40 to $1,219.10 an ounce. Silver added 14 cents to $15.89 an ounce. Copper inched up 1 cent to $2.68 a pound.
In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline was little changed at $1.52 a gallon. Heating oil slipped less than 1 penny to $1.47 a gallon. Natural gas fell 6 cents, or 2 percent, to $2.99 per 1,000 cubic feet.OK, it’s no secret that people hate cable. Comcast is far and wide known as the most despised company in America. And the others aren’t far behind.
But is anyone surprised? Who doesn’t have a horror story about dealing with their cable company’s customer service (if you don’t have one yourself, go ahead and check out some of these insane ones and learn how much Comcast really cares).
Luckily, as cord cutting options continue to grow, people are fighting back. And the cable companies are feeling it. In Q2 of this year alone, Big Cable lost almost a million subscribers.
Where are they going? If you say “Netflix,” you’re not exactly correct. The fact is that, according to a recent survey by CutCableToday, 67 percent of Netflix subscribers still have cable. That’s pretty much right in line with last year’s numbers, insinuating that Netflix isn’t necessarily synonymous with cord cutting.
Cable customers like to Netflix and chill too.
However, perhaps a more interesting statistic from the study shows that 26 percent of Netflix users may not have cable by next year. More specifically, 11 percent of Netflix users say they’re going to cancel their cable contracts. 15 percent say they are unsure if they’ll keep cable or cut the cord.
What about the other 74 percent? Are they just so thrilled with their cable companies that they refuse to cancel? Of course… not. The survey goes on to say that the most common reason people aren’t canceling is due to Big Cable’s greatest weapon. The bundle.
It’s not like buying a mattress, where you pay for a standalone purchase, and you’re done with it.
“I’m on the fence about letting go of cable since I pay for so many other streaming services but with the bundle of internet and cable the savings has me continuing to hold off from cutting the cord,” one survey respondent stated.
The fact is that the same people that try to sell you cable packages also provide you with internet service. And they aren’t stupid. If you cancel, they tell you they’ll raise the price of your internet service, which you can’t live without. But for just a little more, you can get internet AND TV!A number of top Alabama Republicans were quick to defend Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) following allegations that he’d sought sexual relationships with multiple teenagers — and quick to attack Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for throwing Moore under the bus.
McConnell said Moore “must step aside” if the Washington Post’s story was true that Moore, then 32, initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl in 1979. It was a line echoed by most senators.
That infuriated a number of Republicans back in Alabama, many of whom defended Moore’s character and suggested the women were likely lying.
“I think it’s just a bunch of bull,” Perry Hooper Jr., President Trump’s Alabama state chairman, told TPM. “Mitch McConnell should know better to make a statement like he made unless he gets all the answers. We’re right in the political zone right now, the election’s December 12th. This is the same campaign issue the left ran against Donald Trump on, they’re doing the same thing against Roy Moore.”
Hooper, who’d backed Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) over Moore in the primary, called the allegations “ludicrous” and “gutter politics” unless they could be proven.
“The same thing went on when President Trump ran for office, there was about 15 ladies who ran to the press and said the same thing,” he said.
When asked how the claims could be proven, he suggested the woman take a polygraph.
“Maybe she just needs to take a polygraph test. And the people who are pushing her, they need to take the same test too to see if they’re telling the truth,” he said.
Alabama State Rep. Ed Henry (R), Trump’s other Alabama campaign co-chairman, was even harsher.
“I believe it is very opportunistic and they are just looking for their chance to get on some liberal talk show. I’m sure they’ve probably been offered money by entities that surround the Clintons and that side of the world. We know they will pay to dirty anyone’s name that’s in their way. If you believe for a second that any of these are true then shame on these women for not coming forward in the last 30 years, it’s not like this guy hasn’t been in the limelight for decades. I call B.S. myself. I think it’s all lies and fabrication,” Henry told TPM.
When asked about McConnell’s comments, he erupted.
“Mitch McConnell, and you can quote me on this, is a dumbass, a coward, a liar himself and exactly what’s wrong with Washington, D.C. He would love for Roy Moore not to be in Washington, he’d much rather have a Democrat. Mitch McConnell is scum,” he said, putting the chances at “zero” that the state party would un-endorse Moore.
And he said he’d need photographic evidence to believe the women.
“They got some pictures? That’ll do,” he said. “You can’t sit on something like this for thirty-something years with a man as in the spotlight as Roy Moore and all of a sudden three weeks before a senatorial primary all of a sudden these three or four women are going to talk about something in 1979? I call bull. It’s as fabricated as the day is long.”
Moore is vehemently denying the charges. And while Republicans could pull the plug on his campaign by un-endorsing him and backing a write-in campaign, as long as the state Republican Party stands by him, he’ll remain the GOP candidate.
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R) also dismissed the allegations.
“These allegations have been made against Judge Moore but at this time that’s all they are, they’re allegations. I know Judge Moore to be a man of integrity and character,” he told TPM. “It’s very interesting to me and very odd that these charges have just now been introduced… People will say and do anything, and you and I both know they will.”
And he wasn’t thrilled with McConnell’s comment.
“It’s always interesting to me when people comment on things before all the facts are available for people to evaluate. I try not to make a rash decision or rash comments about topics that I don’t have all the facts on and I don’t have all the facts on this and I don’t know if Sen. McConnell has all the facts or not,” he said.
They’re not the only ones defending Moore. According to the Montgomery Advertiser, Alabama state Auditor Jim Zeigler (R) said even if the report was true, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, a Moore backer: "Even if you accept the Washington Post’s report as being completely true, it’s much ado about very little. " #ALSEN #alpolitics — Brian Lyman (@lyman_brian) November 9, 2017
Ziegler went even further while talking to the Washington Examiner.
“There is nothing to see here,” he said. “The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls. Even the Washington Post report says that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the girls and never attempted sexual intercourse.”
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said Moore “wouldn’t belong in the Senate” if the allegations were true, and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) has so far refused to endorse Moore. But few other Alabama Republicans look ready to break with Moore immediately over the allegations — and if the state GOP refuses to abandon him, he’s likely to stay the GOP nominee and still have a real shot at the U.S. Senate.Brilliant bright light has been utilized for over 10 years to allay side effects connected with regular emotional issue, jetlag, movement work exhaustion, sleep deprivation, occasional change and that's just the beginning. Lightphoria Energy Light Lamp offers a helpful and viable method for compensating for the absence of light, without the need of pharmaceutical.
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The connector takes a shot at voltages for all nationsThe Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.
In recent months there has been a visible struggle in the media to come to grips with the leaking, whistle-blowing and hacktivism that has vexed the United States military and the private and government intelligence communities. This response has run the gamut. It has involved attempts to condemn, support, demonize, psychoanalyze and in some cases canonize figures like Aaron Swartz, Jeremy Hammond, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.
In broad terms, commentators in the mainstream and corporate media have tended to assume that all of these actors needed to be brought to justice, while independent players on the Internet and elsewhere have been much more supportive. Tellingly, a recent Time magazine cover story has pointed out a marked generational difference in how people view these matters: 70 percent of those age 18 to 34 sampled in a poll said they believed that Snowden “did a good thing” in leaking the news of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program.
So has the younger generation lost its moral compass?
No. In my view, just the opposite.
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Clearly, there is a moral principle at work in the actions of the leakers, whistle-blowers and hacktivists and those who support them. I would also argue that that moral principle has been clearly articulated, and it may just save us from a dystopian future.
In “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” one of the most poignant and important works of 20th-century philosophy, Hannah Arendt made an observation about what she called “the banality of evil.” One interpretation of this holds that it was not an observation about what a regular guy Adolf Eichmann seemed to be, but rather a statement about what happens when people play their “proper” roles within a system, following prescribed conduct with respect to that system, while remaining blind to the moral consequences of what the system was doing — or at least compartmentalizing and ignoring those consequences.
A good illustration of this phenomenon appears in “Moral Mazes,” a book by the sociologist Robert Jackall that explored the ethics of decision making within several corporate bureaucracies. In it, Jackall made several observations that dovetailed with those of Arendt. The mid-level managers that he spoke with were not “evil” people in their everyday lives, but in the context of their jobs, they had a separate moral code altogether, what Jackall calls the “fundamental rules of corporate life”:
(1) You never go around your boss. (2) You tell your boss what he wants to hear, even when your boss claims that he wants dissenting views. (3) If your boss wants something dropped, you drop it. (4) You are sensitive to your boss’s wishes so that you anticipate what he wants; you don’t force him, in other words, to act as a boss. (5) Your job is not to report something that your boss does not want reported, but rather to cover it up. You do your job and you keep your mouth shut.
Jackall went through case after case in which managers violated this code and were drummed out of a business (for example, for reporting wrongdoing in the cleanup at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant).
Aaron Swartz counted “Moral Mazes” among his “very favorite books.” Swartz was the Internet wunderkind who was hounded by a government prosecution threatening him with 35 years in jail for illicitly downloading academic journals that were behind a pay wall. Swartz, who committed suicide in January at age 26 (many believe because of his prosecution), said that “Moral Mazes” did an excellent job of “explaining how so many well-intentioned people can end up committing so much evil.”
Swartz argued that it was sometimes necessary to break the rules that required obedience to the system in order to avoid systemic evil. In Swartz’s case the system was not a corporation but a system for the dissemination of bottled up knowledge that should have been available to all. Swartz engaged in an act of civil disobedience to liberate that knowledge, arguing that “there is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.”
Chelsea Manning, the United States Army private incarcerated for leaking classified documents from the Departments of Defense and State, felt a similar pull to resist the internal rules of the bureaucracy. In a statement at her trial she described a case where she felt this was necessary. In February 2010, she received a report of an event in which the Iraqi Federal Police had detained 15 people for printing “anti-Iraqi” literature. Upon investigating the matter, Manning discovered that none of the 15 had previous ties to anti-Iraqi actions or suspected terrorist organizations. Manning had the allegedly anti-Iraqi literature translated and found that, contrary to what the federal police had said, the published literature in question “detailed corruption within the cabinet of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government and the financial impact of his corruption on the Iraqi people.”
When Manning reported this discrepancy to the officer in charge (OIC), she was told to “drop it,” she recounted.
Manning could not play along. As she put it, she knew if she “continued to assist the Baghdad Federal Police in identifying the political opponents of Prime Minister al-Maliki, those people would be arrested and in the custody of the Special Unit of the Baghdad Federal Police and very likely tortured and not seen again for a very long time — if ever.” When her superiors would not address the problem, she was compelled to pass this information on to WikiLeaks.
Snowden too felt that, confronting what was clearly wrong, he could not play his proper role within the bureaucracy of the intelligence community. As he put it,
[W]hen you talk to people about [abuses] in a place like this where this is the normal state of business people tend not to take them very seriously and move on from them. But over time that awareness of wrongdoing sort of builds up and you feel compelled to talk about [them]. And the more you talk about [them] the more you’re ignored. The more you’re told it’s not a problem until eventually you realize that these things need to be determined by the public and not by somebody who was simply hired by the government.
Related More From The Stone Read previous contributions to this series.
The bureaucracy was telling him to shut up and move on (in accord with the five rules in “Moral Mazes”), but Snowden felt that doing so was morally wrong.
In a June Op-Ed in The Times, David Brooks made a case for why he thought Snowden was wrong to leak information about the Prism surveillance program. His reasoning cleanly framed the alternative to the moral code endorsed by Swartz, Manning and Snowden. “For society to function well,” he wrote, “there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures. By deciding to unilaterally leak secret N.S.A. documents, Snowden has betrayed all of these things.”
The complaint is eerily parallel to one from a case discussed in “Moral Mazes,” where an accountant was dismissed because he insisted on reporting “irregular payments, doctored invoices, and shuffling numbers.” The complaint against the accountant by the other managers of his company was that “by insisting on his own moral purity … he eroded the fundamental trust and understanding that makes cooperative managerial work possible.”
But wasn’t there arrogance or hubris in Snowden’s and Manning’s decisions to leak the documents? After all, weren’t there established procedures determining what was right further up the organizational chart? Weren’t these ethical decisions better left to someone with a higher pay grade? The former United States ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, argued that Snowden “thinks he’s smarter and has a higher morality than the rest of us … that he can see clearer than other 299, 999, 999 of us, and therefore he can do what he wants. I say that is the worst form of treason.”
For the leaker and whistleblower the answer to Bolton is that there can be no expectation that the system will act morally of its own accord. Systems are optimized for their own survival and preventing the system from doing evil may well require breaking |
Plot [ edit ]
Adam, a photographer, awakens in a bathtub in a large dilapidated bathroom, chained at the ankle to a pipe. Lawrence Gordon, an oncologist, is chained to a pipe across the room. Between them is a corpse holding a revolver and a microcassette recorder. Both men find a tape in their pockets, and Adam is able to retrieve the recorder. Adam's tape urges him to escape the bathroom. Lawrence's tape tells him to kill Adam by six o'clock, or his wife and daughter will be killed and he will be left to die. Adam finds a bag containing two hacksaws inside a toilet, which they try to use to cut through their chains, but Adam's saw breaks and he throws it at the mirror in frustration. Lawrence realizes that the hacksaws are meant to be used on their feet, not their chains. He identifies their captor as the Jigsaw Killer, whom Lawrence knows of because he was once a suspect.
Flashbacks show that while Lawrence was discussing the terminal brain cancer of a patient named John Kramer, he was approached by Detectives David Tapp and Steven Sing, who found his penlight at the scene of a Jigsaw "game." Lawrence's alibi cleared him, but he agreed to view the testimony of the only known survivor of one of Jigsaw's games, heroin addict Amanda Young. Amanda escaped one of Jigsaw's traps, and believes Jigsaw helped her.
In the present Lawrence's wife and daughter, Alison and Diana, are held captive in their home. Their captor is watching Adam and Lawrence through a camera hidden behind the bathroom's two-way mirror. The house is simultaneously watched by Tapp, who has since been discharged from the force. Tapp became obsessed with the Jigsaw case after Amanda's testimony, and eventually found Jigsaw's warehouse using the videotape from Amanda's game. He and Sing entered the warehouse, where they apprehended Jigsaw and saved a man from a drill trap. Jigsaw escaped after slashing Tapp's throat, and Sing was killed by a quadruple shotgun trap while pursuing him. Convinced that Lawrence is Jigsaw, Tapp continued stalking him after his discharge.
In the bathroom, Lawrence finds a box containing two cigarettes, a lighter, and a one-way cellphone. He then recalls his abduction: he was trying to use his phone after being trapped in a parking garage, and was suddenly attacked by a pig-masked figure. They try to use a cigarette dipped in the corpse's poisoned blood to stage Adam's death, but the plan fails when Adam is zapped through his ankle chain. Adam then recalls his own abduction: he was in his photo development room when the power went out and, after finding a puppet, he was attacked by the same pig-masked figure. Alison calls Lawrence at gunpoint and tells him not to trust Adam, who admits that he was being paid to take photos of Lawrence, many of which were in the bag containing the hacksaws. Adam also reveals his knowledge of Lawrence's affair with one of his medical students, whom he had visited the night he was abducted. After urging Adam to describe the man who was paying him, Lawrence realizes that it was Tapp. Adam then finds a photo he didn't take, of a man staring out a window of Lawrence's house, whom Lawrence identifies as Zep, an orderly at his hospital. Unfortunately, the clock strikes six as he realizes this, and Zep moves to kill Alison and Diana.
Alison manages to free herself and fights Zep for the gun, after he calls Lawrence. The struggle gets Tapp's attention, and he saves Alison and Diana and chases Zep to the sewers, where he is eventually shot in the chest after a brief struggle. Lawrence, aware only of gunshots and screaming, is electrically shocked as well and loses reach of the phone. In desperation, he saws off his foot and shoots Adam with the corpse's revolver. Zep enters the bathroom to kill Lawrence because it is "the rules," but Adam, who only suffered a flesh wound, overpowers Zep and bludgeons him to death with the toilet tank lid. As Lawrence crawls out of the room to find help, Adam searches Zep's body for a key and finds another microcassette recorder, which reveals that Zep was another victim following rules in order to obtain an antidote for a slow-acting poison in his body. As the tape ends, the "corpse" rises and is revealed to be Lawrence's patient John Kramer, the real Jigsaw killer. He reveals that the key to Adam's chain was in the bathtub he woke up in, which went down the drain when Adam first woke up. Adam attempts to shoot John with Zep's gun, but John activates a remote control, shocking Adam. John then shuts off the lights, and yells "Game Over," before sealing the door, leaving Adam to die.
Cast [ edit ]
[5] It took one day for Shawnee Smith's scenes to be shot, which Wan described as "physically taxing".
Production [ edit ]
Development and writing [ edit ]
Wan (left) and Whannell (right).
After finishing film school, Australian director James Wan and Australian writer Leigh Whannell wanted to write and fund a film.[6] The inspiration that they needed came after watching the low-budget independent film The Blair Witch Project. Another film that inspired them to finance the film themselves was Darren Aronofsky's Pi.[7] The two thought the cheapest script to shoot would involve two actors in one room.[8] Whannell said, "So I actually think the restrictions we had on our bank accounts at the time, the fact that we wanted to keep the film contained, helped us come up with the ideas in the film."[9] One idea was to have the entire film set with two actors stuck in an elevator and being shot in the point of view of security cameras.[8]
Wan pitched the idea to Whannell of two men chained to opposite sides of a bathroom with a dead body in the middle of the floor and they are trying to figure out why and how they are there. By the end of the film they realize the person lying on the floor is not dead and he is the reason they are locked in the room. Whannell initially did not give Wan the reaction he was looking for. He said, "I'll never forget that day. I remember hanging up the phone and started just going over it in my head, and without any sort of long period of pondering, I opened my diary that I had at the time and wrote the word 'Saw'."[8] Before instantaneously writing the word "Saw" in a blood-red, dripping font, the two had not come up with a title. "It was one of those moments that made me aware that some things just really are meant to be. Some things are just waiting there to be discovered," Whannell said.[8]
The character of Jigsaw did not come until months later, when Whannell was working at a job he was unhappy with and began having migraines. Convinced it was a brain tumor,[10] he went to a neurologist to have an MRI and while sitting nervously in the waiting room he thought, "What if you were given the news that you had a tumor and you were going to die soon? How would you react to that?"[6] He imagined the character Jigsaw having been given one or two years to live and combined that with the idea of Jigsaw putting others in a literal version of the situation, but only giving them a few minutes to choose their fate.[6]
Wan did not intend to make a "torture porn" film as the script only had one short segment of "torture." He said the film "played out like a mystery thriller." It was not until the sequels that the plot focused more on torture scenes.[6]
Funding [ edit ]
Whannell and Wan initially had $30,000 to spend on the film, but as the script developed it was clear that more funds would be needed.[7] The script was optioned by a producer in Sydney for a year but the deal eventually fell through.[8] After other failed attempts to get the script produced in Australia from 2001 to 2002,[6] literary agent Ken Greenblat read the script and suggested they travel to Los Angeles, where their chances of finding an interested studio were greater.[11] Wan and Whannell initially refused, due to lack of traveling funds but the pair's agent, Stacey Testro, convinced them to go.[11] In order to help studios take interest in the script, Whannell provided A$5,000 (US$5,000) to make a seven-minute short film based on the script's jaw trap scene, which they thought would prove most effective. Whannell played David, the man wearing the Reverse Bear Trap. Working at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Whannell and Wan knew cameramen who were willing to provide technical assistance for the short.[12]
I guess the term 'torture-porn' doesn't affect me one way or the other. I don't love the term, nor do I really hate it. For me, it's kind of hard to have any bad feelings about the term, because I guess torture-porn has given me a lot of good things, like being able to work in the film industry and work as a screenwriter. I guess I'm just thankful to be part of a film that made it, and anything after that is just a champagne problem. —Leigh Whannell (screenwriter) on his feelings of the film being labeled "torture porn."[6]
Wan shot the short with a 16mm camera[10] in over two days and transferred the footage to DVDs to ship along with the script. Whannell wanted to play the lead character in the feature film. The short helped show that Wan and Whannell were a "director-actor team" rather than just wanting to sell the script. Wan said, "Leigh and I just loved the project so much and we wanted a career in filmmaking so we stuck to our guns and said, 'Look, guys, if you want this project, we're coming on board - Leigh has to act in it and I have to direct it."[11]
In early 2003,[13] while in Los Angeles and before they met with producer Gregg Hoffman, Hoffman's friend pulled him into his office and showed him the short. Hoffman said, "About two or three minutes into it, my jaw hit the floor."[14] He quickly showed the short and script to his partners Mark Burg and Oren Koules of Evolution Entertainment.[6] They later formed Twisted Pictures as a horror genre production label.[15] The producers read the screenplay that night and two days later offered Wan and Whannell creative control and 25% of the net profits.[16] Even though Wan and Whannell received "better offers" from studios like DreamWorks and Gold Circle Films, they were not willing to chance Wan's directing and Whannell acting in the lead role.[6] In order to finance the film, Hoffman, Burg, and Koules put up a second mortgage on their Highland Avenue headquarters.[17] Saw was given a production budget of between $1 million and $1.2 million.[note 1]
Casting [ edit ]
Cary Elwes was sent the short film on DVD and immediately became interested in the film. He read the script in one sitting and was drawn in by the "uniqueness and originality" of the story.[20] To prepare for his role as an oncologist, he met with a doctor at UCLA's Department of Neurosurgery.[21]
Shawnee Smith, who is not a horror fan,[22] initially refused the role, calling the script "horrific". However, after watching the short, she agreed to the role, which was the part that Whannell portrayed in the short.[23]
On taking the role of Jigsaw, Tobin Bell said "I did Saw because I thought it was a fascinating location for a film to be made. These guys locked in a room, to me, was fresh. I did not anticipate the ending when I read the script, so I was quite caught by surprise and it was clear to me that if the filmmakers shot the scene well, the audience would be caught by surprise as well. The film was worth doing for that moment alone."[8]
Filming and post-production [ edit ]
With a shooting budget of $700,000,[6][24] Saw began principal photography on September 22, 2003[17] at Lacy Street Production Facility in Los Angeles[14] for 18 days.[24] The bathroom was the only set that had to be built.[25] Danny Glover completed his scenes in two days.[26] Due to the tight shooting schedule, Wan could not afford to shoot more than a couple of takes per actor.[27] "It was a really tough struggle for me. Every day, it was me fighting to get the shots I did not get. I had high aspirations, but there's only so much you can do. I wanted to make it in a very Hitchcockian style of filmmaking, but that style of filmmaking takes time to set up and so on," Wan said about the very short shooting schedule.[6] He said the style instead ended up being "more gritty and rough around the edges due to the lack of time and money that we had to shoot the movie with" and it ultimately became the aesthetic of the film.[6]
In post-production, Wan found he did not have enough shots or takes to work with as he was basically shooting rehearsals. Having a lot of missing gaps in the final product, he and editor Kevin Greutert created shots to mend together during editing; such as making a shot look like a surveillance camera feed and using still photographs. "We did a lot of things to fill in gaps throughout the film. Whatever we cut to newspaper clippings and stuff like that, or we cut to surveillance cameras, or we cut to still photography within the film, which now people say, 'Wow, that's such a cool experimental style of filmmaking', we really did that out of necessity to fill in gaps we did not get during the filming," he explained.[6]
Music [ edit ]
The soundtrack was mainly composed by Charlie Clouser, which took six weeks to complete.[28] Other songs were performed by Front Line Assembly, Fear Factory, Enemy, Pitbull Daycare and Psycho Pumps. Megadeth's song "Die Dead Enough" was originally set to be featured in the film, but was not used for undisclosed reasons.[29][30]
The soundtrack was released on October 5, 2004 by Koch Records. Johnny Loftus of AllMusic gave it three out of five stars. He said that Clouser "really nails it with his creaky, clammy score" and that he "understands that Saw's horror only works with a heady amount of camp, and he draws from industrial music in the same way." He particularly liked, "Cigarette"; "Hello, Adam"; and "F**k This S*!t," commenting that they "blend chilling sounds with harsh percussion and deep-wound keyboard stabs."[31]
Release [ edit ]
Lionsgate picked up Saw's worldwide distribution rights at the Sundance Film Festival days before the film premiered on January 19, 2004.[32] There it played to a packed theater for three nights to a very positive reaction.[13] It was the closing film at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 18, 2004.[18] Lionsgate initially planned to release the film direct-to-video, but due to the positive reaction at Sundance, they chose to release it theatrically by Halloween.[16] It was released on October 1, 2004 in the United Kingdom, October 29, 2004 in the United States and December 2, 2004 in Australia. The film was originally rated NC-17 (No children under 17 permitted) by the Motion Picture Association of America for strong graphic violence, though after being re-edited, it was released with an R rating.[25][33] Lionsgate held the first annual "Give Til It Hurts" blood drive for the Red Cross and collected 4,249 pints of blood.[34][35]
Tenth anniversary re-release [ edit ]
On October 31, 2014, in honor of the film's 10th anniversary, Saw was re-released to select theatres for one week.
The release earned only $650,051 in its opening weekend, and is the third lowest-grossing wide opening.[36] At the end of its run, the release had grossed $815,324, bringing the film's overall domestic gross to $56,000,369.[37]
Home media [ edit ]
The theatrical version of the film was released on VHS and DVD on February 15, 2005 in the United States. After its first week, it made $9.4 million in DVD rentals and $1.7 million in VHS rentals, making it the top rental of the week.[38] For the second week it remained as the number one DVD rental with $6.8 million, for a $16.27 million two-week total. It dropped to third place in VHS rentals with $1.09 million, for a $2.83 million two-week total.[39] The film went on to sell more than $70 million worth of video and DVDs.[13] A two-disc "Uncut Edition" was released on October 18, 2005 to tie in with the release of Saw II. The short film, also entitled Saw, was included on the DVD.[40] The film was subsequently included in a boxed set with all six sequels entitled Saw: The Complete Movie Collection, which was released in September 2014 for the film's tenth anniversary. The set contained the unrated editions of all seven films, though it lacked any of the special features from previous releases.[41]
Full Disclosure Report [ edit ]
Full Disclosure Report is a 2005 mockumentary, pseudo-documentary set in the Saw franchise, taking place between the events of Saw and Saw II, around one year after the beginning of the Jigsaw murders, following television host Rich Skidmore as he commentates on the murders and the police work in the yet-unresolved case. Donnie Wahlberg appears as Detective Eric Matthews, prior to his appearance in Saw II.
Reception [ edit ]
Box office [ edit ]
Saw opened at #3 on Halloween weekend 2004 in 2,315 theaters and grossed $18.2 million, behind Ray ($20 million) and The Grudge ($21.8 million).[42] According to Lionsgate's exit poll, 60% of the mostly male audience was under 25 years of age. Saw had also become Lionsgate's second best opening, after Fahrenheit 9/11's $23.9 million (2004).[43] On its second weekend, an additional 152 theaters were added, bringing the theater count to 2,467. It dropped to number four, making $11 million, a 39% drop from the opening weekend.[44]
Saw opened in the United Kingdom to $2.2 million in 301 theaters, grossing a $12.3 million total in seven weeks.[45] In Australia, it opened in 161 theaters with $1.2 million and totaled out to $3.1 million in six weeks.[46] In Italy, the film opened on January 14, 2005 in 267 theaters to $1.7 million and grossed $6.4 million in six weeks.[47] Saw opened to $1.5 million 187 theaters in France on March 16, 2005 and made $3.1 million by the end of its four-week run.[48] Saw came to gross $55.1 million in the United States and Canada and $47.9 million in other markets for a worldwide total of $103 million.[1] It is the second lowest-grossing film in the series after Saw VI.[49] At the time, it became the most profitable horror film after Scream (1996).[50]
Release date
(United States) Budget
(estimated) Box office gross[1] North America Other territories Worldwide October 29, 2004 $1,200,000 $55,185,045 $47,911,300 $103,096,345
Critical response [ edit ]
Critical reception to Saw was mixed. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 49%, based on 184 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The site's consensus reads, "Saw is more than nasty enough for genre junkies, but far too twisted, gory, and shallow for more discerning horror fans."[51] Metacritic gave the film a score of 46 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[52]
Dennis Harvey of Variety gave the film a negative review after its Sundance premiere. He called it a "crude concoction sewn together from the severed parts of prior horror/serial killer pics." He called the screenplay "convoluted," criticizing the use of "flashbacks within flashbacks" and red herrings. He described the film as being "too hyperbolic to be genuinely disturbing."[2] Carla Meyer of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film a positive review saying the film "combined B-movie acting with a twisted mind-set and visual tricks designed to camouflage cheap effects" and that it was "terrifying at some moments and insinuatingly creepy at many others." She called the killing scenes "amazingly evocative for such a low-budget movie."[53]
Empire's Kim Newman gave the film four out of five stars. He said Saw is styled like early David Fincher films and "boasts an intricate structure - complex flashbacks-within-flashbacks explain how the characters have come to this crisis - and a satisfying mystery to go with its ghastly claustrophobia." He ended his review saying, "As good an all-out, non-camp horror movie as we've had lately."[54] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B minus, calling it "derivative and messy and too nonsensical for its own good." He described Jigsaw's intent as "to show you the serial killer lurking inside yourself." Gleiberman criticized Elwes' performance by saying, "[Elwes] ought to be featured in a seminar on the perils of overacting."[55] Daniel M. Kimmel of the Telegram & Gazette called it "one of the most loathsome films this critic has seen in more than 20 years on the job."[56]
The New York Times's Stephen Holden gave a mixed review saying the film "does a better-than-average job of conveying the panic and helplessness of men terrorized by a sadist in a degrading environment, but it is still not especially scary. What sets its demon apart from run-of-the-mill movie serial killers is his impulse to humiliate and torture his victims and justify it with some twisted morality." He said the film is "seriously undermined by the half-baked, formulaic detective story in which the horror is framed."[57] Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times also gave the film a mixed review saying, "Saw is so full of twists it ends up getting snarled. For all of his flashy engineering and inventive torture scenarios, the Jigsaw Killer comes across as an amateur. Hannibal Lecter would have him for lunch." She said the film "carelessly underscores its own shaky narrative at every turn with its mid-budget hokiness." She also noted that Elwes and Whannell had trouble keeping an American accent.[58] Another mixed review came from Roger Ebert, who gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and lamented the gimmicks and plot contrivances but nonetheless described Saw as "well made and acted, and does what it does about as well as it could be expected to."[59]
Comparisons to Seven (1995) [ edit ]
When asked if the 1995 thriller film Seven was an inspiration to Saw, Whannell said "For me as the writer, definitely. I mean, Seven is just a very well constructed film, and if you're writing a thriller, it can't hurt to study it. In terms of the story though, James and I never really felt Seven was that close to our film. I guess if you stand back, you have two detectives chasing a psychopath, who uses vile methods to teach people lessons, and those points echo Seven. What we always liked about Saw, though, was the fact that the story is told from the point of view of two of the psychopath's victims, instead of the police chasing after him, as you so often see."[10] Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman compared the plot to Seven saying, "In a blatant imitation of Seven, Saw features a lunatic sadist whose ghoulish crimes are meant, in each case, to mirror the sins of his victims. The twist here is that the psycho doesn't do the killing."[55] Richard J. Leskosky of Champaign-Urbana's The News-Gazette said "Saw wants to be taken as another Seven. Though it features perverse gross-out scenes and a villain with a superficially pedantic motive behind his crimes (his victims, if they survive, have learned to appreciate life more), it lacks the finesse and polish of the David Fincher film."[60]
Accolades [ edit ]
Bloody Disgusting ranked the film tenth in its list of the Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade, with the article calling Saw "perhaps the most influential horror film of the decade, which kick-started a franchise.... In light of its measly $1.2 million price tag the film's quality relative to bigger-budget horror films is striking. It also takes itself seriously, which came as a breath of fresh air following the trend of wimpy tongue-in-cheek horror that had dominated the multiplexes post-Scream. More than anything, this twisted morality tale is a film made by horror fans, for horror fans; it's gory, it's depraved, and best of all it introduced a new horror icon in Jigsaw."[61] The Daily Telegraph listed the film number 14 on their Top 100 list that defined the 2000s.[62]
Notes [ edit ]
^ [18] $1.15 million[19] and $1.2 million.[11] Sources for the budget figure vary. Some put the budget at $1 million,$1.15 millionand $1.2 million.As expected, Verizon this week upped both the price of its monthly service plans and the allotments of data those plans offer. And as expected, some of its competitors – namely T-Mobile and Sprint – were quick to pounce.
The nation's largest carrier essentially raised its monthly service fees by $5 to $10 per month while providing more data in each of its plans. Verizon also introduced features that enable users to keep unused data from the previous month and a "Safety Mode" that allows customers to stay connected even after they've reached their monthly allotments, while slowing speeds to 128 Kbps.
But many of the prices and features are already offered by Verizon's competitors, and those competitors wasted no time in pointing it out. T-Mobile CEO John Legere once again took to Twitter to note that – among other things – his company has long offered a data rollover feature through its Data Stash offering.
"If you're going to copy #DataStash, why copy @att's sad version of it?" Legere tweeted. "A copy of a copy = a terrible @verizon version of @TMobile #DataStash."
Meanwhile, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure trumpeted the service fee hike. "GREAT strategy @Verizon," Claure tweeted. "Step 1: Raise prices. Step 2: Tell them you aren't raising prices. Step 3: Tell them to be thankful. #SwitchtoSprint."
But while the new plans unquestionably mark a price increase, analysts noted that Verizon actually lowered the price per gigabyte of data. And although the move is clearly an attempt to better monetize its customers – "Safety Mode" costs $5 per month for users who aren't on the carrier's two most expensive data plans, for instance – Verizon may be able to continue to leverage its status as the nation's top-performing network operator to do so without losing many customers.
"While Verizon continues to lead the industry in network performance (as shown from numerous third-party studies), in some ways a case could be made with these new plans and offerings Verizon is acting more'me too' to meet some of the perks which Verizon's competitors are already offering," Wells Fargo Securities analysts wrote in a research note. "While an increase in the monthly recurring charge is a positive for ARPU – with things like Data Rollover and Safety Mode offered – there are more opportunities for customers to be smarter with their data usage and limit the upsell capability of this ARPU."
Related articles:
As expected, Verizon increases prices, raises data allotments, intros data carryover and throttling
Verizon reportedly plans to increase service plan pricing
Verizon promises 'fireworks' next week amid rumors of carryover data,'safety mode' unlimited service
AT&T to offer rollover data for Mobile Share Value customers
T-Mobile launches rollover data program, gives customers 10 GB for free to start
Verizon will kill 'grandfathered' unlimited data plans, push users to data shareWell, if I was female and had $1m. Yes, according to his website, Vincent Gallo is hawking not only T-shirts but his sperm, too. If only I'd known before Christmas
We may only be four days into the new year, but resolutions are already being tested. If you planned to give up smoking, you may have already buckled. If you planned to join a gym, you may have been put off by all the sweat and mirrors. But if you planned to get pregnant with the baby of a skinny, independent cinema darling with a ratty-looking beard, you're in luck. Vincent Gallo is selling his sperm online. For $1m.
It all sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? You simply log on to vgmerchandise.com, fork out $1m and in return you get the chance to become the mother of a child who – if it follows in its father's footsteps – will grow up to form several bad bands, star in a number of films that nobody really watches and direct films that nobody really likes. Imagine the pride that will swell up in your heart as you sit little Jimmy or little Susan down to watch the blowjob scene from The Brown Bunny.
There are caveats of course and, since this is Vincent Gallo, it's hard to tell if they are genuine or an attempt at tedious, deliberately provocative, "betcha didn't think I'd say that" shtick. As the website states: "Mr Gallo maintains the right to refuse sale of his sperm to those of extremely dark complexions. Though a fan of Franco Harris, Derek Jeter, Lenny Kravitz and Lena Horne, Mr Gallo does not want to be part of that type of integration."
It's not all bad news, though – if you're naturally blonde or the relative of a mid-century German soldier, Gallo is kind enough to offer you a $50,000 discount. And it helps if you're Jewish, too – since a "connection to the Jewish faith would guarantee his offspring a better chance at good reviews and maybe even a prize at the Sundance film festival or an Oscar". Very droll. Or slightly bitter and heavy-handed. The jury's out.
But what if you don't want to spend a million dollars to have Vincent Gallo's baby? What if you simply want him to fulfill your deepest fantasy? Well, for the knock-down price of $50,000, you can do exactly that. And this time there are no such limitations. You can do whatever you desire. Personally, I think it'd be quite nice to sit him down and spend an evening forcing him to read a book on how to make films that aren't terrible but, as a male, I'm not the market he's pitching to.
Even if you are among the, frankly, short-sighted minority who wouldn't want to shell out an inordinate amount of cash to spend some intimate time with the star of Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby, you still have a chance to own a piece of Gallo. For $2,000 you can have a tatty bit of cloth with some small flowers drawn on it; $1,500 buys you a photograph of Gallo standing in a bowling alley; and $150 buys you a T-shirt with the words Vincent Gallo written across the front in marker pen. The point is that, even in these times of severe recession, you can't not afford to have some Vincent Gallo in your life.
Or, you know, you could just get Mr Belding from Saved By the Bell to phone you up for $20 instead. That's probably just as good.Stephen Colbert and the Donald Trump cloud (Photo: Screen capture)
When it comes to Donald Trump and his supporters predicting their victory in November, they’ve begun using cloud formations to match their prophecy.
Wednesday night on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show,” the host revealed a tweet from Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, that depicted a cloud formation similar to Trump’s profile. Cohen captioned the photo, “In case anyone is unsure as to who will be our next #POTUS, the Lord has chosen the people’s messenger.”
In case anyone is unsure as to who will be our next #POTUS, the Lord has chosen the people's messenger. pic.twitter.com/wopcDc7IVM — Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) September 4, 2016
Cohen later retweeted himself saying, “Yep, even the Lord, himself, is a fan of the #TrumpTrain.”
“Yes!” Colbert exclaimed. “God made a Trump-shaped cloud. Though the cloud actually holds a position longer than the real Donald Trump can.”
Colbert, a devout Catholic, admitted that God works in mysterious ways, “because, later that day, He also endorsed a sea horse, a ducky and your mother making love to the mailman,” he said showing cloud photos.
This week, Trump also insulted Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by saying that she didn’t have “the presidential look.” Trump never clarified what “presidential look” entailed, but many online interpreted it to be a sexist attack because she is female and all presidents have been male.
Colbert agreed it sounded a bit sketchy. “Is it something in this area,” he said, waving his hand over his face and then down to his genital region. “How can I put this? I think Trump is pointing out that you can’t spell ‘presidential’ without ‘penis’ or, if you want to use all the letters, ‘idle rat penis.’ Which might be another sign.”
He further admitted that Trump’s remark made him ponder Clinton’s “look,” which she could easily borrow from past presidents. He then showed photoshopped pictures of Clinton with George Washington’s hair, Abe Lincoln’s beard, FDR’s glasses and cigarette holder and William Howard Taft’s morbid obesity.
Check out the hilarity in the video below:A pregnant woman, accused of throwing a knife which embedded in her boyfriend's skull, has been given name suppression in court today.
The 21-year-old woman entered no plea to a charge of causing grievous bodily harm when she appeared before a registrar at the Christchurch District Court this morning.
The woman, who is eight months pregnant, was granted interim name suppression and remanded on bail without plea to appear in the court again on August 25.
Her boyfriend, a 20-year-old builder, was at the court for her appearance. He declined to comment outside.
The couple left separately.
'IT WAS A GOOD THROW'
Yesterday, the builder admitted he was lucky to escape serious harm after a kitchen knife lodged in his skull.
"It was a good throw," the man said.
He was rushed to hospital, with the 20-30 centimetre blade still protruding from above his forehead, shortly after midnight yesterday.
It narrowly avoided penetrating the bone and entering his brain, police said.
The alleged victim fought back tears on Sunday as he recounted details of the domestic-related incident at his home in New Brighton. Scars were hidden beneath short, dark hair.
"I'm real lucky. I wouldn't like it to happen to anyone else out there."
Police have said that a woman had picked up a knife off a kitchen bench during an argument and thrown it a few metres away at her partner.
"It hurt a little bit," he said.
Police were called by ambulance staff at 12.06am.
The knife was later "pulled out" at Christchurch Hospital and the wound closed with two staples. The man was kept in hospital for observation before he was discharged about 11am yesterday. He did not want his X-ray made public.
He had not spoken to his girlfriend since the incident but was confident their relationship would continue.
Detective Sergeant Valyn Barrett said he had never dealt with a case like it before. The man was lucky to escape without more serious injuries.
"This is the first incident I've ever known where a weapon has been lodged in somebody's head and remained there," the veteran investigator said.
"It was very, very close to going right through [the skull] but it didn't make it. I'd imagine it would have been thrown with a considerable amount of force."Director general to answer questions before select committee over concerns about rights to show half of live race coverage
Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, is to face questions from MPs about the corporation's handling of its Formula One TV rights deal with BSkyB.
The Commons culture, media and sport select committee will question Thompson and the BBC Trust chairman, Lord Patten, about the deal when they appear before MPs to discuss BBC governance in December.
John Whittingdale, the Conservative MP and chairman of the committee, said in a letter to the Lib Dem culture spokesman, Don Foster, that a large number of people had expressed concerns about the deal, which will result in live coverage of half the Formula One grands prix away from free-to-air TV for the first time.
Sky will broadcast all the Formula One grands prix and practice sessions live from next season, with the BBC broadcasting half of the races, as part of the deal announced in July. Live TV coverage of Formula One reverted to the BBC in 2009 after 13 years on ITV.
Foster raised fears in September that no one was speaking on behalf of Formula One viewers and that there were "glaring problems" with accounts given by the BBC, Sky and Formula One over how the deal came about.
In a letter seen by the Guardian and sent to Foster earlier this week, Whittingdale said: "The committee |
the 2012 Men of the Stacks calendar. These are men who are happy to be seen as something other than just bespeckled bookworms and who want to reach out beyond the ladies-only sexy librarian cliche.
On the Men of the Stacks website, they write:
We are, or course, professionals. We are educators, programmers, project managers, entrepreneurs, program coordinators, contractors, consultants, and speakers. We are academics. We are authors, diversity officers, historians, administrators, deans, professors, and researchers. We are creatives. We are musicians, bakers, painters, and storytellers. We are athletes, yogis, gym-rats, runners, and hikers. We are passionate. We are dog-lovers, radicals, conservatives, Christians, and Buddhists. We are in our twenties. We are in our forties. We are in relationships. We are perpetual bachelors. We are privileged beings who try to use their advantages to better the lives of others. Who are we? We are The Men of the Stacks.
Oprah's blog calls them "rather studly." The inaugural Men of the Stacks calendar costs $19.99; proceeds go to the It Gets Better fund.
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Happy banned books week!
Now libraries can loan Kindle ebooks
West Hollywood's new library celebrates
-- Carolyn Kellogg
Photo: Screenshot of the Men of the Stacks calendar photo gallery. Credit: Men of the StacksColin Kaepernick said Buffalo Bills fans treated him worse than any others last season.
Kaepernick, having tested America's fabric by daring to kneel for the national anthem, made his first start for the San Francisco 49ers here. In parking lots outside New Era Field, T-shirts depicting Kaepernick in a sniper's cross hairs were sold.
Kaepernick has been unable to find employment this year. Many suspect it's because his politics are so controversial.
Magomed Bibulatov will earn a paycheck Saturday night in Buffalo. The Chechen flyweight is expected to defeat Jenel Lausa on the undercard of UFC 210 in KeyBank Center.
The bout is Bibulatov's UFC debut. He's in the major leagues, and he thanks an Islamic extremist warlord for the opportunity.
Bibulatov in a preflight questionnaire listed his hero as Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Chechnya, a man linked to war crimes, assassinations and kidnappings, a man who believes in sharia law, that women should be beaten if they don't cover their heads, a man who claims America was behind the Boston Marathon bombing.
"As an athlete, I'm not into politics; I'm not into religion," Bibulatov said through a translator Wednesday morning in the Buffalo Marriott HarborCenter lobby. "But I support Ramzan fully."
An hour later, Charles Rosa walked through the hotel's seventh-floor lobby with a panoramic view of the city. He also is on the UFC 210 undercard. Rosa's nickname is "Boston Strong," the slogan created as a rally after the marathon bombings killed three and injured hundreds more.
Rosa hadn't heard of Bibulatov until Wednesday. Once filled in, Rosa regretted he's in a higher weight class but mulled the idea of fighting twice Saturday night.
Bibulatov was known as "Gladiator" until Kadyrov gave him a new nickname. "Cha Borz" translates to "bear wolf." The Chaborz M-3 is a military dune buggy Kadyrov test drove last month.
Kadyrov staged a nationally televised news conference in January when Bibulatov signed a UFC contract.
"The UFC is a dream come true for every fighter," Bibulatov said. "The UFC's the top level. It was a dream to step into the octagon one day. It's an honor."
Kadyrov loves mixed-martial arts and has used the sport to symbolize raw Chechen power. He frequently uses social media to post videos and photographs of himself training or hobnobbing with fighters.
He founded the Akhmat Fight Club, named after his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, a top Muslim cleric and Chechen president for seven months before his assassination 2004. Ramzan took over three years later.
Kadyrov made international headlines in October for televising children's MMA without protective gear. Three of his sons – 8, 9 and 12 years old – competed. All of them won.
Fedor Emelianenko, an MMA superstar and head of the sport in Russia, condemned the fights. A week later, Emelianenko's 16-year-old daughter was beaten on her way home from school in Moscow.
Kadyrov bankrolls the Akhmat MMA Grand Prix tournaments. University at Buffalo graduate Desmond Green, also on Saturday night's undercard, competed on a Kadyrov card in March 2016.
Former UFC middleweight champ Chris Weidman – he's on the UFC 210 card, too – took some heat two years ago for letting Kadyrov use him as a prop. Kadyrov paid Weidman, former UFC heavyweight champs Fabricio Werdum and Frank Mir appearance fees to promote an Akhmat MMA card in March 2015.
Asked if he regretted the decision, Weidman shook his head with an incredulous no.
"We got treated amazing over there, like kings," Weidman said. "We gave a little bit of a seminar, went through different moves, saw their facilities and how they trained.
"We went to Ramzan's palace. It was a great experience, a completely different culture than I've ever seen. It's a different world than we live in."
Kadyrov's reputation could put UFC in a tricky spot if he continues to throw money at its fighters and fund a Chechen pipeline. UFC needs the talent, especially in the flyweight division, where Demetrious Johnson has held the title since 2012.
UFC has addressed Kadyrov's presence by stating its fighters are independent contractors who can do whatever they choose away from the octagon. UFC fighters don't belong to a union or collectively bargain policies like athletes in most big-league sports.
"Without the proper support and people to push sport," Bibulatov said, "it's almost impossible to achieve and to have fighters going overseas to represent Chechnya. He created a fight club and helps to push us internationally. It's very important.
"Before his support, when I was an amateur, I had won five different titles, and it seemed like I was just circling around."
That Bibulatov comes from Kadyrov's system isn't as significant as the fighter's public testimony for such a warlord.
Asked which is more tiresome to discuss, Kadyrov's politics or fighting Johnson for the flyweight title someday, Bibulatov replied with a laugh: "Both subjects are very painful."
Chechnya, population about 1.1 million, is a Russian republic in the mountainous North Caucasus region. The capital is named after Ivan Grozny (Ivan the Terrible).
Kadyrov has professed his loyalty to President Vladimir Putin, and the Kremlin has backed the Kadyrov's leadership.
But their relationship is an uneasy balance between nationalism and hard-line religion.
Bibulatov will need to navigate his MMA career delicately as American fans learn his name.
His notorious hero has declared sharia law supersedes Russia's authority. Kadyrov has publicly encouraged honor killings of women believed to be unfaithful, beating and shaming women for not wearing headscarves by shooting them with paintball guns and polygamy for men wealthy and healthy enough to handle it.
Kadyrov has espoused obligatory sharia teachings in Chechen schools.
Kadyrov and his heavily armed parliamentary forces – the Kadyrovsty reportedly is 20,000 soldiers strong – have been tied to several killings, kidnappings and disappearances of his critics, including journalists and rights activists. He has denied involvement in them all but praises the acts on social media.
A New York Times story this week, citing a Russian opposition newspaper, reported Chechen authorities were arresting and killing gay men. Kadyrov's spokesman essentially denied gay people exist in Chechnya because if they did, their families would make them disappear.
But Kadyrov has brought stability to Chechnya, and that itself is valuable to Putin.
"Before him, as the world knows, it was postwar destruction, rubble," said Bibulatov, who began his interview by snapping an iPhone photo of The Buffalo News reporter seated across from him. "Since he's been in control, everything has been rebuilt. He's a good manager all around."
Rosa, the fighter known as Boston Strong, wasn't impressed by the tale.
He nearly fought a Chechen and ponders whether it might have prevented the Boston Marathon bombings somehow. Rosa was scheduled for a match against Ibragim Todashev in November 2012. The fight was cancelled because Todashev had a knee injury.
Six months later, Chechen-American brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left two backpacks containing homemade bombs near the Boston Marathon finish line. In a few weeks, an FBI agent shot Todashev dead. Todashev, a friend and MMA training partner of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's, was being questioned about the bombing and a 2011 triple-murder in which they might have been involved.
Tamerlan was shot to death by police the night of the bombing. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted of 30 charges and sentenced to death.
Kadyrov claimed the Tsarnaevs were framed, that U.S. intelligence agencies committed the bombings.
"I wonder if I whooped his ass," Rosa said of the cancelled Todashev bout, "if the bombing still would've happened."
Bibulatov's translator, Magomed Imakaev, is from Boston and conceded it was difficult for a while to be a Chechen there.
That was four years ago next week.It is always inconvenient when a passenger dies on an aeroplane - not least for the person sitting in the next seat. So Singapore Airlines has attempted to take the trauma out of such tragedies by introducing a special cupboard to store any unexpected corpse.
The airline's new fleet of Airbus A340-500 aircraft boasts a discreet locker next to one of the plane's exit doors which is long enough to store an average-sized body, with special straps to prevent any movement during a bumpy landing.
Cabin crew have been instructed to use the locker in the event of a death on a long-haul flight - particularly if the aircraft is busy, with no free seats on which to lay out the deceased.
The aircraft came into use in February, operating the longest non-stop route in the world: a 17-hour, 7,900-mile journey between Singapore and Los Angeles.
The length of the flight has forced Singapore Airlines to think carefully about its handling of any medical emergencies - particularly because the route spans the Pacific Ocean, with little opportunity for an unscheduled landing.
An airline spokeswoman said: "On the rare occasion when a passenger passes away during a flight the crew do all that is possible to manage the situation with sensitivity and respect.
"Unfortunately given the space constraints in an aircraft cabin, it is not always possible to find a row of seats where the deceased passenger can be placed and covered in a dignified manner, although this is always the preferred option.
"The compartment will be used only if no suitable space can be found elsewhere in the cabin."
The airline intends to begin a second route next month using the same long-range aircraft - the flight between Singapore and New York will skirt the north pole, offering equally little scope for diversion.
Richard Maslen, the assistant editor of Airliner World magazine, said the compartment was an interesting feature of the new aircraft, which seats 180 people.
"As far as I'm aware, this is not something that's been thought of in other aircraft designs in the past," he said.
"Obviously, these things do unfortunately happen in the air and it's good to see that they have been thought about in advance."In Plants, Research News, Science & Nature, Spotlight / 1 December 2017
Millions, if not billions, of specimens reside in the world’s natural history collections, but most of these have not been carefully studied, or even looked at, in decades. While containing critical data for many scientific endeavors, most objects are quietly sitting in their own little cabinets of curiosity.
Thus, mass digitization of natural history collections has become a major goal at museums around the world. Having brought together numerous biologists, curators, volunteers and citizens scientists, such initiatives have already generated large datasets from these collections and provided unprecedented insight.
Now, a new study, recently published in the open access Biodiversity Data Journal, suggests that the latest advances in both digitization and machine learning might together be able to assist museum curators in their efforts to care for and learn from this incredible global resource.
A team of researchers from the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and the Data Science Lab and Digitization Program Office of the Smithsonian Office of the Chief Information Officer, recently collaborated with NVIDIA Corp. to carry out a pilot project using deep learning approaches to dig into digitized herbarium specimens.
The project is among the first to describe the use of deep learning methods to enhance our understanding of digitized collection samples. It is also the first to demonstrate that a deep convolutional neural network (CNN)–a computing system modeled after the neuron activity in animal brains that can basically learn on its own–can effectively differentiate between similar plants with an amazing accuracy of nearly one- hundred percent.
In their paper, the scientists describe two different neural networks that they trained to perform tasks on the digitized portion (currently 1.2 million specimens) of the United States National Herbarium.
The team first trained a CNN to automatically recognize herbarium sheets that had been stained with mercury crystals, since mercury was commonly used by some early collectors to protect the plant collections from insect damage. The second CNN was trained to discriminate between two families of plants–clubmosses and spikemosses–that share a strikingly similar superficial appearance.
The trained CNN performed with 90 percent and 96 percent accuracy respectively (or 94 percent and 99 percent if the most challenging specimens were discarded), confirming that deep learning is a useful and important technology for the future analysis of digitized museum collections.
“Our stained vs. unstained network could theoretically be applied to digitized specimens in other herbaria to help identify mercury hotspots for potential remediation,” the scientists conclude in their paper. “Likewise, our family discrimination network has the potential to be further developed into a universal tool to identify unknowns or to flag specimens in need of additional study, in the United States National Herbarium and in other natural history collections.”
“This research paper is a wonderful proof of concept. We now know that we can apply machine learning to digitized natural history specimens to solve curatorial and identification problems,” says Laurence Dorr, chair of the Natural History Museum’s Department of Botany.“The future will be using these tools combined with large shared data sets to test fundamental hypotheses about the evolution and distribution of plants and animals.”
(Adapted from Pensoft Publishers)PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Ken Block, the two-time gubernatorial candidate, computer whiz and data investigator for the controversial group that published "America the Vulnerable: The problem of Duplicate Voting," is filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice alleging federal election-law violations by the state of Rhode Island.
Block alleges that the Rhode Island election officials have adopted rules that are in conflict with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and that may help explain why the state's voter files do not have the most basic "personally identifying information" — a driver's license or Social Security number — for more than 30 percent of the voters who took part in Rhode Island's 2016 general election.
By his count, that includes "22,000-plus'' people who registered for the first time since the Help America Vote Act took effect.
Based on his analysis, the number of voters registered since Jan. 1, 2003 — for whom this kind of information is lacking is especially high in Central Falls. By his count, it is missing for 21 percent of those voting in Central Falls last year, who registered to vote since the HAVA voter-registration requirements took effect.
In the complaint, Block asks the Justice Department to investigate his findings and then order Rhode Island to comply with federal law as it did, by consent decree, in New Jersey nearly a decade ago.
"The 2018 elections are just over a year away, and the State of Rhode Island has an election system with a serious integrity problem,'' Block wrote. "It is incumbent on your Office to impartially determine if the findings of this letter, and the attached graphics showing disparities within similarly sized legislative districts, violate the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and ensure next year’s elections are fair and equitable to all."
"The variance between HAVA requirements and Rhode Island’s implementation of the rules is stark... [which] begs the question of whether Rhode Island’s State Election Officials, charged with compliance, intentionally or ignorantly ran afoul of HAVA,'' Block wrote.
Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea issued a statement Thursday morning:
“We first received notice of Mr. Ken Block’s complaint to the US Department of Justice at 10 a.m. this morning through the Providence Journal’s reporting. His complaints are in response to changes in 2008 to the Board of Elections Rules and Regulations for voter registration.
"We have also been looking into the information required of first-time registrants by [HAVA]. HAVA specifies that anyone registering to vote for the first time must provide either a driver's license number or the last four digits of their social security number if they have them.
"We’ve already had conversations with the Board of Elections about updating their rules and regulations, trainings, and procedures for voter registration.
"Since taking office, the work we have done to modernize elections has greatly improved the quality of the information we collect for eligible voters. For example, we implemented online voter registration last year, which requires first-time registrants to provide a Rhode Island driver’s license or state ID to complete their voter registration. This information is also captured for voters updating their voter information online.
"As for Mr. Block’s concerns with Automatic Voter Registration, information is only updated when tied to a Rhode Island driver’s license or state ID record. This means that the data required by HAVA for first-time registrants, is automatically included in the voter’s registration."
The right-leaning Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity also weighed in on Thursday, calling on state officials to initiate an independent investigation.
"This shocking data means our current registration practices may need to be amended, with individuals appropriately held accountable, if voters are to maintain confidence in our State's elections integrity," said the center's CEO, Mike Stenhouse.
"Today, our Center calls on the Governor to publicly respond," he added. "... That the voter registration process in Rhode Island may have been corrupted is a very serious issue. Whether or not this has led to actual voter fraud is one of the reasons a thorough and nonpartisan investigation is required."
Block's complaint starts with this contention: "The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires states to only register voters who provide either driver’s licenses or Social Security numbers on their voter registration forms.
"Only if a voter has not been issued either form of documentation is a state then allowed to accept other forms of identification,'' but "states are required to verify the data collected above with either the DMV or Social Security Administration prior to allowing the registration to be finalized.''
Based on his back and forth with the Rhode Island Board of Elections, Block deduced that Rhode Island only performs the mandated verification for voters who register by mail.
He traces this selective verification to a rule change "only two months ahead of the 2008 General Election," that was followed by "an unprecedented explosion of voters who registered to vote without (personally identifying information) in the two months before the 2008 elections."
Block also questioned whether Rhode Island’s new automatic voter-registration law conforms to HAVA legal requirements.
According to Block, the Department of Justice filed a complaint against the State of New Jersey in 2006 for "near identical actions'' that was settled by consent decree.
"Beyond adherence to HAVA, an important cure mandated against the State of New Jersey was that they backfill missing dates of birth from voter registration records. Apparently, the State had a large number of registrations that also lacked dates of birth.... As an aside, in the 2016 general election in New Jersey, 31,394 votes were cast by voters with dates of birth in the voter registration data older than 1/1/1900, with 31,260 of those voters with a date of birth of 1/1/1800.''
Block did the computer analysis of voting records for the Government Accountability Institute, a nonprofit led by GOP mega-donor Rebekah Mercer and co-founded by former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon that led to the publication of a controversial report on the potential for voter fraud.One of the most exciting areas of innovation and exploration around technology today is also one of the most misunderstood -- biohacking.
Biohacking is the practice of changing our biology and physical situation by employing the hacker ethic -- sharing, openness, decentralization, free access, and world improvement. It's the idea that we can be so much more than we are born with if we just added to our bodies and chemistry.
Over the years we have seen many people use compounds and technology to augment who we are, how we play, and how we operate in the word. Now, technological advancements, access to investment, and the bravery of experimentation means that we are making leaps and bounds in this field.
I personally feel that we are all biohackers to a degree. The idea of hacking is to be curious and to try things that are unconventional, and (potentially) unacceptable. What is normal? 2000 calories a day, drinking and light exercise? Everything else we take in and add to ourselves is biohacking. If you have piercings (ears or otherwise), wear makeup, have tattoos, like a cocktail or two on a Friday night, have an exercise regime, are on a specific diet, own a wearable and actually use that data to change behaviour, or even spend time doing yoga then you are a biohacker. You are changing your born state and becoming so much more. And, there is an increasingly popular movement to go beyond some of those more pedestrian acts. Here are three key areas where biohacking will be going mainstream.
Wearables
Steve Mann, a Canadian and tenured professor at the University of Toronto, and inventor of the field of wearable computing (that is so hot right now) was called the "lunatic fringe" by, Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of MIT's Media Lab when he turned up in the early 1980s. He augmented his vision, ability to capture and process images and make decisions using a wearable rig. Now we see a plethora of tech that more accessible and a little smaller, and this is gaining acceptability and adoption. The Apple Watch flew off of the shelves, and wearable devices like FitBit and other health trackers are commonplace in retail stores.
Exoskeletons
There are two parts to this development. The first is around enabling those that are unable to walk to stand and walk upright (with assistance). I predict wheelchairs will be a remnant of the past within five to 10 years. This opens the world up for so many people and companies that build exoskeletons need to focus on durability and getting the price down so that many people can benefit. Secondly, exoskeletons are already being trialed for work and military purposes. Lift more weight, carry it further, and have less fatigue when operating for extended periods of time. Hopefully this means safer conditions and less injuries in the long term.
Implantables
This is the edgy side of biohacking. Last year, at the From Now Conference, I agreed to have an NFC/RFID chip implanted in my left hand by Amal Graafstra of Dangerousthings.com. It was an experiment to see just how easy it was to implant technology and have a simple application of technology. I can now scan my hand and operate RFID locks, password scanners, and even just shortcut to my favourite website. It's a simplified biohack but very challenging to many that find it unethical and challenging. It's not seen as normal behaviour.
Biohacking has always been about the fringes of experimentation and there are a number of developments that excite me. Here are some edgier examples.
Extreme Transplants
Now we are going beyond just using tech and look to transplants as well -- hearts, lungs, livers, and heads. What? Heads? Well, the first head transplant will be taking place soon. Surgeon Sergio Canavero claims to have pioneered a procedure and he's found a prospective patient, a Russian called Valery Spirodonov, who suffers from a terminal muscle-wasting disease. More information can be found here.
Hacking DNA
CRISPRs (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) are segments of prokaryotic DNA containing short repetitions of base sequences and CAS9 protein has been heavily utilized as a genome engineering tool to induce site-directed double strand breaks in DNA. That means breaking bad DNA (that could be inducing effects such as cancerous cell growth or reduced red blood cell generation) and fixing it with good strands of RNA. This has the potential to treat genetic diseases, like cystic fibrosis and sickle-cell anemia, each of which are caused by single base pair mutations. Really complex stuff and head here for more of an understanding.
Smart Drugs
Nootropics and even are starting to be deployed to help augment how people perform mentally. There are many advocates in the startup and technical arena that are starting to use them. There are also a number of online forums, including an active subreddit, where nootropics users gather to exchange stack recipes and discuss the effects of various combinations of compounds. In addition, Nicholas Negroponte who has been predicting the future pretty successfully for the past three decades says the following about what could come in the next 30 years:
"We are going to ingest information. We are going to swallow a pill and know English. We are going to swallow a pill and know Shakespeare."
All seems a little wild, doesn't it? There are complex ethical discussions and the medical community is vigorously debating all of these areas right now. How much progress do we want to make? This is about consent. It's about choice. It's about an open mind. But, it's also about integrating and accepting these things into society. That's where things get tough. Meredith Patterson outlined her Biopunk Manifesto in 2011:
"We assert that the right of freedom of inquiry, to do research and pursue understanding under one's own direction, is as fundamental a right as that of free speech or freedom of religion."
We need to fight for the freedom to control our own lives and experiment right now and every day of our lives. Biohacking is here and we need to start accepting that we were meant to be more than we were born with. If we can't, then we need to be tolerant and supportive of those that are pushing the boundaries.
ALSO ON HUFFPOST:What are Dapps you might ask? Imagine having your car working away, transporting passengers while you’re at work. Imagine having your computer utilizing its spare capacity to serve businesses and people across the globe. Imagine being paid for browsing the web and taking ownership of your, arguably invaluable, attention. Imagine a world like that. That world is not far away.
A paradigm shift in the way we view software models is approaching. When Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, made us reassess our definition of Store of Value (SoV), it also revealed a sneak peek of the future: a world running on decentralized applications (Dapps). These distributed, resilient, transparent and incentivized applications will prove themselves to the world by remapping the technological landscape.
Want to learn about Dapps in greater detail? Check out our dedicated blockchain courses on Dapps and Ethereum.
Understanding Blockchain
Before we can even fathom what Dapps do, we need to be familiar with its underlying technology—the blockchain. Put simply, a blockchain is a ledger of records organized in ‘blocks’ that are linked together by cryptographic validation. It is a digital storage of consensus truth. The key is to understand that this ledger is neither stored in a centralized location nor managed by any single entity, hence its distributed-ness. The block validation system results in new transactions being added irreversibly and old transactions preserved forever for all to see, hence its transparency and resilience. Open-source software that leverage on the blockchain technology are called Dapps.
The Birth of Decentralized Applications
As the concept is still in its infancy, there might not be one definition of what a Dapp is. However, there are noticeable common features of Dapps:
Open Source. Ideally, it should be governed by autonomy and all changes must be decided by the consensus, or a majority, of its users. Its code base should be available for scrutiny.
Decentralized. All records of the application’s operation must be stored on a public and decentralized blockchain to avoid pitfalls of centralization.
Incentivized. Validators of the blockchain should be incentivized by rewarding them accordingly with cryptographic tokens.
Protocol. The application community must agree on a cryptographic algorithm to show proof of value. For example, Bitcoin uses Proof of Work (PoW) and Ethereum is currently using PoW with plans for a hybrid PoW/Proof of Stake (PoS) in the future.
If we adhere to the above definition, the first Dapp was in fact Bitcoin itself. Bitcoin is an implemented blockchain solution that arose from problems revolving around centralization and censorship. One can say Bitcoin is a self-sustaining public ledger that allows efficient transactions without intermediaries and centralized authorities.
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The Ethereum Network
While both Bitcoin and Ethereum may be loosely defined as Dapps aimed at solving real-world problems, Ethereum has a much bigger plan in mind.
In Ethereum’s white paper, it was stated that the intention of Ethereum is to create an alternative protocol for building decentralized applications with emphasis on development time, security, and scaling. You may think of Ethereum as, for the lack of a better analogy, the Mother of Dapps. Armed with its very own language, Solidity, Ethereum enables developers to form smart contacts using the Turing-complete Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). With these tools available, developers made Dapps that have real-life use cases, ranging from asset management to resource planning.
Examples of successful Ethereum-based Dapps that have achieved millions of dollars in market cap include Golem, Augur and Melonport. As I mentioned in my previous post, each of them aspires to rewire the economy using blockchain technology, and move us a step closer to a decentralised world.
Successful Ethereum-based Dapps
Golem. The Golem project aims to create the first global market for idle computer power. Standing at a remarkable market cap of 220 million USD, Golem will release the first version, Brass Golem, in May. Brass Golem will be tested on its ability to tackle CGI rendering, its first use case. If it turns out to be sustainably successful, CGI artists will be able to rent computing resources from other users to render an image quicker. Likewise, an idle machine can also accept tasks from other users. In light of this, frictionless sharing and pooling of resources may be a reality sooner than we think.
Augur. Augur aims to combine the concept of prediction markets with the power of decentralised network to create a forecasting tool, for potential trading gains. Standing at a market cap above 200 million USD, Augur is currently still under beta test. Eventually, it may be able to feed real-world truths into other applications and establish itself as the blockchain of facts.
Melonport. The Melonport protocol is a blockchain protocol for digital asset management. Participants can set up or invest in digital asset management strategies in an open and competitive manner. Using blockchain technology, time and costs are drastically reduced. By building an auditable and visible track record, Melonport enables a never-seen-before competitive environment in asset management.
Status. Status transforms your mobile device into a light client node on the Ethereum Network and enables you to easily access Ethereum’s entire ecosystem from anywhere. Within their messenger system, users may send smart contracts and payment to each other. Server downtimes is now longer a problem as the app runs on peer-to-peer protocol.
Brave (Upcoming ICO). In a world where consumers struggle to be in control of their attention and privacy, Brave’s value proposition seems rather unique. A shocking 60% of web page load time is caused by the underlying ad technology. Brave browser makes web browsing fast and safe by shielding you from third-party tracking. On top of that, should you choose to support content creators by enabling ads, you may even be monetarily rewarded with tokens. This gives end users an unprecedented level of control.
Aragon Upcoming ICO). Aragon is another ambitious project. It aims to disintermediate human trade, and allows you to manage entire organizations using the blockchain. By removing geographical borders and paperwork, the Aragon Network aims to act as a digital jurisdiction that is extremely convenient for everyone to operate on.
As seen above, each Dapp intends to apply blockchain technology to its niche and take over their respective industries. Be it investment, technology or governance, blockchain technology will permeate markets; its omnipresence will grace the world.
Being a Part of the Dapp Revolution
The Ethereum ecosystem will continue to expand as Ethereum gets under the mainstream radar. The recent rise in the price of Ether have brought along a new wave of interest in blockchain application.
If you’re a developer, there is no better investment than acquainting yourself with Solidity. Solidity is Ethereum’s programming language for writing executable distributed code contracts (EDCC). As you are reading this, corporations all over the world are scrambling to add blockchain developers to their ranks. Blockchain technology is growing a nascent industry in which opportunities abound.
To kickstart a Dapp project:
Create a whitepaper. Your whitepaper should address a problem you wish to solve. It should clearly state the intentions and goals of the Dapp. Describe the plans for your Dapp’s token distribution, and how you intend to go about doing it. Decide on a mechanism for establishing consensus, and recruit your management and development team. Be honest with any technical difficulties you foresee and state your technical requirements clearly.
Gain a following. Discuss your plan and form a community. Value feedback and revise your plans accordingly.
Start a crowd-sale. Once the Dapp has gained enough momentum, decide on a date to receive token funding. The Dapp’s crowd sale website should have all the information that an investor may need.
Bring your ideas to fruition. Begin development and welcome new developers and interest groups.
Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs)
The birth of a new member or Dapp in the blockchain community is called an ICO. It is a fundraising event based on token sales that could potentially huge gains for the well-informed and daring investors.
In an ICO, the token value is arbitrarily determined by the start-up team. When the token gets listed on the exchange, the value is then corrected via price dynamics. The eventual value will be settled on by the participants of the network, other than accredited agencies.
No matter the accuracy of an ICO valuation, the fact remains that ICO itself is a driving factor of interest and innovation in the blockchain scene. ICO is the much-needed catalyst in opening a well of possibilities and extending the value that blockchain offers.
How to Participate in ICOs
To engage in an ICO, follow the steps below:
Stay up to date. Find out their Slack group, Twitter handles and official website. Keep up with their ICO announcements and plans.
Prepare a wallet. Do not use an exchange wallet as the address of an exchange wallet may change without you noticing. Some hardware wallets are not capability-wise ready for ICO tokens. This leaves making a wallet on myetherwallet.com as the best option. Ensure that the wallet has the necessary amount to transfer, including the gas price. For example, if you wish to transfer 10 ETH for the ICO tokens, make sure you have more than 10 ETH inside your wallet to pay the gas fee. Oversights like these are common and will result in failure of purchase.
Be on time. Some popular ICOs are over in an hour. To increase your chances of securing ICO tokens, do prepare and make the transfers as early as possible.
Safekeep your tokens. Keep your wallet safe. Once the token is listed and available on exchanges, you may transfer your tokens from the wallet to an exchange to start trading.
In choosing the right ICO to invest in, ask yourself the following questions:
Are my investments safe? Preservation of capital should be the priority of the investor. Can you trust the dev team with your money? Are you leaving your money with founders who were involved in scams?
Is there a long-term plan? Do they have the abilities and the team makeup that the project demands?
Is this just a well-marketed project? Sometimes all it takes is a professional looking website for inexperienced investors to be sold. Will the team be able to deliver its promises?
What is my exit plan? As a high-risk investment, ICOs may require you to define an investment horizon or timeline. At which price point do you intend to exit?
Does it hold a unique advantage? As the Dapp scene matures, newcomers with similar value propositions will join the market. What is the edge that this Dapp would have over future competitors?
As it stands, the current ICO scene is massively hyped. To protect yourself from capital losses, perform the necessary research and pick your ICO with care.
A Decentralized Dapps Future Awaits
The inevitable onslaught of blockchain adoption will render numerous practices obsolete. It may be a bold and distant conjecture, but services such as banking will be made redundant as the world learns to operate and finance itself by self-sustaining, trust-less and decentralized networks. Large corporations hurrying to secure their place in the blockchain movement is only a testament to that.
Perhaps another topic worth giving some thought over: by outsourcing information and value transfer to the blockchain, we increase efficiency by reducing middlemen services, but at what cost? As the services, a human can provide decreases and the value of a human erodes, can we say confidently that our lives will improve? No matter the answer to that question, we can only take the leap of faith, with blockchain as the next step forward and towards a world unified by shared data.Many people love Chinese food. Others crave Indian, Korean, or Jamaican dishes. And usually it’s because of one particular spice they all share…
In many parts of the world, it has been known for centuries for a different reason. And that’s the one we’re interested in today…
You see, this spice has great healing powers.
Traditional doctors in Asia, Africa, India, and South America have known it helps ease stomach problems and much more.
Modern-day scientists are finally catching on. They have tested this plant root in the laboratory. And |
is on the brink of a damaging economic emigration crisis.
The chance to earn German or Austrian euros is attractive to many Latvians
Even before freedom to work in Germany and Austria comes into force, the Latvian economy is already suffering from a lack of workers in certain fields according to the Latvian Foreign Ministry's Ambassador-at-Large Juris Audarins.
"We are losing manpower and it says everything. We already know that it's a problem for Latvian entrepreneurs to find a skilled people still in Latvia," he said.
"It's very, very important for the Latvian economy not to lose so many people - and skilled people."
'Long-term social problems'
Lija Strasuna, a senior economist at the Swedish bank Swedbank believes that, further down the road, there could be problems for the state and society.
"In the short term, if unemployed people emigrate then it might seem that there's a benefit because of the diminished costs for the budget. But if the person doesn’t come back afterwards then it creates problems in the long term."
"It increases social burdens, it decreases the pool of those people available here who pay taxes and sustain the budget."
German is an increasingly popular option offered by language schools
A survey carried out in February showed that a third of all Latvians are planning to look for a job abroad. According to Latvia's state employment agency, most of the country's potential emigrants to Germany are not highly skilled workers. They aim to find work in agriculture, catering and as nursing assistants.
In industries like these, though, there is some potential for abuse. Many such workers have already been lured into the country by unscrupulous recruiters who promise them better wages and working conditions than they can deliver - and they end up working without proper documentation.
Feeling of disillusionment
55-year-old Ligita Snorina looks after a disabled elderly woman in the town of Martinsthal in the south-western part of Germany, and is feeling disillusioned.
"The economic situation in Latvia forces me to do a job like this. I have two Bachelor's degrees and a Master's degree in pedagogy as well and, frankly speaking, the work I do - changing the nappies for the elderly - is embarrassing to me."
Girts Semevics, a 46-year-old graphic designer from Latvia has been working as a courier at a shipping company in the state of Hesse. He says there is no need to miss the comforts of home.
"There's a Ryanair airport not far from the place where I live and I can fly home to Riga once a month, if I have a free weekend."
The joys of home are not so far away for Latvians working in Germany
He adds that due to strict registration rules for newcomers in Germany, there will not actually be a new wave of emigration from Latvia.
Another reason, Semevics says, is that not many Latvians speak German - although German language schools have seen an upturn in demand. Student numbers at the Berlitz language centre in Riga, the Latvian capital, have more than doubled in recent years.
Gone for good?
Aija Lulle, a migration researcher at the University of Latvia, is skeptical that any major exodus will take place - at least on a long-term basis.
"It's very misleading to think that people emigrate and then stay for good in those countries," said Lulle. "Actually, as I see it, people rather travel back and forth in what we can call a circular migration or transnational migration."
While the experts are busy analyzing the possible scenarios, yet another Latvian has left the country. Ligita Snorina won't be alone in Germany any more; in the quest for a better-paid job abroad, her husband Aivars has decided to join her.
Author: Gederts Gelzis, Riga / rc
Editor: Rob TurnerRecently a Korean media outlet held an interview with Joo Won Tak, a former “Produce 101 Season 2” contestant who was eliminated in the first round.
Joo Won Tak, from 2ABLE Company, was ranked No. 92 at first and rose to No. 62 before being unfortunately eliminated from the Top 60.
“Of course I feel regretful,” he said. “It’s not that I couldn’t make it to the Top 11, but I’m more regretful that I wasn’t able to show people my vocals through the position evaluations.”
Although his one-shot video during the “Mansae” performance was well-received by viewers, he did not receive much broadcast time on the show. “Maybe there would have been more potential if the ‘Mansae’ video had come earlier,” he said. “Although I didn’t appear much on the show, my rank went up a lot in a few days so I was happy. I had no expectations but suddenly I was in the 60s. I got my hopes up but didn’t make it in the end.”
Joo Won Tak’s parents had personally made a banner to support their son on the show. “My heart hurt [seeing that],” he said. “I thought I have to work harder, but right after that was the third week of broadcast. My rank had dropped [from 83] to 94. I was watching it with my parents and they were disappointed. It was really hard to see my family so sad.”
He said in a message to his family, “I wish you won’t be sad for me. You may think that you aren’t able to push me forward, but I am always grateful for your support. There is no need to feel sorry towards me at all.”
When talking about the trainee life, Joo Won Tak said, “I was okay with not having a cell phone, and they gave us enough to eat so I wasn’t worried about that. But it was really hard not being able to sleep. Since it was a competition, the trainees would often give up sleep for more practice.”
However, he also had good things to say about the program. “I think I gained the confidence to work the hardest at whatever I do,” he said. “We only have two or three days to prepare for a performance. I think that as I prepare for things like debuts and concerts, this kind of experience will be a lot of help. I’m also happy that I’ve gained some fans along the way.”
Meanwhile, “Produce 101 Season 2” recently held their second round of eliminations for the Top 35.
Source (1)Hundreds of thousands of protesters thronged the streets in 2012 in Quebec. Photo via Facebook user Occupy Canada
This post originally appeared on VICE Canada.
Three years after staging the largest student protest in Canadian history, students in Quebec are gearing up for another one. Various media outlets may have threatened the same thing last year, and the year before, but the protests planned for the upcoming weeks are larger in scale than anything the province has seen since 2012.
As of writing, 24 student organizations in Quebec, representing over 30,000 students at six university and CÉGEP campuses, have voted to strike as part of a protest against the Liberal government's austerity measures. Student organizations representing another 110,000 students are scheduled to carry out strike votes. The first accompanying protests will be held on March 21 and carry on until May 1, at which point organizers are hoping for a "social strike" that will incorporate support from unions, other left-wing organizations, and the public at large.
Whether or not you agree with the strike, you have to admit: students in Quebec know how to cause a fucking ruckus.
While Quebeckers tend to be more progressive than English Canadians in general, students in La Belle Province are also much more likely to take to the streets if they feel like they're getting a bad deal. The so-called "protest culture" on French campuses can be largely attributed to the mobilization efforts of Quebec's radical student organizations. While the rhetoric of these groups tends to border on self-parody (particularly their calls for a "popular struggle"), they can also be very effective. Even when strikes aren't in full swing, student activist groups maintain an aggressive presence, such as the disruption of a presentation by assistant deputy minister Frank Des Rosier this January, or a protest last year that resulted in six arrests.
The Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), which played a major role in organizing both the "Maple Spring" of 2012 and the upcoming " Printemps 2015" movement, are regularly referred to as "militant" in the media. It's a description that they themselves encourage, which would be pretty much unthinkable for an English Canadian student group that represents 80,000 members. "We've been described as one of the most radical student groups in the province, and I think it's one of our strengths," says ASSÉ spokesperson Camille Godbout, who attributes the "militant" label to the "diversity of tactics" the group uses to make its message heard.
Granted, there are people in Quebec who are upset by the "disruptive" campus culture, and the English-language media has no problem finding them. There's David McLaughlin, the UQAM law student who took his student association to court in an effort to stop the strike, or the 14 political science instructors who wrote a letter complaining about the "intimidation, harassment, shoving, vandalism, looting and repeated strikes" of various activists. But on the whole, it's remarkable how effective groups like ASSÉ are at getting students on their side. Even if Quebec doesn't experience another full-fledged Maple Spring this year, the 30,000 students who are currently planning to strike will probably give a migraine to someone in the provincial government.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
While student unions in English Canada are similarly concerned with social justice, their appeals for action tend to fall on a rather apathetic student populace. Even in Montreal, students from the English-language universities lack a similar awareness of social movements. "At McGill especially, there isn't the same culture of political activism," says Amina Moustaqim-Barrette, a vice president of McGill University's student society who is hoping to gather support for the strike from the University's various departmental associations.
"You go to UQÀM and that's what everyone's talking about and everyone's involved; that's not the case at McGill."
As of this writing, no student associations from any of Quebec's three English language universities have yet agreed to join the impending strike (although a number of associations from Concordia are scheduled to vote on the matter soon).
For student activists in the rest of Canada, the student protests of 2012 must have felt like something out of the 1960s. In Quebec, where tuition was already almost half the price it was in the rest of Canada, students actually cared enough to do something about a tuition hike. Moustaqim-Barrette considers the protests a success—an example of "mass mobilization affecting policy and decisions being made [from the] top down." By certain measures, she's right. The protests contributed to the Liberal Party's loss in the fall election and led directly to a temporary tuition freeze that Parti Québécois premier Pauline Marois announced a day after taking office.
But by other measures, like the actual effect they had on student life, the protests were unsuccessful. In early 2013 the Marois government announced a tuition hike that angered the same student leaders they marched with months earlier. Fatigue prevented another widespread protest, but two years and one ill-received fist-pump later and Quebec finds itself with another austerity-driven Liberal government. "Whether it's PQ or [Liberal], it doesn't matter for us," says Godbout, who mentions cuts to social services that were made by Parti Québécois, "We're going to be in the streets and we're going to fight back against the austerity measures."
Even without a specific tuition-hike to protest, student leaders can point to the impending cuts in education as something that will affect student experience. Though it's unlikely that general budget cuts will motivate students to campaign in a months-long protest, ASSÉ and other Printemps 2015 organizers are also hoping to gain the support of Quebec's unions and community groups to oppose cuts to healthcare and other public services. So perhaps it's not too unreasonable for Quebec students to call for another strike. After all, that would be the militant thing to do.
Follow Alan Jones on Twitter.It’s a sad day for “General Hospital” fans: Anthony Geary, who has played Luke Spencer on the daytime staple since 1978, will be leaving the show.
Geary dropped the bomb in an exclusive interview with TVInsider on Friday. The eight-time Daytime Emmy winner (including this year’s trophy for lead actor) will shoot the ABC series through June before retreating to his home in Amsterdam.
The actor explained his motivation to depart in the candid interview. “This show has been a huge part of my life for over half my life, and Luke Spencer is my alter ego,” Geary told TVLine. “But I’m just weary of the grind and have been for 20 years. There was a point after my back surgery last year where it became clear to me that my time is not infinite. And I really don’t want to die, collapsing in a heap, on that ‘GH’ set one day. That wouldn’t be too poetic.”
A rep for ABC Daytime told TVLine that Geary would be welcome should he ever wish to return for a guest appearance. “The door at ‘GH’ will always be open to Tony, and we hope that he will make a return visit at some point, even if just for a few weeks.”
Geary also mentioned that despite bouts of questioning his decision to leave, he’s at peace with saying farewell. “The closer it comes, there is less anxiety and dread at seeing the end of the tunnel, and it’s more like nirvana because my life is now wide open,” Geary said.
Correction: Geary first appeared on “General Hospital” in 1978, starring through 1984. He returned to the show in 1993.NewsHomosexuality
KINGSTON, Jamaica, May 22, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A world-famous expert on AIDS has been fired from his job at the University of the West Indies after telling court officials in Belize that homosexual behavior is a threat to public health.
Professor Brendan Bain, who until now served as director of the regional coordinating unit of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training Network (CHART) at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, was fired Tuesday after more than 30 homosexual activist groups demanded he be removed from his job because of testimony he gave in 2010 in defense of Belize’s sodomy ban.
“As a physician and Public Health practitioner, one of my responsibilities is to assess behaviors for their health and well being,” Bain wrote at the time. “When something is beneficial, such as exercise, good nutrition, or adequate sleep, it is my duty to recommend it. Likewise, when something is harmful, such as smoking, overeating, alcohol, or drug abuse, and unsafe sexual behavior, it is my duty to discourage it.”
“Another of my responsibilities as a Public Health practitioner is to assess the cost of behavior, not just to the individual ‘actor,’ but also to the community,” Bain wrote. “[T]here are instances in which private behaviors result in considerable public cost due to illness, with accompanying loss of productivity and social disruption and the prospect of premature death.”
Bain argued that one such behavior is anal intercourse, which significantly increases the risk not only of HIV/AIDS, but other sexually transmitted diseases and cancer. He shared with the court data from studies conducted all around the world, which showed that sexually active gay men contracted AIDS at roughly 40 times the rate of other groups.
Bain’s willingness to tell the truth about the risks of sodomy ultimately cost him his job.
“Professor Brendan Bain provided a statement on behalf of a group of churches seeking to retain [Belize’s anti-sodomy] law,” said the University of the West Indies in announcing his termination. "Many authorities familiar with the brief presented believe that professor Bain's testimony supported arguments for retention of the law, thereby contributing to the continued criminalization and stigmatization of MSM. This opinion is shared by the lesbian, gay and other groups who are served by CHART.”
The university added that the "majority of HIV and public health experts believe that criminalizing men having sex with men and discriminating against them violates their human rights, puts them at even higher risk, reduces their access to services, forces the HIV epidemic underground thereby increasing the HIV risk. These are the positions advocated by the UN, UNAIDS, WHO, PAHO, the international human rights communities and PANCAP (The Pan Caribbean Partnership against AIDS), which is the organization leading the regional response to the HIV epidemic.”
Click "like" if you want to defend true marriage.
"While the university recognizes the right of professor Bain to provide expert testimony in the manner he did, it has become increasingly evident that Professor Bain has lost the confidence and support of a significant sector of the community which the CHART program is expected to reach, including the loss of his leadership status in PANCAP, thereby undermining the ability of this program, to effectively deliver on its mandate. It is for this reason that the University of the West Indies has decided to terminate the contract of Professor Bain as Director of the Regional Coordinating Unit (RCU) of the Caribbean HIV/Training (CHART) Network."
Non-governmental organization that focus on AIDS defended Bain's firing even as they said they agreed with the content of his report.
The National AIDS Committee (NAC) stated on Thursday that “There is nothing in that report which is contrary to or offensive to the work of” NAC, and his conclusions represent “the very position of the National AIDS Committee.”
Instead, they argued, “It is the contention of the NAC and other Civil Society Groups that by participating in the case of Caleb Orozco v. the Attorney General for Belize et al, at the specific request of, and on behalf of a group of churches who were opposing the removal of a law” that they argue would “prevent access to treatment” or AIDS and undermines “support” of homosexuality.
LifeSiteNews was unable to reach Dr. Bain for comment by press time.Michael Lee-Chin, OJ, OOnt (born 3 January 1951), is a Jamaican-Canadian business magnate, investor and philanthropist who serves as the Chairman and CEO of Portland Holdings Inc., a privately-held investment holding company headquartered in Ontario, Canada. He has a net worth of CA$3.95 billion as of March 2018, making him the 20th richest man in Canada.
Michael Lee-Chin was appointed to the Order of Ontario in 2017.[2] The Order of Ontario is the province’s highest honour. An Ontarian who has shown outstanding qualities of individual excellence and achievement in any field.[3]
In 2016 Michael Lee-Chin was appointed chairman of the government of Jamaica’s Economic Growth Council (EGC)[4]
Lee-Chin has made several large pledges and/or donations in Canada to the Royal Ontario Museum in 2003, the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, McMaster University and the Joseph Brant Hospital Foundation. Lee-Chin served as chancellor of Wilfrid Laurier University.[5]
Background [ edit ]
Michael Lee-Chin was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, in 1951 to Aston Lee and Hyacinth Gloria Chen. Both his parents were biracial African and Chinese-Jamaican. When Lee-Chin was aged seven, his mother married Vincent Chen.[6] Chen[who?] had a son from a previous relationship and the couple had a further seven children together, six boys and one girl.[7] Lee-Chin's mother sold Avon products and worked as a bookkeeper for various local firms, while his stepfather ran a local grocery store.[8]
He attended the local high school, Titchfield High, between 1962 and 1969.[9]
Career [ edit ]
In 1965, Lee-Chin's first job came working as part of the landscaping team at the Frenchman's Cove Hotel. The next year, he got a summer job working on the Jamaica Queen cruise ship, cleaning the engine room.[10]
In 1970, he went to Canada on a scholarship program sponsored by the Jamaican government to study Civil Engineering at McMaster University,[11] and graduated in 1974.[12] He financed his first year at university on his own but after that was able to attend on scholarship.[13]
After graduating from McMaster, Lee-Chin worked briefly as a road engineer for the Jamaican government,[14] but unable to find work in his qualified field (and allegedly, because his Canadian wife did not like living in Jamaica), he returned to Canada where he began graduate studies in business. At first he worked as a bouncer, but later found employment as a financial advisor for Investors Group.[15]
Lee-Chin spent two years at the Investors Group, in the Hamilton, Ontario office and in 1979, moved to Regal Capital Planners and became regional manager. While at the company, in 1983, he secured a loan from the Continental Bank of Canada for C$500,000 to purchase a stake in Mackenzie Financial Group and formed Kicks Athletics with Andrew Gayle. By 1987, the investment was worth C$3.5 million.[16]
In 1987, Lee-Chin took the proceeds from his Mackenzie investment to buy a Kitchener-based company called the Advantage Investment Council (a division of AIC Limited) for $200,000. At the time, the company had holdings of around C$800,000. He renamed the company AIC, and developed it to a fund that today controls around C$6 Billion, with hundreds of thousands of investors. Following the acquisition of AIC Limited, Lee-Chin set up the Berkshire group of companies – comprising an investment planning arm, a securities dealership and an insurance operation. By 2007, Berkshire amassed more than C$12 billion of assets under administration. In 2007, Manulife acquired Berkshire from Portland Holdings in exchange for shares, making Portland one of the largest shareholders of Manulife.
In 2009, Lee-Chin sold AIC Limited to Manulife for an undisclosed amount. The following year, Manulife rebranded the heritage AIC funds and eliminated the AIC name from the mutual fund line-up.[17]
In addition to being the founder and Chairman of Portland Holdings Inc., Mr. Lee-Chin is Chairman and Director of Mandeville Holdings Inc. and Executive Chairman, CEO, and Portfolio Manager of Portland Investment Counsel Inc.[18][19]
Investments 1990 - 2005 [ edit ]
In the late 1980s, AIC suffered from a collapse in the real estate market, in which it had invested. It recovered throughout the early 1990s by maintaining investments in large groups, such as Merrill Lynch and TD bank (formerly Toronto Dominion). This caused investments to grow from US$8 million in 1990 to nearly US$8 billion by 1998.
Lee-Chin was reluctant to invest in the dotcom boom, and saw AIC investments lose 8 per cent in value, even as the S&P gained 56 per cent. Investors moved US$224 million out of AIC's flagship "Advantage Mutual Fund". The Globe and Mail ran an article predicting even more investors to leave the fund, meaning that they would run out of cash and be forced to sell its core holdings. Lee-Chin's response was to sell stock in Coca-Cola, and invest US$65 million into Mackenzie Holdings (the same firm in which he had invested US$400,000 16 years previously). Letters were sent to all 350,000 investors, explaining the strategy. The investors were calmed by the purchase, and the stock was later sold to Investor Group (the same company Lee-Chin had worked for in the 1980s) at more than twice the price AIC had paid for it.[20] In 2000 and 2001, following the dotcom crash, AIC outperformed the market with 26 per cent growth and 4 per cent decline respectively.[21]
In November 2003, AIC was part of a regulatory investigation involving 105 Canadian mutual funds companies. In its review of AIC, investigators found no evidence of late trading and market timing activity by AIC staff. However, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) did find that over the 1999-2003 period, AIC permitted specific third party investors to engage in market timing trades in AIC Funds that generated profits of $127 million. In the Settlement Agreement between AIC and the OSC, the OSC stated that "Accordingly, the conduct of AIC in failing to protect fully the best interests of the Relevant Funds in respect of the frequent trading market timing was contrary to the public interest."[22] As a result, in December 2004, AIC Limited was forced to return CAD $58.8 million to affected investors, which was the largest penalty imposed on any of the fund companies in the OSC investigation.[23]
On 5 October 2006, Lee-Chin announced his resignation as CEO of AIC, to be replaced by Jonathan Wellum, AIC's chief investment officer.
In 2005, two investment product managers offering structured products joined the Portland Holdings portfolio, Copernican Capital Corporation has offered retail investment products, primarily sold by brokers, and has raised more than C$800 million, in 10 closed end funds since its launch. Markland Street Asset Management, which launched the Oil Sands Sector Fund, raised C$430 million in one of Canada's largest closed-end IPOs.
Private life [ edit ]
In 1974, he married Vera Lee-Chin, a Ukrainian Canadian whom he had met at university. They parted in 1991, and officially separated (though did not divorce) in 1997. Ms. Lee-Chin has since contested the terms of the separation agreement, claiming that Lee-Chin did not disclose his actual wealth at the time of the separation.[24] The couple had three children, Michael Jr., Paul, and Adrian.
Lee-Chin now lives with Sonya Hamilton, with whom he has fraternal-twin daughters, Elizabeth and Maria, near Hamilton, Ontario.
Philanthropy [ edit ]
In 2003, he made headlines when he pledged to donate $30 million to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) of which a third had been paid as of 2015.[25] He also provided a $10 million gift to the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. The gift established the Michael Lee-Chin Family Institute for Corporate Citizenship at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. The Lee-Chin Institute's purpose is to help current and future business leaders integrate corporate citizenship into business strategy and practices. (http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/lee-chininstitute)[26]
In September 2014, Lee-Chin and his family donated $10 million to the Joseph Brant Hospital Foundation.[27]
Michael Lee-Chin and family received the 2015 Association of Fundraising Professionals’ (Golden Horseshoe Chapter) National Philanthropy Award in the category of Outstanding Philanthropist[28]
Current fund growth and difficulties [ edit ]
Investment in Caribbean [ edit ]
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Jamaica went through a period of financial crisis.[29] Lee-Chin saw potential in his native country, and Portland purchased 75 per cent of the National Commercial Bank of Jamaica for 6 billion Jamaican dollars (US$127 million) from the Jamaican Government. In 2003, Senvia Money Services Inc., a global money transfer company, was established. This was followed in 2004, by the acquisition of AIC Financial Group Limited, headquartered in Trinidad.
In 2004, he announced plans to set up the AIC Caribbean Fund with the intention of investing in the entire Caribbean region. The stated aim of the fund is to raise US$1 billion in order to "make investments in businesses located in countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), with an emphasis on Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago".[30] So far, it has made a number of large-scale investments.
In 2006, Portland acquired an 85 per cent controlling stake in the United General Insurance Company, the largest auto insurer in Jamaica, and renamed the firm Advantage General Insurance Company. A controlling interest in CVM Communications Group (consisting of radio and television stations and newspapers) was purchased at the same time. Portland partnered with the Canadian Risley Group to form Columbus Communications Ltd – a Barbadian corporation that holds controlling interest in a number of telecommunications providers in the Caribbean including Cable Bahamas Ltd, Caribbean Crossings Ltd, Merit Communications Ltd, and FibralLink Jamaica Ltd.
In the tourism sector, Lee-Chin guided Portland through a number of acquisitions in the Caribbean. Among them were the hospitality operations of the Trident Villas and Spa in Jamaica, Reggae Beach, and Blue Lagoon.
Portland's first acquisition in the health care industry sector was announced in July 2006, when Medical Associates Ltd., a privately held hospital in Kingston, Jamaica, joined the Portland Group.
Commodities boom [ edit ]
Similar to the experience of the late 1990s, Lee-Chin again has shied away from investing in commodities and the energy market boom. He has specifically stated that "We [AIC] do not like commodities-type businesses nor most high-tech companies simply because they are implicitly poor enterprises which we would not want to hold for the long term".[31]
Again, this strategy has meant that AIC has significantly underperformed the S&P index, but Lee-Chin believes that the current boom is just another bubble. Lee-Chin describes the market since 1990 as "a series of rolling speculations", and now "we see a commodities bubble".[32]
Business strategy [ edit ]
While at Investors Group, he studied the strategies of successful investors, such as Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham and Kenneth Thomson. Their buy and hold strategy is easily recognisable in the motto of AIC - Buy, hold and prosper.
Business ventures owned or operated by Michael Lee Chin [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]Steve King (R-IA)
I’m just about to walk out the door but this just hit the news 20 minutes ago and it needs to be known.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on Thursday introduced the first federal “heartbeat bill” modeled on a failed Ohio attempt to end legal abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy—before many people know they’re pregnant. “Heartbeat bills” amount to total abortion bans. They have been declared unconstitutional in federal court (emphasis added). King’s office confirmed that HR490 marked the first introduction of a so-called heartbeat bill in the U.S. Congress. Former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) introduced a forced ultrasound bill in 2011, but her measure did not ban abortion— King’s stated goal. Total Abortion Ban Debuts in Congress
There’s lots more at that link.
And catch this. A King press release called Roe v. Wade unconstitutional, noting that under HR 490, “if a heartbeat is detected, the baby is protected.” How catchy. :-(Child’s pose is one of those poses that every time it’s entered into acts as a reminder that it’s okay to rest and accept the peace that comes from resting. At the same time, there’s also a decent likelihood that the close proximty of nose to mat in child’s pose acts as a reminder that it’s NOT okay to have a stinky yoga mat. There’s a big difference between a “sticky” mat and a “stinky” mat. The former is to be sought after, the latter is to be shunned. So, the big question is when was the last time you gave your “stinky” mat a bath. If you’re like me, it should have been done a long time ago. Perhaps you have a preferred method for cleaning your mat. I don’t. In fact, in the six years I’ve practiced yoga, I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never cleaned it once. That’s just gross!
Well, after a few times in child’s pose last night, I decided I’d better get serious about cleaning my mat; otherwise, I might end up with a nasty foot fungus on my forehead. With that thought in mind, I went searching for a cure. Here’s what a little research turned up on different ways to keep a mat in tip-top shape.
Yoga Journal had the following to say on the subject:
If your mat is lightly soiled, use a spray bottle, damp sponge, or terry cloth rag to apply a solution of two cups of water and four drops of dish soap. Rub the soiled areas. Wipe the mat with clean water; then rub with a dry terry cloth towel. Hang to air dry. If your mat is heavily soiled, submerge it in a solution of warm water and mild detergent; use very little soap as any residue may cause the mat to become slippery during future use. Thoroughly hand wash the mat and rinse in clean water. After squeezing out the excess water, lay the mat on a dry towel and roll the mat and towel together. Stepping on the rolled up mat will squeeze more moisture out of the mat and into the towel. Then unroll and hang to air dry.
A Bikram site recommended a different approach:
Just put it by itself into the washing machine, add a very small amount of a light detergent such as Woolite and run it through a gentle cycle. Then just hang it to dry it usually dries overnight but in the humid summer weather it might take a little longer. I recommend washing your mat once every couple of months, depending on how often you attend class. It’s also a good idea to hang your mat in between classes rather than leave it rolled up.
Here’s a few more words of wisdom from Yogamatters:
All of our sticky, standard, lightweight, travel and ecoYoga mats are machine washable: Use a little mild detergent and a cool wash cycle (no more than than 40 degrees). Don’t use the spin cycle. Allow lots of time to air dry (do not use a tumble drier or radiator) and avoid folding or using your mat until it is completely dry, as this may shorten its life. You can roll your mat up with a towel and squeeze excess water out to speed up the drying process. You can also use a damp cloth to wipe your mat clean. Do not wash your mat unnecessarily. Cotton mats can also be machine washed – full details supplied with each mat.
Here’s one last link if you are still looking for ideas. I think I’m going to opt for the sponge-down solution rather than complete submersion. Hopefully my next child’s pose is a little less distracting than the last one.
Leave a comment if you have any other good ideas for mat cleanliness!The Giants faced Noah Syndergaard Sunday night, and they tried to steal two bases. Both times, they were unsuccessful. That’s notable because Syndergaard, this year, has been horrible about controlling the running game. It’s been his one drawback — before Sunday, runners in 2016 were 40-for-44 in their attempts. The Giants assumed they’d be able to take advantage of his vulnerability. Plans went awry and for those reasons, and others, the Giants lost.
The first runner to get thrown out was Trevor Brown. Brown, as you might know, is a catcher. Before Sunday in the majors this year, Brown was 0-for-0 in trying to steal. He doesn’t run. He was trying to test the limits of Syndergaard’s weakness, and Brown got himself out, after Rene Rivera made a strong throw to second.
There’s nothing too interesting about that. Syndergaard was slow to the plate. Rivera did his job well. Brown got a bad jump and he doesn’t sprint well to begin with. That caught steal is almost a direct result of other players not getting caught stealing. The weakness encourages non-runners to run. Just as Syndergaard is slow enough that any decent runner can advance, some runners are slow enough that even Syndergaard can’t be exploited.
I’m more interested in the second runner to get thrown out. That was Eduardo Nunez, and, unlike Brown, Nunez has had a big year in swiping. He’s an obvious running threat. Here’s Syndergaard’s first pitch after Nunez reached:
And now, here’s the second pitch:
You see that? Nunez had seen enough. He read Syndergaard and took off on the second delivery. Rivera was excellent here — he was quick to his feet and his throw was outstanding. So, Rivera absolutely played a role. But Syndergaard also showed Nunez a twist. The first pitch:
The second pitch:
Syndergaard lowered his leg lift. He mixed up his timing, and while for the first pitch I had him close to 1.7 seconds to the plate, on the second pitch he was at almost 1.4. He shaved roughly 15% off his time, and though he was still short of the 1.3 mark that most pitchers want to achieve, that’s a healthy leap forward. Syndergaard gave Nunez a different look, and he gave his own catcher a chance. Nunez easily could’ve wound up safe if Rivera’s throw were any worse, but what matters is just that there was a possibility he’d be out. This is something Syndergaard’s been working on, and getting Nunez out is an encouraging step.
It’s going to take more outs before runners stop trying. And it’s worth noting that, when Syndergaard lowered his leg lift, he threw his slowest fastball of the first five innings. The Mets don’t want for him to sacrifice too much, and they need to keep an eye on his mechanics. But for the time being, Syndergaard is coming off an outstanding start, and in that start, runners trying to steal went 0-for-2. One of those runners even knows how to run. It’s something to build on.Given a few decades even Neo-Nazis can learn branding. Just as Trump has re-branded himself from Howard Stern's whipping boy to Twit-in-chief (tweeter-in-chief?) of the United States, the Neo-Nazi movement has re-branded itself as the “Alt-Right.” This makes their younger followers feel more hip than having to affect a 1920s clothing line or dancing around in their mother's curtains. Fascism in all countries has always sloppily combined an imagined mythic past with visions of an imagined mythic future while parroting endless lies about the present.
When one of the Darlings of the Alt-Right Movement, Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute, shouted Hail Victory at a Trump Campaign event, there was little doubt of the rebirth and re |
come for the PS2, because that would be a sensible thing to steal. Yet that would make too much sense. This is actually a Japanese game, Simple 2000 Series Vol. 108: The Nihon Tokushubutai, which is translated as “The Special Forces.” It’s not really clear how you could start out intending to pirate one game and end up pirating an obscure, Japan-only budget title instead, but at this point, we should really be willing to accept anything.
Guitar Hero: Satellite 2009
This is a hack of the classic plastic guitar phenomenon Guitar Hero 2, but all of the songs have been replaced with Bahasa rock and rap, which are actual things that exist. This is actually a cool idea for a pirate hack, since it gives the local community a version of the game the original developers never would have made. But for this specific game, that local community is in Jakarta, thousands of miles away. Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it, so go ahead and listen to “Maaf Dari Surga” while you play air guitar.
Guitar Hero: Unleashed and X’mas Songs
I know what you’re thinking: “Bahasa versions of Guitar Hero are all well and good, but where is the compilation of Christmas songs and Nu metal?” Don’t worry, here’s Guitar Hero: Unleashed and X’mas Songs. Do you like “White Christmas”? Do you also like Korn? No? Well, that’s okay, because all of the bonus tracks are Bahasa rock and rap. Something for everyone!
Guitar Hero: The Legend: Beatles and Friends
You’ll come for the Beatles, but you’ll stay for the anime girl that maybe is supposed to be Yoko Ono. Okay, the Beatles have other friends, too, but they are mostly Bahasa rock and rap stars.
RoboCop
This is just an old, awful RoboCop game that nobody should ever play. Look at that cover, though! It will brighten your life in countless ways.
Grand Theft Auto hacks that are all the same
Grand Theft Auto: Supernatural, The Legend, Infinite World, and 2012: End of the World all seem like they would be different games, right? They took the hero of Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost And Damned, Johnny Klebitz, and Photoshopped his head into so many different other games! Unfortunately, all of the games are San Andreas—more specifically, a San Andreas hack of possibly Brazilian origin that removes the story missions and adds explosive superpowers (and Linkin Park to the radio). 2012: End of the World gets bonus points for replacing the game’s opening video with a trailer for the movie 2012. Very classy.
Grand Theft Auto: Dubai City
This one was a real surprise. Oh, it’s still San Andreas. But it was edited and “improved” as much as possible. The opening video is a tourism promotional video for Dubai.
The loading screens are all advertisements for Syrian Games, which may be an outfit of pirates and thieves but also employs video game cover artists of great vision and poise.
The face of Dubai City’s new main character will periodically glitch, becoming a horrible nightmare with stretched skin and an impossibly distended jaw.
Many of the signs and billboards in the game have been replaced with Arabic text, and the radio stations play only Arabic music. It’s quite a comprehensive hack, and the best part is that buying it in Kenya almost certainly doesn’t violate American sanctions against Syria. So any American customs agents reading this article shouldn’t even worry about sending me to federal prison. Please?
Words by Joe Keiser. Title illustration by Keith Vincent.
Looking to extend your descent into pirate-game madness? Check out our treasury of the Syrian Games cover artist’s finest work.I spend a lot of time debugging Dylan code. Up until now, this has been a somewhat painful process when not using the IDE on Windows. (And I don't really use the IDE on Windows as it doesn't fit well into my workflow.) I finally reached the point where I decided that I wanted to improve our debugger integration.
Much of what is described below may be applicable to people working on debugging support for other languages.
Current State of Dylan Debugging We have a debugger on Windows integrated with our IDE. This facility is not available on the other platforms that we support. There are many reasons for this: The debug info that Open Dylan generates is only done on Windows.
The debugger code for interacting with the OS is only implemented for Windows.
The IDE itself is only available on Windows. This means that debugging on Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X has traditionally been more challenging. We often resort to "printf debugging" and have some basic debug printing functions that can be invoked from the compiler so long as they don't crash. Debugging is really only effective with the C back-end as the HARP back-end doesn't generate sufficient debug info when it generates native code.
Moving Forward We're going to focus on improving the debugging experience when using the C back-end as that is readily achievable. We plan to replace the HARP back-end with a new back-end using LLVM which will generate far superior debug information. Since both the C and LLVM compiler back-ends can generate DWARF debug data, we'll be able to use traditional debugger implementations like LLDB and GDB to debug Dylan code. We can improve upon the experience of using LLDB and GDB though by providing specialized integration scripts that know more about Dylan objects and can help present them in more intuitive ways. My goals here are: Have a solution that works well on Mac OS X with the out of the box developer tools. I don't want people to have to install a custom build of LLDB.
When developing workarounds for problems in LLDB, also try to work with the upstream LLDB developers to improve the situation for the future.
Don't rely on running code within the target process. By not running code within the target process, we can also support debugging core files. This means that we need to implement things in terms of reading memory from the target process.
Integrate with existing commands as much as possible rather than creating new commands to do similar things, but with Dylan data types. This means that we don't want a dprint command to print a Dylan object. We want our printing to work natively with print, expr, and frame variable.
command to print a Dylan object. We want our printing to work natively with,, and. Try to do all of the extensions in Python rather than writing C++ extensions which must be built and loaded separately.
Be able to provide a good example for people doing something similar in the future with other languages. The LLDB project provides documentation for much of what is discussed here. It may be useful to refer to that documentation. The current version of the code can be found here. The code below is usually simplified in some form for purposes of instruction. Also please note that not all of the issues described here have been discussed with the upstream LLDB developers yet. I plan to bring them all up and hope to get some of them resolved.
Summary Strings Summary strings are a quick and short summary of a value. The first thing that we wanted to do was to set up some summary providers to handle things like integers, symbols, strings, and boolean values. In the C run-time, all Dylan types are represented by a typedef: typedef void * D ; Dylan values are tagged, using the bottom 2 bits. Integers have a tag bit of 1, byte characters have a tag bit of 2, Unicode characters have a tag bit of 3. All other objects are full objects and have no tag. So, the first summary provider that we wanted to do was roughly this: def dylan_value_summary ( value, internal_dict ): tag = value. GetValueAsUnsigned () & 3 if tag == 0 : return dylan_object_summary ( value, internal_dict ) elif tag == 1 : return dylan_integer_summary ( value, internal_dict ) elif tag == 2 : return dylan_byte_character_summary ( value, internal_dict ) elif tag == 3 : return dylan_unicode_character_summary ( value, internal_dict ) else : return 'Invalid tag'... def dylan_integer_summary ( value, internal_dict ): return '{<integer>: %s }' % value. GetValueAsUnsigned () >> 2 def __lldb_init_module ( debugger, internal_dict ): debugger. HandleCommand ( 'type summary add D -F dylan.dylan_value_summary -e -w dylan' ) debugger. HandleCommand ( 'type category enable dylan' ) Here, we have defined an initial summary provider, added it to LLDB for the type D and enabled the Dylan category of type providers. Unfortunately, in the version of LLDB shipping with Xcode 5.x, this causes LLDB to crash. It ends up that the currently shipping version of LLDB is unhappy with a type with a name that is a single character. This is fixed in the beta version of Xcode 6, but as our goals indicate, we want to have our LLDB integration work with the currently shipping version of LLDB. To solve the crash, we modified our C run-time and the C back-end to use dylan_value as the typedef name rather than D. We also took this opportunity to clean up a number of other type names in the C run-time. We also discovered that two different sorts of values inhabited the D values: Dylan objects and raw pointers. We gave raw-pointers a different name to distinguish them from Dylan objects. Now, we can see a variable value like this: (lldb) frame variable count_ (dylan_value) count_ = 0x00010001 {<integer>: 16384} We then added a bunch of other summaries, including for the default vector class, <simple-object-vector> (rarely spelled out like that in code): (lldb) frame variable Urest_ (dylan_value) Urest_ = 0xbfffc930 {<simple-object-vector>: size: 2} The next step here is obvious: It would be great to show expanded values and show the vector's contents.
Synthetic Children In LLDB, when an object is opaque or the internals aren't user-friendly, synthetic children can be created via a "synthetic provider". Immediately, we run into an issue: while synthetic providers are specified per type, all of our values are the same type ( dylan_value ). We dealt with this by creating a generic synthetic type and then changing the class at run-time in the Python script to the appropriate synthetic provider: class SyntheticDylanValue ( object ): def __init__ ( self, value, internal_dict ): tag = dylan_tag_bits ( value ) new_class = None if tag == OBJECT_TAG : class_name = dylan_object_class_name ( value ) new_class = SYNTHETIC_CLASS_TABLE. get ( class_name, None ) if new_class : self. __class__ = new_class self. value = self. cast_value ( value ) self. update ()... def __lldb_init_module ( debugger, internal_dict ): debugger. HandleCommand ( 'type synthetic add dylan_value -l dylan.SyntheticDylanValue -w dylan' ) debugger. HandleCommand ( 'type summary add dylan_value -F dylan.dylan_value_summary -e -w dylan' ) debugger. HandleCommand ( 'type category enable dylan' ) Something to call out in particular here is that we must pass the -e flag when adding the summary to indicate that it can be expanded and display children. Unfortunately, this doesn't work! We built LLDB from source and debugged it and found that synthetic children aren't correctly displayed when the object is a pointer in all cases. We're pursuing this with the upstream developers to be fixed in a future version. But again, we want this to work with the current release version of Xcode, so what can we do? In this case, if dylan_value were not a pointer but was a simple type instead, this would work. Therefore, we undertook a larger change to the run-time: converting dylan_value to an integer value: typedef uintptr_t dylan_value ; This change is not yet complete and hasn't been merged with Open Dylan master. But I'm using it for now as a local hack to keep making progress with the LLDB integration. Now that dylan_value is an integer, we want to still display it in hex, so we tell the debugger to do so: def __lldb_init_module(debugger, internal_dict): debugger.HandleCommand('type format add dylan_value -f hex') Now, we can see our vector nicely: (dylan_value) Urest_ = 0xbfffc930 {<simple-object-vector>: size: 2} { [0] = 0x00000009 {<integer>: 2} [1] = 0x00545b70 {<symbol>: buffer} } Printing Arbitrary Objects After that, I thought it would be fun to go crazy, so I wrote a synthetic type that knows how to walk the internal data structures that describe classes to print out any arbitrary object with its internal structure. The details of this are very specific to the Dylan compiler and how it lays out data and metadata. The result though is quite handy: (lldb) frame variable data_ (dylan_value) data_ = 0x028b6000 {<buffer>} { [buffer-next] = 0x00000001 {<integer>: 0} [buffer-end] = 0x00000001 {<integer>: 0} [buffer-position] = 0x00000001 {<integer>: 0} [buffer-dirty?] = 0x00188374 {<boolean>: False} [buffer-start] = 0x00000001 {<integer>: 0} [buffer-on-page-bits] = 0x0000fffd {<integer>: 16383} [buffer-off-page-bits] = 0xffff0001 {<integer>: 1073725440} [buffer-use-count] = 0x00000001 {<integer>: 0} [buffer-owning-stream] = 0x00188374 {<boolean>: False} [buffer-element] = 0x00010001 {<integer>: 16384} } This is great! Unfortunately, this leads us to our next problem. What happens if a structure is nested with other structures? What happens if there are any cyclic references in the structures being printed? Unfortunately, by default, there are no limits to the depth to which the printing traverse the structures which makes it very easy to lock up LLDB by having it traverse to infinity. The way to limit this is with the -D or --depth flag which can be given to either frame variable or expr : frame variable -D 1 expr -D 1 -- data_ Unfortunately, this does not work for print : (lldb) print -D 1 -- data_ error: unexpected type name 'D': expected expression error: 1 errors parsing expression This is because print is an alias for expr --, so it can not pass any arguments to expr. There isn't yet have a good solution to this problem, so be sure to always remember to specify the printing depth with frame variable or expr.
Other Issues Missing Debug Info We have some types that we define in the C run-time for simplifying data access, and we attempt to use those same types within the debugger scripts as well. An example of this is: typedef struct _dylan_byte_string { dylan_value class ; dylan_value size ; char data [ _size + 1 ]; } dylan_byte_string ; And in the Python code: def dylan_byte_string_data ( value ): target = lldb. debugger. GetSelectedTarget () byte_string_type = target. FindFirstType ( 'dylan_byte_string' ). GetPointerType () value = value. Cast ( byte_string_type ) size = dylan_integer_value ( value. GetChildMemberWithName ('size' )) if size == 0 : return '' data = value. GetChildMemberWithName ( 'data' ). GetPointeeData ( 0, size + 1 ) error = lldb. SBError () string = data. GetString ( error, 0 ) if error. Fail (): return '<error: %s >' % error. GetCString () else : return string Unfortunately, sometimes the convenience types that we define like that are not present at debug time as they're absent from the debug info. There's a utility that is very helpful in diagnosing this: dwarfdump. dwarfdump, as the name indicates, dumps the DWARF debug info from an object file in a form that is human readable (although some knowledge of DWARF is useful in fully understanding it). You can run it on the object files from building the C run-time (example here is for x86-darwin ): dwarfdump sources/lib/run-time/obj-x86-darwin/c-run-time.o This file contains no definition for the dylan_byte_string typedef or the struct _dylan_byte_string. We can keep looking though in other files and we'll find it in debug-print.o : 0x00000642: TAG_typedef [9] AT_type( {0x0000064e} ( _dylan_byte_string ) ) AT_name( "dylan_byte_string" ) AT_decl_file( ".../sources/lib/run-time/debug-print.c" ) AT_decl_line( 345 ) 0x0000064e: TAG_structure_type [26] * AT_name( "_dylan_byte_string" ) AT_byte_size( 0x0c ) AT_decl_file( ".../sources/lib/run-time/run-time.h" ) AT_decl_line( 341 ) A typedef needs to be used to be kept alive and represented in the debug info. In this case, I made sure that a few functions in the C run-time took arguments of type dylan_byte_string or returned a value of that type. Uninitialized Variables The Open Dylan compiler's C back-end doesn't initialize local variables in the generated C until they're actually used. It was written to target C89 a long time ago, and so it declares all variables used within a function at the start of that function. Since variables aren't initialized, sometimes when LLDB goes to display the values using our summary strings and synthetic providers, things get a bit confused and may print invalid data or even temporarily hang LLDB for 5-10 seconds. We're looking at the impact of initializing all local variables to a known safe value such as 0 or the %unbound value that Dylan uses for other uninitialized values. This is also related to providing better scoping of variable declarations within the generated C. This is something that we will investigate in the future.In an essay entitled ‘On the reading of old books’ C S Lewis argues as follows for the importance of reading books from the past:
‘Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united—united with each other and against earlier and later ages—by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, “But how could they have thought that?”—lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H. G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.’
I think Lewis is right in what he says here. We do need to read the old books from the Christian tradition and one of the most Important of these books is a book that you may well never have heard of, The Life of Anthony.
This book was originally written in Greek around 360 AD by the Patriarch of Alexandria, St Athanasius, and was then translated in Latin by St Evagrius of Antioch. Particularly in its Latin version it became one of best known works of literature in the Christian world right through until the end of the Middle Ages and its influence was an important cause of the development of the monastic tradition, particularly in Western Europe. Given the subsequent importance of monasticism for the development of the whole of Western culture in a whole variety of different areas including art, architecture, theology, philosophy, science, agriculture and medicine this means that it is a book which helped to shape the whole of that Western civilization of which we are the heirs. Like a pebble dropped into a pond this book has caused ripples which are still expanding even today.
It is this book I want to introduce you to this afternoon.
So, what is this book? As its title suggests, it is a life, a work of biography, what in Latin is known as a Vita. It is the story of the life of St Anthony of Egypt, a Coptic monk who was born in around 251 AD and died in 356. The original heading is ‘Athanasius the bishop to the brethren in foreign parts.’ This indicates that it was written to tell Christians outside Egypt about the life of this monk. The prologue to the work then clarifies this point further:
‘You have entered upon a noble rivalry with the monks of Egypt by your determination either to equal or surpass them in your training in the way of virtue. For by this time there are monasteries among you, and the name of monk receives public recognition. With reason, therefore, all men will approve this determination, and in answer to your prayers God will give its fulfilment. Now since you asked me to give you an account of the blessed Antony’s way of life, and are wishful to learn how he began the discipline, who and what manner of man he was previous to this, how he closed his life, and whether the things told of him are true, that you also may bring yourselves to imitate him, I very readily accepted your behest, for to me also the bare recollection of Antony is a great accession of help. And I know that you, when you have heard, apart from your admiration of the man, will be wishful to emulate his determination; seeing that for monks the life of Antony is a sufficient pattern of discipline. Wherefore do not refuse credence to what you have heard from those who brought tidings of him; but think rather that they have told you only a few things, for at all events they scarcely can have given circumstances of so great import in any detail. And because I at your request have called to mind a few circumstances about him, and shall send as much as I can tell in a letter, do not neglect to question those who sail from here: for possibly when all have told their tale, the account will hardly be in proportion to his merits. On account of this I was desirous, when I received your letter, to send for certain of the monks, those especially who were wont to be more frequently with him, that if I could learn any fresh details I might send them to you. But since the season for sailing was coming to an end and the letter-carrier urgent, I hastened to write to your piety what I myself know, having seen him many times, and what I was able to learn from him, for I was his attendant for a long time, and poured water on his hands ; in all points being mindful of the truth, that no one should disbelieve through hearing too much, nor on the other hand by hearing too little should despise the man.’
What this tells us is that St Athanasius knew St Anthony personally and that he has written to Christians overseas in order to give them an account of the saint’s life as a model for their own monastic discipline. At the end of the fourth century the monastic movement was beginning to take off and St Anthony is being presented as the model for the monastic life.
The book begins by explaining that St Anthony was from a wealthy Christian family and was brought up as a Christian, but that after his parents died he was called by God to a life of more rigorous discipleship. The account of his call in chapters 2 and 3 goes like this:
‘After the death of his father and mother he was left alone with one little sister: his age was about eighteen or twenty, and on him the care both of home and sister rested. Now it was not six months after the death of his parents, and going according to custom into the Lord’s House, he communed with himself and reflected as he walked how the Apostles Matthew 4:20 left all and followed the Saviour; and how they in the Acts ( Acts 4:35 ) sold their possessions and brought and laid them at the Apostles’ feet for distribution to the needy, and what and how great a hope was laid up for them in heaven. Pondering over these things he entered the church, and it happened the Gospel was being read, and he heard the Lord saying to the rich man ( Matthew 19:21 ), ‘If you would be perfect, go and sell that you have and give to the poor; and come follow Me and you shall have treasure in heaven.’ Antony, as though God had put him in mind of the Saints, and the passage had been read on his account, went out immediately from the church, and gave the possessions of his forefathers to the villagers— they were three hundred acres, productive and very fair— that they should be no more a clog upon himself and his sister. And all the rest that was movable he sold, and having got together much money he gave it to the poor, reserving a little however for his sister’s sake.
And again as he went into the church, hearing the Lord say in the Gospel ( Matthew 6:34 ), ‘be not anxious for the morrow,’ he could stay no longer, but went out and gave those things also to the poor. Having committed his sister to known and faithful virgins, and put her into a convent to be brought up, he henceforth devoted himself outside his house to discipline, taking heed to himself and training himself with patience. For there were not yet so many monasteries in Egypt, and no monk at all knew of the distant desert; but all who wished to give heed to themselves practised the discipline in solitude near their own village. Now there was then in the next village an old man who had lived the life of a hermit from his youth up. Antony, after he had seen this man, imitated him in piety. And at first he began to abide in places outside the village: then if he heard of a good man anywhere, like the prudent bee, he went forth and sought him, nor turned back to his own palace until he had seen him; and he returned, having got from the good man as it were supplies for his journey in the way of virtue. So dwelling there at first, he confirmed his purpose not to return to the abode of his fathers nor to the remembrance of his kinsfolk; but to keep all his desire and energy for perfecting his discipline. He worked, however, with his hands, having heard, ‘he who is idle let him not eat ( 2 Thessalonians 3:10 ),’ and part he spent on bread and part he gave to the needy. And he was constant in prayer, knowing that a man ought to pray in secret unceasingly. For he had given such heed to what was read that none of the things that were written fell from him to the ground, but he remembered all, and afterwards his memory served him for books.’
The rest of the book recounts how the saint went on to try to develop an ever more disciplined life by going into the desert and by spending time on his own in an old tomb and an abandoned Roman fort where he was tempted by numerous demons who appeared to him in a variety of disguises and who sought to tempt him into sin or frighten him into abandoning his monastic calling. It then further recounts how St Anthony tried and failed to achieve martyrdom during the persecution of the Church in 311 and how, after that, he retreated even further into the desert to what is described as the ‘inner mountain’ where he lived until his death at the age of 105.
The saint is described as living as a hermit, but he is not cut off from the world. Streams of people, including monks, clergy and laity, come to see him seeking counsel and healing and he goes out from the desert to visit people, and counteract the Arian heresy (the denial of true divinity of Christ) which was prevalent at that time. He also debates with Greek philosophers and on one occasion even has correspondence with the Emperor and his sons, to whom he wrote ‘approving them because they worshipped Christ, and giving them counsel on things pertaining to salvation : ‘not to think much of the present, but rather to remember the judgment that is coming, and to know that Christ alone was the true and Eternal King.’ He begged them to be merciful and to give heed to justice and the poor.’ (chapter 81)
St Athanasius summarises the saint’s influence in chapter 87 by stating that:
‘….it was as if a physician had been given by God to Egypt. For who in grief met Antony and did not return rejoicing? Who came mourning for his dead and did not immediately put off his sorrow? Who came in anger and was not converted to friendship? What poor and low-spirited man met him who, hearing him and looking upon him, did not despise wealth and console himself in his poverty? What monk, having being neglectful, came to him and became not all the stronger? What young man having come to the mountain and seen Antony, did not immediately deny himself pleasure and love temperance? Who when tempted by a demon, came to him and did not find rest? And who came troubled with doubts and did not get quietness of mind?’
If we ask what the major themes are that St Athanasius brings out in his account of St Anthony, we finds that the first and key theme is the need for discipline in the Christian life. This is emphasised, for example, in Anthony’s address to his fellow monks in chapter 19:
‘Wherefore, children, let us hold fast our discipline, and let us not be careless. For in it the Lord is our fellow-worker, as it is written, to all that choose the good, God works with them for good. But to avoid being heedless, it is good to consider the word of the Apostle, I die daily ( 1 Corinthians 15:31 ). For if we too live as though dying daily, we shall not sin. And the meaning of that saying is, that as we rise day by day we should think that we shall not abide till evening; and again, when about to lie down to sleep, we should think that we shall not rise up. For our life is naturally uncertain, and Providence allots it to us daily. But thus ordering our daily life, we shall neither fall into sin, nor have a lust for anything, nor cherish wrath against any, nor shall we heap up treasure upon earth. But, as though under the daily expectation of death, we shall be without wealth, and shall forgive all things to all men, nor shall we retain at all the desire of women or of any other foul pleasure. But we shall turn from it as past and gone, ever striving and looking forward to the Day of Judgment. For the greater dread and danger of torment ever destroys the ease of pleasure, and sets up the soul if it is like to fall.’
For St Anthony, this calling to a disciplined life means a life of extreme asceticism. He is celibate, he fasts continuously, he has one garment which he wears with the hair on the inside and ‘he neither bathed his body with water to free himself from filth, nor did he ever wash his feet, nor even endure so much as to put them into water, unless compelled by necessity.’ (Chapter 47). Such behaviour may we strike us as bizarre and even repulsive (would you want to spend time with someone who never washed?), but there is a serious point to it, which is that it gives expression to the conviction that in view of the imminence of death and judgment the needs of the soul have to take priority over the pleasures of the body. As St Anthony is recorded as saying in chapter 45:
‘…it behoved a man to give all his time to his soul rather than his body, yet to grant a short space to the body through its necessities; but all the more earnestly to give up the whole remainder to the soul and seek its profit, that it might not be dragged down by the pleasures of the body, but, on the contrary, the body might be in subjection to the soul. For this is that which was spoken by the Saviour: ‘Be not anxious for your life what you shall eat, nor for your body what you shall put on. And do you seek not what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, and be not of a doubtful mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after. But your Father knows that you have need of all these things. Howbeit do you seek first His Kingdom, and all these things shall be added unto you ( Matthew 6:31 ; Luke 12:29 ).’
It is also stressed in the Life that Anthony’s ascetic lifestyle was not contrary to his physical well bring. He lives to 105, as I have said, and is still hale and hearty at the time of his death. Chapter 93 tells us that St Anthony:
‘…from his youth to so great an age preserved a uniform zeal for the discipline, and neither through old age was subdued by the desire of costly food, nor through the infirmity of his body changed the fashion of his clothing, nor washed even his feet with water, and yet remained entirely free from harm. For his eyes were undimmed and quite sound and he saw clearly; of his teeth he had not lost one, but they had become worn to the gums through the great age of the old man. He remained strong both in hands and feet; and while all men were using various foods, and washings and various garments, he appeared more cheerful and of greater strength.’
The second theme is that St Anthony is someone who trusts in God’s protection and is therefore unafraid either of demons or of wild beasts. This theme comes out particularly strongly in chapter 51:
‘So he was alone in the inner mountain, spending his time in prayer and discipline. And the brethren who served him asked that they might come every month and bring him olives, pulse and oil, for by now he was an old man. There then he passed his life, and endured such great wrestlings, ‘Not against flesh and blood ( Ephesians 6:12 ),’ as it is written, but against opposing demons, as we learned from those who visited him. For there they heard tumults, many voices, and, as it were, the clash of arms. At night they saw the mountain become full of wild beasts, and him also fighting as though against visible beings, and praying against them. And those who came to him he encouraged, while kneeling he contended and prayed to the Lord. Surely it was a marvellous thing that a man, alone in such a desert, feared neither the demons who rose up against him, nor the fierceness of the four-footed beasts and creeping things, for all they were so many. But in truth, as it is written, ‘He trusted in the Lord as Mount Sion (Psalm 125:1),’ with a mind unshaken and undisturbed; so that the demons rather fled from him, and the wild beasts, as it is written ( Job 5:23 ), ‘kept peace with him.’’
Furthermore, as someone who has learned to overcome the demons himself he is able to advise others how to successfully resist them too. We see this, for instance in chapter 42 where Anthony tells his fellow monks:
‘If, therefore, the devil himself confesses that his power is gone, we ought utterly to despise both him and his demons ; and since the enemy with his hounds has but devices of this sort, we, having got to know their weakness, are able to despise them. Wherefore let us not despond after this fashion, nor let us have a thought of cowardice in our heart, nor frame fears for ourselves, saying, I am afraid lest a demon should come and overthrow me; lest he should lift me up and cast me down; or lest rising against me on a sudden he confound me…..For if they find us faint-hearted and cowardly, they mightily increase our terror, by their delusions and threats; and with these the unhappy soul is thenceforth tormented. But if they see us rejoicing in the Lord, contemplating the bliss of the future, mindful of the Lord, deeming all things in His hand, and that no evil spirit has any strength against the Christian, nor any power at all over any one— when they behold the soul fortified with these thoughts— they are discomfited and turned backwards. Thus the enemy, seeing Job fenced round with them, withdrew from him; but finding Judas unguarded, him he took captive. Thus if we are wishful to despise the enemy, let us ever ponder over the things of the Lord, and let the soul ever rejoice in hope. And we shall see the snares of the demon are like smoke, and the evil ones themselves flee rather than pursue. For they are, as I said before, exceeding fearful, ever looking forward to the fire prepared for them.’
The third theme is that St Anthony was someone used by God to deliver people from demonic oppression |
potion of mutation] 30531 | Lair:8 | Lost mutation: Your system is resistant to poisons. [potion of cure mutation] 30531 | Lair:8 | Lost mutation: You evolve. [potion of cure mutation] 30531 | Lair:8 | Lost mutation: Your flesh is cold resistant. [potion of cure mutation] 30535 | Lair:8 | Got an ancient trident 30537 | Lair:8 | Identified the +4 trident of Gallantry {pierce, Str+3 Int+7} (You found it on level 8 of the Lair of Beasts) 32526 | Lair:8 | Got a bloodstained cloak 32532 | Lair:8 | Identified the +0 cloak "Frutoicw" {rElec MR- rCorr} (You found it on level 8 of the Lair of Beasts) 33252 | Lair:8 | Found a viscous altar of Jiyva. 33253 | Lair:8 | Found a staircase to the Slime Pits. 34334 | D:11 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 35392 | D:12 | Found a staircase to the Orcish Mines. 35459 | D:12 | Offered knowledge of Lee's Rapid Deconstruction by Vehumet. 35533 | D:12 | Reached XP level 15. HP: 90/95 MP: 33/40 36521 | D:12 | Got a dazzling mace 36544 | D:12 | Identified the +9 mace "Quinur" {antimagic, rN+ MR- Str+4 Int+4 Stlth-} (You found it on level 12 of the Dungeon) 37531 | D:13 | Reached skill level 5 in Stealth 38012 | Orc:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Orcish Mines 38182 | Orc:1 | Noticed Grum 38188 | Orc:1 | Killed Grum 39030 | Lair:1 | Learned a level 5 spell: Fireball 39169 | Orc:1 | Offered knowledge of Bolt of Magma by Vehumet. 39475 | Orc:1 | Found a bloodstained altar of Trog. 40434 | Orc:3 | Found a staircase to the Elven Halls. 40518 | Orc:2 | Offered knowledge of Spellforged Servitor by Vehumet. 41245 | Orc:4 | Entered Level 4 of the Orcish Mines 42446 | Orc:4 | Found a roughly hewn altar of Beogh. 42490 | Orc:4 | Offered knowledge of Bolt of Fire by Vehumet. 42699 | Orc:4 | Found Bemuga's Book Emporium. 42708 | Orc:4 | Found Musecalli's Assorted Antiques. 42713 | Orc:4 | Bought an iridescent war axe for 306 gold pieces 42713 | Orc:4 | Identified the +8 war axe of the Wolf {flame, rC++} (You bought it in a shop on level 4 of the Orcish Mines) 43545 | Orc:4 | Reached skill level 10 in Fire Magic 43869 | Orc:4 | Noticed Saint Roka 43885 | Orc:4 | Killed Saint Roka 43885 | Orc:4 | Offered knowledge of Freezing Cloud by Vehumet. 43923 | Orc:4 | Learned a level 6 spell: Freezing Cloud 44116 | Orc:4 | Found a roughly hewn altar of Beogh. 44310 | Orc:4 | Found Sapsop's General Store. 44500 | Orc:4 | Found Peaxt's Magic Scroll Emporium. 44511 | Orc:4 | Bought a scroll of acquirement for 728 gold pieces 44511 | Orc:4 | Bought a scroll of identify for 28 gold pieces 44511 | Orc:4 | Bought a scroll of identify for 28 gold pieces 44511 | Orc:4 | Bought 2 scrolls of identify for 56 gold pieces 44512 | Orc:4 | Got a pitted cloak 44523 | Orc:4 | Identified the +0 cloak "Cupem" {rElec Int+4 Dex-3} (You acquired it on level 4 of the Orcish Mines) 45180 | Lair:1 | need sinv 45344 | Snake:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Snake Pit 45721 | Snake:1 | Reached skill level 1 in Shields 46092 | Snake:1 | Reached XP level 16. HP: 72/100 MP: 31/41 46239 | Snake:1 | Offered knowledge of Lehudib's Crystal Spear by Vehumet. 46239 | Snake:1 | Offered knowledge of Shatter by Vehumet. 46239 | Snake:1 | Offered knowledge of Chain Lightning by Vehumet. 47383 | Snake:1 | Found Skaqusih's Magic Scroll Shop. 47984 | Snake:2 | Reached skill level 5 in Shields 48615 | Orc:4 | Bought a book of Annihilations for 1876 gold pieces 52839 | Snake:4 | Noticed Norris 53297 | Snake:4 | Noticed Aizul 53307 | Snake:4 | Killed Aizul 53548 | Snake:4 | Killed Norris 53871 | Snake:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Snake Pit 55636 | Shoals:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Shoals 55640 | Shoals:1 | Reached XP level 17. HP: 104/104 MP: 38/42 55662 | Lair:6 | Learned a level 9 spell: Fire Storm 55932 | Shoals:1 | Got a shimmering long sword 55937 | Shoals:1 | Identified the cursed -1 long sword of the Original Sin {slice, Contam Int+6 Stlth+} (You found it on level 1 of the Shoals) 56264 | Shoals:1 | Reached skill level 18 in Spellcasting 56268 | Shoals:1 | Noticed Frances 56310 | Shoals:1 | Killed Frances 57580 | Snake:5 | Reached skill level 15 in Conjurations 57839 | Snake:5 | Reached skill level 15 in Fire Magic 58325 | Snake:5 | Noticed Asterion 58375 | Snake:5 | Killed Asterion 61055 | Snake:5 | Got a serpentine rune of Zot 63160 | D:13 | Got an ebony hand axe 63161 | D:13 | Identified the +7 hand axe of Exquisite Death {drain, *Rage MR+ SInv} (You found it on level 13 of the Dungeon) 63936 | D:14 | Reached XP level 18. HP: 110/110 MP: 36/42 64567 | D:14 | Found a gate to the Vaults. 66001 | D:15 | Entered Level 15 of the Dungeon 66060 | D:15 | Reached XP level 19. HP: 115/115 MP: 43/43 66409 | D:15 | Found a large runed door. 66413 | D:15 | Found a large runed door. 66508 | D:15 | Found Efuutuf's Antique Armour Emporium. 66514 | D:15 | Bought a pair of embroidered gloves for 90 gold pieces 66917 | D:15 | Found Strapry's Jewellery Shop. 67037 | D:15 | Bought the ring of the Mage {Wiz MR++ Int+3} for 723 gold pieces 67453 | D:15 | Found a staircase to the Depths. 67961 | D:15 | Found a deep blue altar of Sif Muna. 67968 | D:15 | Found a glowing silver altar of Zin. 68646 | Elf:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Elven Halls 69459 | Elf:1 | Identified Vehumet's Grimoire of Battle Magic (You found it on level 1 of the Elven Halls) 71358 | Elf:2 | Found Kuvidoip's Food Shop. 71370 | Elf:2 | Found Tadghialee's Gadget Emporium. 71728 | Elf:2 | Found Ymugept's General Store. 71853 | Elf:2 | Found a burning altar of Makhleb. 72271 | Elf:2 | Found a huge runed gate. 72271 | Elf:2 | Found a huge runed gate. 72271 | Elf:2 | Found a huge runed gate. 72293 | Elf:2 | Found a huge runed gate. 72296 | Elf:2 | Found a huge runed gate. 72329 | Elf:2 | Found Wiagel's Armour Shop. 72572 | Elf:2 | Found Muvamulo's Elven Fire. 72583 | Elf:2 | Found Werusaog's Armour Shoppe. 73161 | Elf:2 | Reached skill level 10 in Dodging 73445 | Elf:2 | Reached XP level 20. HP: 121/121 MP: 38/44 73532 | Elf:2 | Noticed Nikola 73714 | Elf:2 | Killed Nikola 75141 | Elf:3 | Entered Level 3 of the Elven Halls 75141 | Elf:3 | Found Phuuthim's Book Shoppe. 75349 | Elf:3 | Found Bliahott's Assorted Antiques. 75510 | Elf:3 | Bought a shiny buckler for 157 gold pieces 76753 | Elf:3 | Noticed Snorg 76873 | Elf:3 | Killed Snorg 77461 | Elf:3 | Reached skill level 19 in Conjurations 77528 | Elf:3 | Got a flickering platinum amulet 77678 | Elf:3 | Identified the amulet "Eweotuy" {Spirit +Blink Int+2} (You took it off a deep elf annihilator on level 3 of the Elven Halls) 77702 | Elf:3 | Got a scintillating steel ring 78026 | Elf:3 | Identified the ring of the Cicada {rPois Str+5} (You took it off a deep elf demonologist on level 3 of the Elven Halls) 79411 | Vaults:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Vaults 80014 | Elf:2 | Bought the Reference Book on Damaging Heat for 868 gold pieces 80021 | Elf:2 | Learned a level 6 spell: Bolt of Fire 80906 | Vaults:1 | Reached XP level 21. HP: 128/128 MP: 37/45 81311 | Vaults:1 | Noticed Agnes 81313 | Vaults:1 | Killed Agnes 81378 | Vaults:1 | Found Klelucsi's Assorted Antiques. 83256 | Vaults:2 | Found Diurigot's Distillery. 83585 | Vaults:2 | Reached skill level 20 in Spellcasting 86470 | Vaults:3 | Noticed Donald 86475 | Vaults:3 | Killed Donald 87066 | Vaults:3 | Reached skill level 21 in Spellcasting 88603 | Vaults:3 | Reached XP level 22. HP: 133/133 MP: 33/46 89794 | Vaults:3 | Found a staircase to the Crypt. 90604 | Vaults:4 | Noticed Mennas 90944 | Vaults:4 | Found a white marble altar of Elyvilon. 90980 | Vaults:4 | Killed Mennas 91106 | Vaults:4 | Reached skill level 10 in Shields 91347 | Vaults:4 | Noticed Wiglaf 91350 | Vaults:4 | Killed Wiglaf 91742 | Vaults:4 | Found a portal to a secret trove of treasure. 93180 | Elf:2 | Bought a scroll of acquirement for 936 gold pieces 96820 | Shoals:4 | Found a runed door. 97255 | Shoals:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Shoals 97392 | Shoals:4 | Gained mutation: You have large cloven feet. [potion of beneficial mutation] 97492 | Shoals:5 | Found a flickering gateway to a bazaar. 97500 | Bazaar | Entered a bazaar 97630 | Bazaar | Found Viokod's Assorted Antiques. 97633 | Bazaar | Found Jiona's Gadget Boutique. 97634 | Bazaar | Found Vixtoss' General Store. 97635 | Bazaar | Found Akkuckaa's Jewellery Boutique. 97667 | Shoals:5 | Reached XP level 23. HP: 121/137 MP: 9/47 97672 | Shoals:5 | Noticed Ilsuiw 97982 | Shoals:5 | Got a smoking scale mail 97983 | Shoals:5 | Identified the +5 scale mail of the Vaults {rElec Dex+4} (You found it on level 5 of the Shoals) 98531 | Shoals:5 | Killed Ilsuiw 99222 | Shoals:5 | Got a barnacled rune of Zot 99509 | Shoals:2 | Got an ancient hunting sling 99510 | Shoals:2 | Identified the +7 hunting sling of Dust {flame, rC+ Str+4} (You found it on level 2 of the Shoals) 99938 | Depths:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Depths 100187 | Depths:1 | Found a gateway to Hell. 100354 | Depths:1 | Noticed the Enchantress 100356 | Depths:1 | Killed the Enchantress 100356 | Depths:1 | Reached skill level 22 in Spellcasting 100543 | Depths:1 | Got a faerie dragon armour 100559 | Depths:1 | Identified the +3 faerie dragon armour {-Tele rN+ Int+5} (You took it off the Enchantress on level 1 of the Depths) 102601 | Depths:1 | Reached skill level 15 in Shields 102796 | Depths:2 | Reached skill level 23 in Spellcasting 103212 | Depths:2 | Reached skill level 24 in Spellcasting 104662 | Depths:2 | Reached skill level 25 in Spellcasting 104925 | Depths:2 | Reached XP level 24. HP: 143/143 MP: 43/49 108727 | Depths:3 | Found a one-way gate leading to the halls of Pandemonium. 109795 | Depths:3 | Learned a level 8 spell: Lehudib's Crystal Spear 109873 | Depths:3 | Identified The Arcane Secrets of Spellcraft 110799 | Depths:3 | Reached skill level 10 in Stealth 112498 | Depths:4 | Reached XP level 25. HP: 119/153 MP: 36/49 113011 | Depths:4 | Reached skill level 15 in Fighting 113386 | Depths:4 | Found a one-way gate to the infinite horrors of the Abyss. 113435 | Depths:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Depths 113435 | Depths:5 | Found a gateway to a ziggurat. 115201 | Depths:5 | Reached skill level 10 in Earth Magic 115662 | Depths:5 | Found a gate to the Realm of Zot. 118295 | Crypt:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Crypt 119750 | Lair:1 | Learned a level 1 spell: Animate Skeleton 120263 | Crypt:1 | Reached skill level 1 in Necromancy 120863 | Crypt:1 | Found an ancient bone altar of Kikubaaqudgha. 121160 | Crypt:1 | Reached skill level 5 in Necromancy 122141 | Crypt:2 | Got a bloodstained chain mail 122142 | Crypt:2 | Identified the cursed -2 chain mail "Prubluoq" {Str+7} (You found it on level 2 of the Crypt) 123684 | Crypt:2 | Reached skill level 10 in Necromancy 123964 | Crypt:3 | Entered Level 3 of the Crypt 123982 | Crypt:3 | Learned a level 8 spell: Necromutation 124044 | Crypt:3 | Reached skill level 1 in Transmutations 124044 | Crypt:3 | Reached XP level 26. HP: 159/159 MP: 32/50 124929 | Crypt:3 | Found a staircase to the Tomb. 125269 | Crypt:3 | Reached skill level 5 in Transmutations 125648 | Crypt:3 | Noticed an ancient lich 125653 | Crypt:3 | Killed an ancient lich 126206 | Crypt:3 | Got a scintillating jade amulet 127469 | Crypt:3 | Reached skill level 10 in Transmutations 127827 | Crypt:3 | Found an ancient bone altar of Kikubaaqudgha. 127829 | Crypt:3 | Found a basalt altar of Yredelemnul. 128086 | Crypt:3 | Reached skill level 1 in Armour 128624 | Vaults:3 | Identified the amulet "Clutt" {rMut MR+ Str+8} (You took it off a skeletal warrior on level 3 of the Crypt) 129177 | Slime:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Pits of Slime 129194 | Slime:1 | Reached skill level 5 in Armour 130258 | Slime:6 | Entered Level 6 of the Pits of Slime 130360 | Slime:6 | Reached skill level 10 in Armour 130767 | Slime:6 | Noticed the royal jelly 130769 | Slime:6 | Killed the royal jelly 130769 | Slime:6 | Reached XP level 27. HP: 163/163 MP: 24/50 130998 | Slime:6 | Got a slimy rune of Zot 131007 | Slime:6 | Got a blackened scale mail 131013 | Slime:6 | Got a warped platinum ring 131015 | Slime:6 | Identified the +1 scale mail "Stehenu" {rN+ Dex+5} (You found it on level 6 of the Pits of Slime) 131016 | Slime:6 | Identified the ring "Schuexuha" {rF+ rC+} (You found it on level 6 of the Pits of Slime) 131037 | Slime:6 | Got a jewelled scale mail 131038 | Slime:6 | Identified the +3 scale mail "Smebuaciab" {rF+ rN+ MP+9 Int+4 Dex-4} (You found it on level 6 of the Pits of Slime) 131090 | Slime:6 | Got a translucent mace 131091 | Slime:6 | Identified the +9 mace "Suall" {crush, +Blink rF- rC+ Str-3 Dex+3} (You found it on level 6 of the Pits of Slime) 131412 | Lair:1 | Learned a level 9 spell: Tornado 131763 | Depths:5 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 131768 | Abyss:1 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 132223 | Abyss:2 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 133368 | Abyss:4 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 133564 | Abyss:4 | Reached skill level 10 in Air Magic 133905 | Abyss:4 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 133906 | Abyss:4 | Found an opulent altar of Gozag. 133951 | Abyss:4 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 133959 | Abyss:4 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 133991 | Abyss:4 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 134166 | Abyss:4 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 134936 | Abyss:4 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 135981 | Abyss:4 | Got an abyssal rune of Zot 136004 | Depths:5 | Escaped the Abyss 136316 | Zot:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Realm of Zot 139506 | Zot:2 | Reached skill level 15 in Air Magic 142126 | Zot:3 | Reached skill level 15 in Necromancy 142734 | Zot:4 | Noticed an orb of fire 143740 | Zot:4 | Killed an orb of fire 144916 | Vaults:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Vaults 148027 | Vaults:5 | Reached skill level 15 in Transmutations 148349 | Vaults:5 | Got a silver rune of Zot 149162 | Vaults:5 | Identified the Almanac of Darkness 149662 | Vaults:5 | Identified Smuo's Compendium of Earth and Transformation 149860 | Vaults:5 | Got a pair of smoking boots 149871 | Vaults:5 | Identified the cursed +0 pair of boots "Joelip" {rPois rF- MR+} (You found it on level 5 of the Vaults) Table legend: A = Turns spent in this place as a percentage of turns spent in the entire game. B = Non-inter-level travel turns spent in this place as a percentage of non-inter-level travel turns spent in the entire game. C = Inter-level travel turns spent in this place as a percentage of turns spent in this place. D = Turns resting spent in this place as a percentage of non-inter-level travel turns spent in this place. E = Turns spent auto-exploring this place as a percentage of non-inter-level travel turns spent in this place. F = Non-inter-level travel turns spent in this place divided by the number of levels of this place that you've seen. A B C D E F +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------------------- Total | 100.0 | 100.0 | 0.7 | 8.5 | 1.9 | 649.8 Dungeon | 15.2 | 15.2 | 0.8 | 9.1 | 4.8 | 459.7 Temple | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 97.0 Lair | 9.5 | 9.4 | 1.6 | 9.8 | 4.0 | 533.1 Shoals | 5.6 | 5.6 | 0.5 | 8.0 | 0.5 | 508.0 Snake Pit | 10.8 | 10.8 | 0.5 | 7.9 | 0.9 | 986.6 Slime Pits | 1.8 | 1.8 | 0.7 | 9.4 | 0.0 | 133.0 Orcish Mines | 6.1 | 6.0 | 1.0 | 8.3 | 3.6 | 687.5 Elven Halls | 8.4 | 8.4 | 0.7 | 7.8 | 1.1 | 1279.3 Vaults | 13.0 | 13.0 | 0.6 | 8.7 | 1.3 | 1179.8 Crypt | 7.3 | 7.3 | 0.6 | 8.0 | 0.3 | 1105.3 Depths | 11.7 | 11.7 | 0.4 | 9.3 | 1.2 | 1063.4 Zot | 5.0 | 5.0 | 0.6 | 7.7 | 0.6 | 568.0 Abyss | 5.3 | 5.3 | 0.0 | 6.8 | 0.0 | 602.5 Bazaar | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 8.3 | 0.0 | 36.0 Sewer | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 11.9 | 0.0 | 118.0 +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------------------- Table legend: A = Kills in this place as a percentage of kills in entire the game. B = Kills by you in this place as a percentage of kills by you in the entire game. C = Kills by friends in this place as a percentage of kills by friends in the entire game. D = Other kills in this place as a percentage of other kills in the entire game. E = Experience gained in this place as a percentage of experience gained in the entire game. F = Experience gained in this place divided by the number of levels of this place that you have seen. A B C D E F +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------------------- Total | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 27193.6 Dungeon | 15.2 | 15.4 | 0.0 | 20.6 | 4.2 | 5383.9 Lair | 8.9 | 8.7 | 0.0 | 32.4 | 3.7 | 8893.2 Shoals | 5.1 | 5.1 | 9.5 | 2.9 | 5.1 | 19280.0 Snake Pit | 6.1 | 6.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 6.8 | 25725.6 Slime Pits | 3.2 | 3.1 | 16.7 | 0.0 | 4.2 | 13373.8 Orcish Mines | 12.0 | 12.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.8 | 8427.8 Elven Halls | 5.9 | 6.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 7.7 | 48585.3 Vaults | 15.2 | 15.2 | 11.9 | 20.6 | 20.5 | 78013.8 Crypt | 6.3 | 6.3 | 9.5 | 0.0 | 9.5 | 60459.3 Depths | 12.3 | 12.0 | 38.1 | 14.7 | 19.2 | 73069.4 Zot | 3.4 | 3.4 | 4.8 | 0.0 | 11.3 | 53966.0 Abyss | 6.1 | 6.1 | 9.5 | 5.9 | 6.0 | 28521.0 Sewer | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 2.9 | 0.0 | 166.0 +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------------------- Action | 1- 3 | 4- 6 | 7- 9 | 10-12 | 13-15 | 16-18 | 19-21 | 22-24 | 25-27 || total -------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------++------- Melee: Morningstar | | | 1 | 7 | 8 | | | | || 16 Trident | | | | | 14 | 8 | 1 | 48 | 72 || 143 Cast: Magic Dart | 89 | 184 | 404 | 235 | 430 | 99 | 47 | 11 | 5 || 1504 Conjure Flame | 1 | 8 | 48 | 43 | 36 | 28 | 30 | 6 | 4 || 204 Mephitic Cloud | | 7 | 34 | 61 | 34 | 9 | 5 | 1 | || 151 Repel Missiles | | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 7 || 25 Blink | | | 1 | 4 | 14 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 33 || 68 Flame Tongue | | | 47 | 96 | 44 | 2 | | | || 189 Throw Icicle | | | | 163 | 201 | 131 | 31 | 92 | 9 || 627 Sticky Flame | | | | 9 | 53 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 2 || 74 Poisonous Cloud | | | | | 210 | 10 | 64 | 5 | 1 || 290 Iron Shot | | | | | 191 | 154 | 182 | 86 | 240 || 853 Fireball | | | | | 53 | 48 | 86 | 15 | 8 || 210 Freezing Cloud | | | | | 23 | 233 | 102 | 66 | 13 || 437 Fire Storm | | | | | | | 25 | 53 | 90 || 168 Bolt of Fire | | | | | | | 193 | 600 | 997 || 1790 Lehudib's Crystal | | | | | | | | 3 | 56 || 59 Tornado | | | | | | | | | 8 || 8 Evoke: Wand | | | | 6 | | | | 7 | 22 || 35 Use: Scroll | | | 16 | 12 | 21 | 11 | 11 | 16 | 26 || 113 Potion | | | | 1 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 13 || 25 Stab: Sleeping | | | | | | | 1 | | || 1 Distracted | | | | | | | | 1 | || 1 Eat: Chunk | 4 | 8 | 18 | 24 | 60 | 28 | 77 | 72 | 32 || 323 Meat ration | | | 1 | | | | | | 2 || 3 Fruit | | | | 12 | 24 | 25 | | | 13 || 74 Pizza | | | | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | || 4 Beef jerky | | | | | | 2 | | | || 2 Royal jelly | | | | | | 1 | | | || 1 Bread ration | | | | | | | | | 13 || 13 Vanquished Creatures the royal jelly (Slime:6) An orb of fire (Zot:4) An ancient lich (Crypt:3) Norris (Snake:4) Saint Roka (Orc:4) 2 curse toes (Zot:1) Mennas (Vaults:4) 12 golden dragons A profane servitor (Crypt:3) 3 bone dragons the Enchantress (Depths:1) 3 electric golems (Zot:2) Nikola (Elf:2) 15 tentacled monstrosities 2 Hell Sentinels 9 liches 19 acid blobs 2 deep elf blademasters (Elf:3) A quicksilver dragon (Vaults:5) Asterion (Snake:5) 2 titans (Vaults:5) 2 deep elf master archers (Elf:3) 5 sphinxes 12 storm dragons Rupert (Lair:2) Agnes (Vaults:1) 12 tengu reavers 12 ancient champions 12 shadow dragons 7 tentacled starspawn Frances (Shoals:1) 3 draconian monks (Zot:2) 8 greater nagas (Snake:5) 12 azure jellies Ilsuiw (Shoals:5) 12 frost giants 6 revenants 11 fire giants Donald (Vaults:3) Wiglaf (Vaults:4) 5 iron dragons 7 deep elf sorcerers 17 vault wardens Aizul (Snake:4) 5 draconian knights A curse skull (Crypt:3) A cacodemon (Abyss:4) A draconian zealot (Zot:2) 2 ghost moths (Zot:3) A balrug (Abyss:1) A draconian annihilator (Depths:5) 2 orc warlords (Depths:3) 10 ghouls 7 emperor scorpions 7 spriggan defenders A draconian shifter (Depths:5) 13 very ugly things 22 stone giants 2 draconian callers (Zot:2) 13 ironheart preservers 6 war gargoyles 9 vampire knights 6 grey draconians 3 green draconians 4 pale draconians 18 deep elf annihilators 10 deep elf demonologists 2 yellow draconians 5 purple draconians 3 white draconians 3 black draconians 5 dire elephants A mottled draconian (Zot:1) 2 lorocyprocas 11 eidola An unborn (Crypt:3) 18 ettins Snorg (Elf:3) A merfolk javelineer (Shoals:5) 2 minotaurs 25 fire dragons 10 deep elf death magi 12 merfolk impalers 9 yaktaur captains 16 great orbs of eyes A blizzard demon (Depths:2) 38 vault guards 2 mummy priests (Crypt:3) 7 death oozes 8 deep elf high priests 9 death cobs 15 jiangshi Fannar (Lair:3) A quicksilver dragon skeleton (Depths:3) Harold (Lair:6) 15 naga warriors 24 ice dragons 3 catoblepae 9 centaur warriors 5 spriggan air magi 5 hydras 5 merfolk avatars 5 merfolk aquamancers An alligator snapping turtle (Shoals:5) 2 rakshasas Erica (D:10) A satyr (Shoals:3) 10 anacondas 3 deep troll earth magi 18 dancing weapons 38 death yaks 4 tengu warriors A death knight (Crypt:3) 6 soul eaters 5 shock serpents 10 vampire magi 6 spriggan berserkers 18 naga sharpshooters 16 thrashing horrors 2 sun demons 21 ogre magi 6 deep troll shamans 11 orc high priests 39 skeletal warriors 36 deep elf knights 4 hell hogs (Abyss:4) 3 spriggans (Depths:1) 9 wretched stars A sea snake (shapeshifter) (Elf:3) 2 ice devils A golden dragon zombie (Depths:3) A swamp dragon (Zot:2) 17 hell knights A death drake (shapeshifter) (Vaults:4) 2 spatial maelstroms A fire crab (Vaults:4) 11 shadow wraiths A storm dragon skeleton (Depths:2) 3 giant orange brains An anaconda zombie (Crypt:3) 14 deep elf summoners 5 salamander mystics 31 deep trolls 12 hill giants 3 lindwurms 19 sea snakes 5 flayed ghosts A golden dragon skeleton (Depths:3) 7 naga ritualists 24 orc knights An obsidian statue (Depths:2) 13 harpies 10 unseen horrors A giant orange brain (shapeshifter) (Depths:5) 5 death drakes 30 deep elf conjurers 13 necromancers 3 tengu zombies An orb spider (shapeshifter) (Depths:3) 9 mana vipers 11 ironbrand convokers 4 wolf spiders A shadow dragon skeleton (Depths:2) 2 anaconda skeletons 4 iron dragon zombies 6 water nymphs 14 fauns A cyclops (shapeshifter) (Vaults:3) 64 ugly things A wolf spider zombie (Crypt:3) 11 phantasmal warriors A stone giant zombie (Crypt:2) 10 orc sorcerers A fire giant zombie (Abyss:4) 16 griffons 4 worldbinders (Abyss:4) A salamander (shapeshifter) (Elf:1) 9 salamanders 4 wizards A black mamba (shapeshifter) (Elf:2) 17 cyclopes 7 manticores 2 hornets 2 iron dragon skeletons (Depths:2) 3 shining eyes 42 black mambas 4 guardian serpents 18 moths of wrath A frost giant skeleton (Depths:2) 10 sirens 8 elephants 6 sixfirhies 9 centaur zombies 14 vault sentinels A stone giant skeleton (Crypt:3) 27 naga magi 2 eyes of devastation (shapeshifter) (Depths:1) 2 gargoyles 9 eyes of devastation 7 orange demons 9 kobold demonologists 11 komodo dragons 3 torpor snails 2 smoke demons (Abyss:4) A yaktaur (shapeshifter) (Vaults:4) A rust devil (Depths:2) 37 yaktaurs 4 apocalypse crabs (Abyss:4) A demonic crawler (Abyss:4) A swamp worm zombie (Crypt:2) 2 efreet A death |
.
15. Philadelphia (0-12)
Average predicted finish: 15th
Biggest factor in rise/fall: None. The Sixers are right where they wanted to be and right where the basketball world picked them. Congrats, fellas!
Category: HT News, Uncategorized / Tags:, Eastern Conference, Steve Aschburner / 49 Comments on Unexpected beasts, leasts suggest surprisingly wide-open East /Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) responded to criticism of his quest to get a copy of the Republican leadership's ObamaCare replacement plan, saying he will not vote for "ObamaCare Lite."
He said the Republican Party should not act in the same way then-Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) did when she urged the passage of ObamaCare "to find out what is in it."
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Of Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-Wisconsin) purported replacement plan being worked on by GOP leadership, Paul said "I think it is ObamaCare Lite. I didn't sign on to vote for a new government program."
He said there were several reported similarities between Republicans' replacement plan and the current Obamacare law.
Those similarities included "Democrat ideas dressed up in Republican clothing" like paying an individual mandate penalty to insurance companies rather than the government.
"I think there is consensus for repeal," Paul said, "If you add replacement to it and if the replacement is ObamaCare Lite, there's not consensus."
He urged House leadership to "save embarrassment" and work with conservatives on the legislation.
Watch Paul Ryan's original comments HERE.
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For many years the government pushed the Indians of the Robeson County region to declare themselves either white or African American, but for the Indians, state recognition grew critical when the schools became racially segregated in the 1870s. In order for their children to attend public schools, the Indians had to deny their heritage. There were no public schools for Indians.
State recognition led the county to establish a three-part school system with schools at all levels for the Indians. In 1887, the legislature also established the Croatan Normal School to educate Indian teachers. The school is now known as the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
Struggling with its own identity and with federal recognition, the tribe adopted a number of names over the years, finally settling on Lumbee. The name comes from the Lumber River, which winds its way through the Indians’ traditional homeland.A group of prominent economists and socio-political thinkers vehemently opposed proposals to mandate state universities and colleges (SUCs) to offer tuition-free education, arguing that while “well-intended,” such a policy would be “anti-poor.”
In a press statement issued on Tuesday, advocacy group Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) instead pushed for the implementation of an existing law that unifies and rationalizes all modalities for student financial assistance, including scholarships, grants-in-aid and student loans.
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FEF said the proposal to increase funding for free tuition to SUCs would benefit higher-income students and provide unfair competition to private institutions which are more efficient in providing higher education.
Providing P8.3 billion to SUCs for free tuition is “anti-poor” because this considers only tuition in the cost of higher education, FEF said.
“Tuition covers only one-third of the cost of attending college. The balance consists of cost of living allowances, which the poor are in no position to pay. Higher income students who have the ability to pay for these living allowances will end up using the free tuition subsidy,” FEF said.
FEF also argued that enrollment in SUCs was already highly favorable to higher income students.
The group quoted a research by FEF fellows Aniceo Orbeta and Vicente Paqueo who cited – based on the 1999 and 2014 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey – that the bulk of students in public higher educational institutions were mostly from higher income groups while students coming from the bottom 20 percent consisted of only 11 percent in 1999 and 12 percent in 2014.
“Students from poor families are only a small proportion of SUCs’ student population because they can hardly pay for the full cost of attending college which not only consists of tuition, but board and lodging expenses as well. They are also less prepared academically to pass the entrance exams and pass the academic requirements of four-year college courses,” FEF argued.
“Increasing the budget for free tuition will intensify the exodus of higher income students from private educational institutions toward SUCs and further worsen the proportion of poor students attending SUCs. Higher income students who are more academically prepared will capture the benefits of free college education.”
FEF also feared that the allocation of P8.3 billion for free college tuition would hurt private higher education institutions by creating unfair competition. It added that private higher educational institutions were not in a similar position of being able to offer free tuition from taxpayer pesos.
As an alternative, the group instead proposed that the government channel funds to implement the Unified Student Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST), enacted into law through Republic Act No. 10687.
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Signed into law by then Pres. Benigno Aquino in 2015, this piece of legislation provides a comprehensive and unified financial assistance system to tertiary students in the Philippines. This was meant to give qualified and disadvantaged students access to scholarships and other forms of financial support without the patronage of politicians.
“It also doesn’t favor SUCs over private higher educational institutions as the assistance is given to the student and not the school,” FEF said of the UniFAST law.
“Targeting the poor with full financing using grants-in-aid under the Uni FAST law will clearly benefit more poor students than an untargeted general tuition subsidy for students of SUCs,” the FEF said, quoting fellows Orbeta and Paqueo.
Sen. Bam Aquino, who chairs the Committee of Education in the 17th Congress, is the proponent of a bill seeking to make tertiary education in all SUCs free for all students.
Citing data submitted by the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges, Aquino said on Tuesday that up to 77 percent of students from majority of SUCs come from a family earning minimum wage income or less.
“They may not be the poorest of the poor, but many of them still come from families of minimum wage earners that need help to cover major expenses like tuition fees,” Aquino argued.
“It’s unfortunate that some groups fail to see the value of this policy. But many of us in the Senate believe this is a step in the right direction,” he added.
FEF, an advocacy group for good economic governance and market-friendly reforms, is chaired by former Finance Secretary Roberto de Ocampo. Its vice chair is Romy Bernardo while the president is Calixto Chikiamco. Its senior advisers are former Prime Minister/Finance Minister Cesar Virata and UP Economics Professor Emeritus and former Economic Planning Minister Gerardo Sicat. Board members include Anthony Abad, Art Corpuz, Eduardo Gana, Felipe Medalla, Vaugh Montes, Simon Paterno, Perry Pe and Gloria Tan-Climaco.
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According to reports from Brazilian media, two environmentalists known for their outspoken opposition to deforestation in the Amazon have been killed in a manner investigators are describing as an execution. José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo, his wife, were found shot to death near their settlement in the Brazilian state of Para, where they offered firsthand accounts of illegal logging. Just six months earlier Ribeiro da Silva foreshadowed his own demise: "I could be here today talking to you and in one month you will get the news that I disappeared. I will protect the forest at all costs."Police delegate Marcos Augusto Cruz says that the two Amazon activists were heading back towards their camp early this morning when they were shot and killed by snipers. "The perpetrators were already lying in wait. They waited there for the victims to commit murder," Cruz said in an interview with G1 Globo.
"Absolutely, it was a crime to order, at the behest of someone. The characteristics are typical of an execution," added Cruz.
Photo via Amazoon Press
According to police, no suspects have yet been named in the murders, though in a speech made recently at a TEDx conference, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva spoke about the numerous threats he faces for rising in defense of the Amazon rainforest:
I could be here today talking to you and in one month you will get the news that I disappeared. I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment... because I denounce the loggers and charcoal producers, and that is why they think I cannot exist. [People] ask me, 'are you afraid?' Yes, I'm a human being, of course I am afraid. But my fear does not silence me. As long as I have the strength to walk I will denounce all of those who damage the forest.
Both forest activists had been active in reporting deforestation in the Amazon since 1997, though in recent years they'd come under threat from unknown assailants. According to a family member of the murdered environmentalists, Claudelice Silva dos Santos, the couple's house had been ransacked previously, and guns had been fired near their residence on prior occasions.
"Many people had an interest in his death," says Claudelice.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has issued a full investigation into the murders.
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Help Save The Amazon's Indigenous PeopleMarine Le Pen speaks during a news conference Nov. 9, 2016, in Nanterre, France. /AFP Photo/Martin Bureau/ AFP/Getty Images
PARIS — Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front and a contender in the country’s upcoming presidential election, was seen at Trump Tower in Manhattan on Thursday.
The details of Le Pen’s visit were not immediately clear. According to a media pool report, she declined to say whether she would meet with Donald Trump while she was there.
Aides to the president-elect quickly insisted that she would not: Sean Spicer, Trump’s press secretary, subsequently retweeted a CNN report in which he had said that Le Pen would meet neither with Trump nor any members of his transition team.
“Trump tower is open to the public,” Spicer said.
This picture distributed courtesy of the U.S. president-elect transition pool reporter Samuel Levine shows far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, right, when spotted at Donald Trump's New York headquarters building on Jan. 12, 2017 having coffee at Trump Ice Cream Parlor on the ground floor of Trump Tower, with three men including her partner Louis Aliot, second right. (Samuel Levine/AFP/Getty Images)
And yet Le Pen’s visit fits into a recurring pattern of the Trump transition period: a foreign populist leader somehow appearing at Trump’s headquarters before the president-elect has met with the actual leaders of the countries concerned.
Just three days after the U.S. election, Trump received Nigel Farage, the interim head of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the principal advocate of the “Brexit” campaign for Britain to leave the European Union.
Furthermore, Le Pen has been among the most vocal foreign supporters of Trump since his election, heralding his victory as a democratic choice that could “bury the old order” and serve as a steppingstone to “building tomorrow’s world.”
As a candidate in France’s upcoming presidential election in late April and early May, Le Pen has couched her campaign as a potential next chapter in the populist wave in the Western world that fueled the Brexit vote and Trump’s victory.
Aside from her appearance Thursday morning in Trump Tower’s basement cafeteria, links between Le Pen’s campaign and the Trump team had already been established. In November, Stephen Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News and now Trump’s chief strategist, reached out to the Le Pen family in hopes of “working together.”
Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the niece of Marine Le Pen, wrote on Twitter in November that she enthusiastically accepted Bannon’s invitation.
On the eve of the French presidential election, ties between the formerly fringe National Front party and the president-elect of the United States immediately caused significant anxiety.
Thursday’s reports of Le Pen's appearance at Trump Tower fanned fears that her platform — marked by hostility to immigrants, the desire to cozy up to Vladimir Putin’s Russia and a dogged insistence on taking France out of the European Union — could soon be legitimized.
Although an actual meeting between Trump and Le Pen could not be confirmed, political analysts in Paris said they worry more about the likely alliance to come, especially after Trump’s inauguration next week.
For Dominique Moïsi, co-founder of the French Center for International Relations (IFRI), this "would be the end of the transatlantic alliance, and the end of the European Union as a club of values." He added, "It would be the end of a period, the end of a world.”
For the moment, Le Pen is rising in opinion polls in advance of the French election. She appears likely to reach the second and final round of the vote.
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Can Trump’s win boost France’s far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen?
Marine Le Pen could win the French election — but first she must win a family feud
Meet the European leaders hoping to cause the next BrexitImage caption David Cameron said he wanted a full recovery of his party in Scotland
Prime Minister David Cameron has said he is ready to fight an independence referendum if the SNP "ever have the courage" to call one.
Speaking at a Scottish reception at the Tory's Birmingham conference, Mr Cameron said the nationalists did not look likely to hold one soon.
He also said he wanted to see a "full recovery" of the Scottish Tory Party.
The SNP said that if Mr Cameron wanted a referendum he should call on the Scottish Tory leader to support one.
The nationalists dropped plans to hold the poll after conceding that it would not make it through Holyrood without the support of opposition parties.
In response to the PM's call, the SNP's Alasdair Allan said: "The confusion between David Cameron and (Scottish Tory leader) Annabel Goldie continues. Do they even talk to each other?
"The truth is the Tories - like all the London parties - have consistently refused to support the people of Scotland's right to choose.
Analysis The prime minister said the Tories would be ready and willing to fight for the Union if Alex Salmond ever had the courage to call such a ballot. But hang on. Mr Salmond only shelved such a proposal because it faced vigorous opposition from, among others, the Tories, and was certain to be defeated at holyrood. Tories here insist there is no inconsistency. Read Brian Taylor's blog
"If Mr Cameron wants a referendum he should be calling on Annabel Goldie to support one instead of blocking it."
Currently, the Conservative Party has one MP in Scotland and it failed to increase its representation at the general election.
Speaking about the independence referendum on Monday evening, Mr Cameron said: "I will be on that campaign if they ever have the courage to call that referendum on the future of the United Kingdom, but it doesn't look like they do right now, does it?"
However, speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme later, Mr Cameron said: "I don't want independence or an independence referendum.
"If there ever is one you'll find me campaigning up and down Scotland with others who want to save our United Kingdom.
"My sense is that (SNP leader) Alex Salmond is slightly going off the idea because I don't think there is a majority for independence.
"I want to keep the United Kingdom together - we're a family. I don't want this family to fall out and I'll always doing everything I can to keep the family together."
At the Monday evening reception, the PM asked Scottish party members to take on their opponents and win the argument about cutting the deficit.
He told them: "It is great to have a Conservative minister in the Scottish Office.
"We face a very big challenge in Scotland - we just have the one member of parliament.
"We have a very strong team in the Scottish Parliament and I just want you to know I am as committed today as I was five years ago when I became leader of this party to help bring about a full recovery of the Conservatives in Scotland.
"While there is breath in my body I will go on fighting for that because I believe there are thousands, hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland who share our vision of the importance of the family, who back entrepreneurship, who believe in the big society, which want to see reform of public services, who always stand up for our Armed Forces and who believe in the United Kingdom."
Mr Cameron also dropped a heavy hint that the aircraft carrier currently being built on the Clyde will be completed, despite the upcoming defence cuts.
But speaking to BBC Scotland, Mr Cameron refused to be drawn on whether a second ship would be built.
One of the carriers is already under construction at Govan, with final assembly due to take place at Rosyth.INDIANAPOLIS -- Colts president Bill Polian says he was "very imprecise" when he described an 18-game schedule as a done deal.
Two days after saying a longer schedule is a "fait accompli" on his local radio show, Polian returned to the airways Wednesday and told ESPN's "Mike and Mike In The Morning" program what he meant was that the Colts are preparing as if the 18-game season is going to happen.
On Tuesday, NFL Players Association representatives and league officials met in Washington to discuss a new collective bargaining agreement. The expanded season was one of the topics.
Polian explained that the competition committee, which he serves on, is still discussing how to make it work. A proposal would still have to be discussed with the union and approved by league owners.
"I created a headline that was 180 degrees from what was right," Polian said. "Bad job by me in answering the question."
NFLPA president Kevin Mawae took offense to Polian's original comments.
"My knee-jerk reaction is that I didn't know [Polian] had the authority to make announcements on his own,'' Mawae told The Boston Globe in a telephone interview. "But the way I understand it -- and I had meetings all day -- he said he wasn't in favor of it."
Mawae told the newspaper that adding two more regular-season games is a huge sticking point with the players.
"From a players' perspective, this is not a done deal," Mawae told The Globe. "We spent three hours in the bargaining session talking about this and, as players, the thing that concerns us the most is the toll this will take on a player's body. Look at someone like me, a 16-year vet -- that'd be 32 more games.
"Of all the things we're trying to sell to other players, the 18-game season is the hardest thing to sell."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.European Commission has cracked down hard on US icons such as Apple, Starbucks and Amazon.
The United States has attacked high-profile EU tax probes into American companies as unfair and encroaching on the US government's right to tax them, the Financial Times reported today.The European Commission has cracked down hard on companies, including US icons such as Apple, Starbucks and Amazon, who worked out arrangements with EU member states allowing them to slash their tax bills.EU Competition Commissioner Magrethe Vestager has made a point of testing these "tax rulings," which are legal in themselves, to see if they breach strict bloc competition rules by giving some companies an advantage over their rivals.The FT said Robert Stack, a US Treasury official, met EU competition officials in Brussels on Friday to express Washington's concerns."We are concerned that the EU Commission appears to be disproportionately targeting US companies," Stack was quoted as saying.Stack's visit came just one day after the Commission launched plans to stamp out tax avoidance by multi-national corporations."The days are numbered for companies that aggressively reduce their tax bills," EU Economics Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said.The key proposal is that a company should report its profit country by country, rather than as now be allowed to shift earnings around into lower tax jurisdictions.The plans were unveiled amid a storm of protest at a British government agreement for Internet giant Google to pay £130 million ($185 million, 170 million euros) in back taxes.Critics denounced the deal as ridiculously low given Google's size and earnings but the company insisted the settlement was fair and that it complied fully with the tax laws in the countries where it operates.Italy is meanwhile demanding Google pay some 200 million euros in back taxes and France reportedly wants 500 million euros after an investigation that included raids by police.Google and Apple have complained they are being unfairly targeted by the European authorities. Commission officials were not immediately available for comment on the report but Brussels has rejected charges of an anti-US bias in the past.WordPress 4.2 will soon be released with expanded core support for emoji, a new feature that users either love or love to hate. By making a key database change from utf8mb3 to utf8mb4 to add support for emoji, WordPress also receives the benefit of being able to natively handle Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters.
On the surface, adding emoji support to WordPress may seem like simply adding a ton of new emoticons. However, the technical aspects involved are complex. Brandon Kraft has a great article that explains what emoji is, the database changes involved, and why you should care.
During the State of The Word at WordCamp San Francisco last year, Matt Mullenweg said, “If WordPress is going to be truly global, truly inclusive, it has to be fully available for other languages.” Kraft explains that WordPress 4.2 will be able to natively handle Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters.
Han characters are four-byte characters. These characters, 道 and 草, for example, are Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters that have been standardized into a single character map. By enabling utf8mb4, WordPress can now natively handle these characters.
Andrew Nacin emphasized on Twitter that, supporting 4-byte unicode characters in WordPress is critical to making WordPress global.
I won’t use emoji, but its impact on improving WordPress’ internationalization efforts can’t be ignored. Gary Pendergast, who is largely responsible for adding the feature should be commended for his efforts. How do you feel about emoji support in WordPress and will you use it?
Like this: Like Loading...Story highlights Donald Trump on Monday night repeated the offensive term a woman attending his rally shouted in reference to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz
The term was flung into the political orbit just a day before the New Hampshire primary
Manchester, New Hampshire (CNN) Donald Trump on Monday night repeated the offensive term a woman attending his rally shouted in reference to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
After first calling on a woman close to the stage to "shout it out" again, Trump repeated the woman's one-word insult aimed at Cruz: "She said he's a pussy."
The term was flung into the political orbit just a day before the New Hampshire primary as Trump was discussing Cruz's apparent hesitation during the last GOP debate on whether he would support waterboarding.
Suddenly, Trump stopped mid-sentence, pointing to a woman near him in the crowd: "She just said a terrible thing."
"You know what she said? Shout it out because I don't want to say," Trump continued as the woman appeared to loudly shout the vulgar word again.
Read MoreMay 18, 2012
The state is far from neutral--it acts in the interests of the dominant class in society.
THE MOST common view of the U.S. state is that it balances the competing interests of different groups--business, labor, women, Blacks, immigrants, farmers, consumers and so on.
In this view--sometimes called "pluralism" by academics--the government reconciles these different interests in order to help society run more smoothly. The result, to quote one mainstream sociologist, is that "all the active and legitimate groups in the population can make themselves heard at some crucial stage in the process of decision."
But does this view really correspond to reality?
For things to really work this way, the different groups would have to have more or less equal clout. But this view of power obscures the fact that, in a capitalist society, some interest groups are more "legitimate" than others.
The idea of pluralism obscures the fact that society is fundamentally divided by class--and that the basis of political power is economic power.
In the U.S., economic power is concentrated at the top. According to United for a Fair Economy, the top 1 percent of U.S. households in 2001 had more wealth than the bottom 94 percent combined. And while there were more than 265 billionaires in the U.S., 34.5 million people lived below the poverty line.
Columnist: Paul D’Amato Paul D'Amato is managing editor of the International Socialist Review and author of The Meaning of Marxism, a lively and accessible introduction to the ideas of Karl Marx and the tradition he founded. Paul can be contacted at [email protected].
In a society based on a massive concentration of wealth at the one end and poverty at the other, a single billionaire has far more political clout than even millions of poor people. The economic pecking order determines the political pecking order.
One has only to look at George W. Bush's cabinet to see this. The business weekly Barron's noted that Bush "already has presented the business community with the keys to the city. He has packed CEOs and industry lobbyists on transition teams that are advising his new cabinet secretaries and agency heads on pressing policy issues and new hires."
The new Bush administration was more brazenly pro-business than Clinton and Gore. But money spoke loudly under the Democrats as well. "No administration in modem history has been as good for American business as the Clinton-Gore team," wrote Clinton's former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. "None has been as solicitous of the concerns of business leaders, none has generated as much profits for business."
KARL MARX and Frederick Engels came up with a far more accurate theory of the state than the pluralists. "The executive of the modern state," they wrote in the Communist Manifesto, "is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."
The state arose in order to manage society once it became divided by class. But in managing society, it does so in the interests of the dominant class. In slave society, the state protected the general interests of the slave owners. Under capitalism, it looks after the interests of the transnational corporations.
That doesn't mean that the state directly represents the interests of every individual capitalist. Sometimes, it sacrifices the interests of some businesses over others. But overall, the state manages the "common affairs" of the richest class. Of all the various groups that seek "access?" to government, therefore, the ones that get the biggest hearing are the wealthiest.
As President Woodrow Wilson put it at the beginning of the 20th century, "The men really consulted are the men who have the big stake--the big bankers, the big manufacturers and the big masters of commerce."
Michael Parenti, in his book Democracy for the Few, made the same point:
Because business controls the very economy of the nation, government perforce enters into a unique and intimate relationship with it. The health of the capitalist economy is treated by policymakers as a necessary condition for the health for the nation, and since it happens that the economy is in the hands of large investors, then presumably government's service to the public is best accomplished by service to the investors. The goals of business (rapid growth, high profits and secure markets) become the goals of government, and the "national interest" becomes identified with the dominant capitalist interests.
First published in the January 19, 2001, issue of Socialist Worker.SCOTLAND striker David Goodwillie has spoken of the torment he suffered after being accused of serious sex allegations.
Goodwillie told of his “total and utter hell” following claims he raped a woman at a party in January.
In his first full and frank interview, the Blackburn Rovers star also branded the accusation “complete nonsense” and paid tribute to his family and friends who stood by him.
The Scotland internationalist was alleged to have attacked the 24-year-old at a house party in Armadale, West Lothian, on 2 January.
The rape charge was dropped in July after the Crown Office said there was “insufficient evidence in law” for the case to proceed.
But, Goodwillie said, prior to his name being cleared, he endured months of turmoil, fearing he could be become a convicted sex offender.
The 22-year-old added: “It had been total and utter hell, the worst moments of my life. It was a dark time.
“When I think back to January, everything was looking good, and then my life stopped after the accusation was made.
“It’s the end of the world when something like that happens to you. It was the lowest time of my life, and what followed was an inquiry which took an eternity, but which cleared me of any wrongdoing.”
Former Dundee United striker Goodwillie said his family “believed in him completely” as he struggled to cope with the torment.
“I had great support from them all,” he added. “We have always been close and this has brought us even closer.
“I have a sister and, as a brother, I obviously worry. I know people out there will say there’s no smoke without fire.
“The whole thing was a complete nonsense from start to finish. I did nothing wrong.”
He went on: “I had terrible dark times too and was aware that if this went the wrong way I would be in serious trouble.
“I could have been in a jail cell for several years. My life, my reputation, my career would all have been lost.
“When you are in that kind of a dark place, you think your world is at an end. This is not the kind of experience you would wish upon your worst enemy.”
Goodwillie recalled how he also toiled on the park – at a time when he was being linked with a big-money move to the SPL champions, Rangers.
He admitted: “It did affect my form massively, but the Dundee United manager, Peter Houston, stood by me no matter how badly I played and after a couple of months I got back on form.
“Football was my release, my saviour, really. It was one way I was able to escape.
“I was taunted by opposition fans – and I heard some of the chants against me.
“I just had a long chat with family – my mum, dad and sister – and they told me the only way to answer was by scoring goals and playing well,” Goodwillie went on. “I just got out there did my best.
“I have also had the great support of the Professional Football Association Scotland and my legal team. They displayed enormous faith in me and never doubted my word.
“The evidence confirmed what I said happened.”
The woman who accused him recently won an £11,000 pay-out, after the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) ruled she had been attacked.
Goodwillie said reports of the award by the CICA had brought the allegation back into the spotlight – and that was why he wanted to speak out.
The striker added: “I wanted to maintain a dignified silence, but this has been a nightmare for me and my family.
“I feel as if I have been tried in public and the media. I would like to now put the record straight.
“I know what happened that night, and I know that I did absolutely nothing wrong.”This post is authored by Scott Haynie, Senior Software Engineer, and Senja Filipi, Software Engineer, at Microsoft.
Telemetry plays an important role when you operationalize new experiences/apps that span the web, mobile and IoT, including new gadgets such as the Microsoft HoloLens. The abundance of data that is made available can help developers monitor and track system health and usage patterns, and provide important new insights into how users interact with your application. Tapping into this wealth of information can really help you align your customers’ experiences with their needs and expectations.
At the Ignite 2016 Innovation Keynote, we showed the future of home improvement as envisioned by Lowe’s and Microsoft. As part of this experience, we showed how to use telemetry emitted by HoloLens to understand the [virtual] places that customers are gazing at, as they experience an immersive home remodeling experience in 3D, using the augmented reality capabilities of HoloLens.
Kitchen remodeling experience with HoloLens.
Heat map based on HoloLens telemetry data.
In this post, we show how you can use the Cortana Intelligence Suite to ingest data from the HoloLens application, analyze it in real-time using Azure Stream Analytics, and visualize it with Power BI.
Empowering HoloLens Developers with Cortana Intelligence
In HoloLens applications, users can interact through one of these methods:
By gazing at an object.
By using hand gestures.
By using voice commands.
When wearing, and interacting with, the HoloLens, a frontal camera tracks head movements, including the “head ray” and focus. The point that is being looked at is reflected using a cursor as a visual cue. These interactions are handled by the Update method (part of the MonoBehavior class). This method gets called at the refresh rate frequency, usually 60 frames per second. It’s crucial to not slow down the update process with any side operations.
We set out with a simple goal that HoloLens developers should be able to use the Cortana Intelligence Suite and any related Azure services with just a few lines of code. In this example, you can see the code in one of the Update methods that tracks the gaze of the HoloLens user. To use Cortana Intelligence, the HoloLens application needs to just add this one line:
logger.AddGazeEvent(FocusedObject.gameObject.name)
The HoloLens is now able to send telemetry data to Event Hub, and you can further analyze the data using various Azure Services, for instance, Azure Stream Analytics.
Calling the telemetry AddGazeEvent from the HoloLens app.
Building the End to End Solution
A canonical telemetry processing pipeline consists of the following:
An Event Hub that enables the ingestion of data from the HoloLens client application.
A Stream Analytics job that consumes the telemetry data, analyzes it real time, and writes the insights derived into Power BI, as an output.
A PowerBI dashboard.
If you don’t have an Azure account yet, you can obtain a free account which will help you follow along in this post. Azure provides a rich set of libraries that developers can use to interact its many services. When using these libraries with a HoloLens application (which is a Universal Windows App), you will not be able to use NuGet packages directly if they rely on the.NET full framework implementation. Additionally, Azure services provide REST interfaces for client communication.
In our case, to send telemetry data from the HoloLens to the Event Hub, we implemented a.NET library, using the core.NET framework to meet the UWP apps requirements. The DLL handles the batching of events and composing of the request payload, and takes care of network retries.
Initializing the Telemetry Library
Step-by-step instructions on how to set up the Azure services and send data to the Azure Event Hub with retries from the UWP app can be found in GitHub here. Additional resources that you may find useful are included below. We would love to hear from you, so do let us know what you think – you can send your feedback via the comments section below.
Scott & SenjaToday’s Asahi Newspaper had an interesting article about the use of cheat tools in popular games like Puzzle & Dragons or Pokemon GO and how some people are being arrested over it. Because the paper only allows you to read the full article if you’re a registered member, I can’t translate it in full, but what follows below is a summary with the most relevant parts directly translated.
Using Cheat Tools in Pokemon GO is a Crime?
(original article by Aya Amano)
“Arrests have been made concerning cheat tools (CT) in the online game Puzzle & Dragons, which is popular both in and outside the country. ” The article then explains to Japanese readers that cheat tools are as “tools that allow you trick [the game],” and goes on to say, “They appeared immediately in the popular Pokemon GO. What’s the problem?”
“On June 15th, Kanagawa Prefecture’s police arrested a suspected Hiroshima City third-year college student (21) on grounds of copyright violation, because he was the creator of a CT. In addition, four men were arrested and indicted, and are suspected on the grounds of fraudulent obstruction of business, due to interfering with the business of a game maker from overusing CT.”
There’s also a brief info graphic near the beginning of the article that explains about some other people who have been prosecuted for similar crimes. According to it, in June of 2014, three minors were indicted by Kanagawa Prefecture police for using cheat tools under a law that is something like “interference of the calculation of a loss in digital profits” (excuse me, I’m not fluent in legalese). In November of 2015, Nara Prefecture police arrested a high school student for selling a smart phone with cheat tools loaded on it in an internet auction, under the grounds that it was a violation of copyright.
The article goes on to explain that Puzzle and Dragons has been downloaded over 42 million times and gives a brief explanation of what it is and how popular it has been. It ends the paragraph explaining, “It might be free, but if you buy items that are around 120 yen give or take, you can more quickly become stronger.”
The article continues: “‘Can anybody be prosecuted just by using it?’ When the incidents were reported, anxiety and doubt swirled all over the Internet. If you use the same CT that the suspect used, which anybody can, you can easily become invincible and it’s said that over 400,000 people have downloaded it.” It goes on to explain that there about how easily cheat tools can be found on the internet and how people upload |
include heroics to meet a schedule date, and endless negotiations to change The Plan as reality impinges upon it. The Plan of Record, the development team is sure, will run into the Two Ineluctable Facts of Project Planning:
If you don’t know what you’re going to build, you can’t know how long it will take to build it. You only really know what you’re going to build when you finish it.
The planning exercise is been, in reality, a sort of undercover, more or less informal feasibility study to answer the question, “Do we think we can build something like this in something like the time available?”
However, because management needs a date, and you’ve got to manage to something, everyone leaves the planning meeting having made a tacit agreement: Let’s pretend this fairy-tale Plan of Record is real.
Now, I should say that once, in the beginning of my career, I worked on a project that actually went smoothly from start to finish. It made all its milestones, it delivered on time and under budget, and it completed a planned 30-day acceptance test in less than a week.
What’s more, this project started out perceived as very risky. The general opinion was that the responsible executive’s office should be fitted for foam-rubber wallpaper. For various reasons, most of them political, the contract had some interesting constraints:
It was denominated in a foreign currency, and my company accepted all the currency-exchange risk.
It was absolutely firm fixed price, no kidding and no exceptions.
The contract was written so that a very large part of the total payment would only be made after acceptance.
In general, a company like the one I worked for would run screaming from such a contract. The risks were too great. But somehow, the contract was signed.
In fact, the project was a success, risks notwithstanding. I’d maintain the project was actually a success because of these constraints, not in spite of them.
Due to the constraints, the contract had other interesting features. There was an initial study phase, also fixed cost and fee, to develop two things: a user’s manual for the system, and an acceptance test. The acceptance test consisted of about 300 pages of clear, Yes or No tests: “The operator does this, and that happens. Did it?” For the system to be accepted – meaning my company got paid – 100% of these tests had to pass.
This acceptance test was then written into the contract. There was no change mechanism, no engineering control board. Any changes beyond trivial errors would require actually renegotiating the whole contract.
In other words, what the constraints had done was force us to eluct the Two Ineluctable Facts: We could predict how long it would take, because we did know exactly what we were going to build.
Of course, I then spent a year with the customer making the changes they hadn’t been able to request. We had elucted the ineluctable artificially; the requirements had changed, the system we were building wasn’t really satisfactory, and we’d held off the changes only by building up a big backlog of development work.
So what can we do to keep our planning from being a fairy tale? We need to accept some basic facts:
The requirements will change.
The product will never be perfect.
We eventually need to release it anyway.
Taken together, these mean that all schedules are, in reality, time-boxed schedules. The initial planning exercise isn’t useless, but the reality is that it’s never anything more than a feasibility study. It’s when we ennoble it as the Plan of Record and expect to follow it faithfully that we get in trouble.
Since this is the reality, we can and should adapt our development process to changing requirements. There is a way to do this, and it’s actually been known since (at least) 1971, when Harlan Mills wrote about “Top Down Programming in Large Systems.” It’s called incremental development: “Build a little, test a little.” With every increment, you have a working system, and that system focuses everyone’s creativity toward bringing that system closer to the target. Every new increment is another working partial system that is closer to the imagined ideal system. When the time boxes run out, you have a working system. It may not be a perfect system, but then it never will be the perfect system.
Of course, what I’m describing is what we’ve come to call an “Agile process.” What we should call it is a realistic process. It’s a process that accepts and works with the way the real world works.
Trying to make the Plan of Record approach work is no more than a game of let’s pretend.
Related Article:
The New School of Systems Development: Simple, Dynamic, and AgileHi everyone!
I've been trying to export one of my games to UWP using Godot 2.2 but with no success.
I followed the docs strictly, and everything went fine and I was able to export the final.appx from Godot.
But afterwards, it doesn't seem to be recognized as a valid file (yes, I have sideloading enabled)
So I went the other route and tried to run it directly via the VS project. set up everything according to the instructions, but when I run the project, I only see a green X window.
I took a peak at a "terminal" that appeared to have been launched by the Godot executable and saw this
VS just complains that something is broken but doesnt give useful info :/
I hope I didnt mess anything up since the docs are still based on WinRT and not UWP. My only doubt was on editing the EntryPoint in the xml file, I'm not sure if I inserted the right name...
Any tips on how to proceed?Listed below is a list that could be called the “Top Ten Reasons for Not Becoming a Forex Trader”, however, this list is not designed to discourage people from currency trading, as trading currencies can be an extremely profitable livelihood and you could earn an excellent income participating in Forex trading, working at home. Do keep in mind though, that you need to know how challenging it really is to start generating consistent earnings.
These are ten things you should consider, before embarking on a currency trading career:
1) Currency trading is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
A lot of people become excited about currency trading because they believe they will get rich within a brief period of time. However, though it may be attainable theoretically, a far more reasonable objective would be to develop a consistent income gradually, since this is an infinitely more feasible objective.
2) Automated trading programs will never make you wealthy.
Currency trading software abounds today, however, most of these pieces of software turn out to be unreliable. Although, it might have extremely remarkable results based on back-testing data, rarely are they able to deliver similar gains whenever you begin to use them.
3) The majority of foreign currency trading products and services offered on the internet are wholly ineffective.
Rarely are there over-hyped products that are sold on the internet, that are capable of producing the same kind of consistent profits that they claim. Changing market conditions make rigid trading bots ineffective.
4) Only a tiny fraction of Forex traders are consistently profitable.
It is thought that only 5% of traders make money, despite the fact that statistics coming from brokers show this particular number as higher than that in order to attract additional investors. Really, this number could just be a myth and many believe it is, however you should remember that Forex trading is just like any other business; the majority of start-up businesses fail and many beginners in the currency market fail too. At any rate the thing is that a majority of currency traders ultimately end up taking a loss in the long term.
5) You might not possess the self-discipline required to be successful.
The simple truth is that not everyone can become a successful currency trader. To become consistently profitable demands massive self-discipline and few people have this unique degree of self-discipline.
6) Working hard will not assure great results.
In a great many fields you may have a very long and productive career if you work hard. In currency trading this is no guarantee of achievement. You could research charts 24 hours a day every day for many years, yet still not develop a consistently profitable trading plan, while others may well create a profitable technique after a few months or even in less time. Working smartly is important; staying productive is what you need to do – don’t just work hard but work smartly and know what you are doing.
7) Extreme intelligence will not provide you with success.
Currency trading does not require extreme intelligence, but it does not hurt. Working long hours, learning specific techniques and having the discipline to follow your trading rules is a much better measure of success than natural intelligence.
8) Currency trading is actually a lonesome line of work.
Working from home gazing at your computer for hours on end is not fun, and the fact is that you are unable to escape from this lonely task. For this reason it is essential you lead a lively social existence simply otherwise you could very well become stir crazy.
9) Successful techniques may not continue being profitable forever.
Lots of people get energized once they finally build a successful trading plan. However, current market conditions may change and there is absolutely no assurance your technique will still be producing consistent earnings in the future. This means you should be flexible and able to modify your method appropriately.
10) Even the most successful Forex traders undergo periods of poor trading results.
There are many extremely accomplished traders in the market. However, everyone experiences negative results occasionally. You merely need to acknowledge these losing stretches as a part of the profession. Provided that your technique remains profitable, you have nothing to be concerned about.
In conclusion, trading currency, while it can be extremely profitable, rarely delivers the glamorous life that most people portray. Successful traders spend long hours alone and put up with hours of frustration that may never bear fruit. Learn to trade Forex in a way that fits with your personality and you will be both much more happier and profitable.Anxious West, depressed East
Depression and anxiety affect every country and society in the world, according to what is believed to be the world's most comprehensive study of these mental disorders, conducted by researchers from the University of Queensland, Australia," reports Psych Central. "In Western societies, anxiety disorders were more commonly reported than in non-Western societies, including countries that are currently experiencing conflict. About 10 per cent of people in North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand were experiencing clinical anxiety, compared to approximately 8 per cent in the Middle East and 6 per cent in Asia. The opposite was true for depression, with those in Western countries least likely to feel depressed. Researchers found that depression was lowest in North America and highest in certain areas of Asia and the Middle East."
Bind man's deadly bluff
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A British man "who pretended to be blind to get people to pity him was found dead in a flooded ditch after he apparently failed to see the hazard, an inquest heard [Friday]," reports The Daily Telegraph. "Geoffrey Haywood, 65, walked with a white stick and had carers to look after him. But the inquest was told he could see perfectly well and if someone dropped money on a pavement he would be the first to pick it up. … Mr. Haywood's brother Howard said: 'Geoffrey had psychological blindness which started after the death of our mother.' The hearing was told Mr. Haywood's body was found in a ditch just 150 yards from his front door. Coroner David Bowen said: 'Either he didn't see or didn't want to see the ditch, slipped and drowned. It's an extraordinary situation I've not come across before.'"
Paying to puff in Tokyo
"Extensive regulations have made it increasingly difficult for smokers to find space in downtown Tokyo to practise their habit," reports Daily Yomiuri Online. "Smoking bans are the norm in public spaces such as office buildings. In central Tokyo, municipalities have been strengthening controls on smoking in public, with designated spaces on the street among the few places where people can smoke. But these designated smoking spaces have been closing due to continual complaints to municipal governments. … A Tokyo-based firm sees the smoking restrictions as a business opportunity. General Fundex Co. opened three smoking facilities around JR Ochanomizu Station in Chiyoda Ward earlier this month. Named 'ippuku' [a puff], the facility is equipped with an air conditioner, chairs, a vending machine and large displays. Open from 6 a.m. to midnight, use of the facility costs 50¥ [roughly the price of three cigarettes] and there is no time limit."
Let's talk spiders
Police in Switzerland scrambled, says Orange News UK, "after a panicked report that a giant bird-eating spider had been spotted on the boss's table at the firm in Chur. But when cops [arrived] they quickly realized the spider was a fake. Officers told staff at the firm that they would not be fined for wasting police time as the call had been genuine in its intent. But they made them sit through a 20-minute lecture on how to tell the difference between real spiders and plastic toys."
Old termites' last mission
"One species of termite sends its older workers on suicide missions armed with explosive blue 'backpacks,'" says The Christian Science Monitor. "When grabbed by another termite, a predator or a person with tweezers, these backpack-sporting termites, which the researchers call blue workers, rupture and spew a toxic, sticky substance, scientists have found. The unfortunate workers, from this species of tropical termite, Neocapritermes taracua, have two bluish spots visible on the backs of their abdomens. These spots contain crystals made of a copper-containing protein stored in two external 'backpack' pouches, write the researchers. The crystals react with the salivary gland secretions stored in their abdomens to create a droplet of toxic goo that can kill or paralyze worker termites from another species." Among social insects, the practice of sending older workers into battle is common, said Yves Roisin of Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.
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Chair rage on the bus
"Police in Devon [England] are asking for help in finding a bus passenger who caused £200 [$316] worth of damage by eating his seat – or at least a chunk of it," reports The Guardian. "The young man was travelling on the bus in Paignton, on the English Riviera, when he was apparently seized by an attack of hunger or boredom and began biting the leather seat. It is not entirely clear whether he swallowed the hunk of seat or spat it out but CCTV footage caught the suspect gripping a bottle of fizzy drink, which he might have used to wash it down."
Thought du jour
"Lucidity of speech is unquestionably one of the surest tests of mental precision. … In my experience a confused talker is never a clear thinker."
– David Lloyd George (1863-1945), British prime ministerThe Central Council of Jews in Germany said it approves of a specially annotated version of Adolf Hitler's notorious autobiographical manifesto, a month before the book is set to become part of the public domain.
The two-volume "Mein Kampf" outlined Hitler's political philosophy and contained numerous anti-Semitic remarks about Jews that some historians argue foreshadow the Nazi leader's plans to eradicate the ethnic group.
Originally published in 1925 and 1926 respectively, the two volumes have not been published in Germany since the end of World War II. However, the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich said it plans to publish a critical, annotated version of "Mein Kampf" in January.
Monitoring 'necessary'
In an interview with the German daily newspaper "Handelsblatt," Josef Schuster, head of the Jewish organization, said the publication of "Mein Kampf" could prove valuable, but also that it needed to be monitored.
"Knowledge of 'Mein Kampf' is still important to explain National Socialism and the Holocaust," Schuster said, referring to the political ideology of the Nazi Party and the genocide that led to the deaths of some six million Jews.
He went on to say it was important that authorities prevented the spread of unannotated copies of the book.
People in Germany who publish unedited reprints of the book face charges of inciting racial hatred - a crime in the country that can carry up to five years in jail.
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blc/gsw (AFP, dpa)Conclusions Our findings on the propensity of hangover suggest that 25–30% of drinkers may be resistant to hangover.
Findings Hangover was reported by 76% of participants. Neither alcoholic beverage type nor participant characteristics was associated with incidence of hangover.
Setting One trial was conducted at Kalmar Maritime Academy (Sweden); the other two were conducted at the General Clinical Research Center at Boston Medical Center.
Design Data were combined from three randomized cross‐over trials investigating the effects of heavy drinking on next‐day performance. A total of 172 participants received either alcoholic beverage (mean = 0.115 g% breath alcohol concentration) or placebo on one night and the other beverage a week later. The next day, participants completed a hangover scale.
Aims To determine the incidence and covariates of hangover following a night of moderate alcohol consumption at a targeted breath alcohol level.
INTRODUCTION Hangover refers to the cluster of symptoms following heavy drinking, occurring shortly after much or all of the alcohol has metabolized. Many plausible causes for alcohol‐induced hangovers have been proposed, but studies to date have not provided sufficient data to confirm either a unitary or multi‐factorial hypotheses. Proposed mechanisms broadly include metabolic, fluid‐balance, hormonal and nutritional disturbances, toxicities resulting from alcohol and congener metabolism, sleep disruptions and personal susceptibilities relating to drinking behaviors, gender and genetics. These hypotheses have been arrayed elsewhere [1-3]. It is important to understand the factors associated with variation in hangover susceptibility, because susceptibility may affect drinking practices. There is limited information on the incidence of hangover, although some survey data are available for specific populations. Frone reported that 7% (equal to about 11 595 377 workers) of a probability sample of US workers experienced hangover at work during the previous year [4]. One survey of college students found that 25% reported hangover during the previous week [5]. Harburg et al. found that 23% of surveyed drinkers reported not experiencing hangover the last time they were intoxicated [6]. In a study of patients admitted for alcohol detoxification, 23% reported never having had a hangover [7]. Although the 2001–02 National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol Related Conditions (NESARC) did not ask specifically about hangover, it did ask a sample of 43 093 adults about nine ‘bad aftereffects that people may have when the effects of alcohol are wearing off’. Using the NESARC data, we calculated that 21% of drinkers (22% of males and 21% of females) experienced at least one of these after effects within the previous year. However, in surveys the incidence of hangover cannot be determined for specific levels of alcohol exposure. Furthermore, surveys may be subject to recall and attribution biases. Experimental studies allow determination of the incidence and severity of hangover following specific levels of intoxication, controlling other factors that could affect symptoms. Although a number of experimental studies report on the next‐day effects of alcohol consumption on neurocognitive performance [8-11] or occupational performance [12-24], few provide details on the incidence of hangover after controlled alcohol administration. An exception is a study by Chapman [3], who administered beverage alcohol to 91 (50 males, 41 females) young adult drinkers. Ten received 1.0 ml/kg of alcohol [mean peak breath alcohol concentration (BrAC): 0.066 g%]; 10 received 1.25 ml/kg (mean peak BrAC: 0.11 g%); 60 received 1.5 ml/kg (mean peak BrAC: 0.13 g%); and another 11 received 1.75 ml/kg (mean peak BrAC: 0.14 g%). Overall, 68% of participants reported hangover the next morning, with incidence correlating roughly with the quantity of alcohol administered. However, because three of the dose levels had only 10 or 11 participants, the figures are unstable. Also, Chapman's data show that peak BrAC is a better predictor than g/kg dose of alcohol in determining hangover severity. Thus, studies of hangover incidence following specific BrACs are needed. Because susceptibility to hangover can vary across individuals who have consumed equivalent amounts of alcohol, it would be useful to know what factors covary with hangover incidence and intensity. The congener content (e.g. acetone, acetaldehyde, methanol) of alcoholic beverages may affect hangover incidence or intensity. Bourbon has 37 times the amount of congeners as vodka [25] and in some studies [26], but not others [25], intoxication with bourbon was more impairing than with vodka. Smith & Barnes [27] found no differences in the incidence of hangover by alcoholic beverage preferences (wine, beer, liquor) when controlling for levels of consumption, but congener content varies widely within each of these beverage classes [28], so these comparisons are unreliable. In Chapman's study, 78% of those receiving bourbon versus 59% of those receiving vodka reported hangover, although this difference was not significant [3]. Another study reported hangover effects increasing with congener content [29]. Family history of drinking problems (FHx) might affect hangover incidence, as this may reflect biological differences in response to alcohol. Generally survey studies have found that FHx is associated with propensity for hangover, controlling for reported drinking practices [30-34], although Earleywine [35] and Richardson [36] found no such association in samples of college students. Drinking practice might affect hangover incidence due to tolerance. Survey studies have yielded mixed results [7, 27, 37]. Smith & Barnes [27] and Kauhanen et al. [37] found that heavier drinkers reported more frequent hangovers than lighter drinkers. In contrast, Pristach et al. [7] found that 50% of a group of alcoholics had not had a hangover in the previous year. Gender might be another predictor of hangover incidence. Neither Chapman's [3] experimental study nor the survey study by Harburg et al. found differences in hangover incidence by gender [6]. Smith & Barnes found that more men than women drinkers experienced hangover, but this could be due to differences in amounts consumed [27]. For the present study, we combined data from three randomized studies we conducted on the effects of moderate/heavy alcohol administration (mean = 0.11 g% BrAC) on next‐day neurocognitive and/or simulated occupational performance. In studies 1 and 2, participants received high‐alcohol beer; in study 3 participants received (randomly) either bourbon or vodka. This allowed us to investigate congener effects by comparing bourbon to vodka (422 versus 11 mg/100 ml total congeners) [25]. The congener content of high‐alcohol beer is not available, although regular‐strength beers average 6.8 times as many congeners as 80 proof vodka [28]; thus, high‐alcohol beer should have intermediate congener content. Participants rated their hangover on a scale ranging from ‘no hangover’ to ‘incapacitating hangover’. Use of the word ‘hangover’ in the survey instrument involves attribution to residual alcohol effects [33]. None the less, in our studies this item had the highest item‐total correlation and the highest validity [38]. We also asked participants to rate, without attribution, several symptoms associated with hangover [38], but which could occur in the absence of drinking. The same administration procedures targeted BrAC levels, and participant eligibility criteria were used. Thus, we can compare alcoholic beverages, at comparable mean BrACs, with respect to the incidence of hangover and specific hangover symptoms. We can also investigate the association of hangover to participant characteristics [e.g. age, gender, average daily volume of alcohol (ADV), FHx]. Our aims were: (i) to investigate the incidence of any hangover and of severity of hangover the day after a specific narrow BrAC range among non‐alcoholic drinkers; and (ii) to investigate congener content (bourbon versus vodka) and participant differences as determinants of variability in hangover incidence.
METHODS Participants Participants were 54 professional merchant mariners attending a course at Kalmar Maritime Academy (Kalmar, Sweden) (study 1) and 118 university students recruited in greater Boston (studies 2 and 3). Participants had to be at least 21 years of age and meet the following criteria: (i) no serious drinking problems (score < 5 on the Short Michigan Alcohol Screening Test (SMAST) [39] and no history of treatment for alcohol problems; (ii) more than five drinks on a single occasion (more than four if female) at least once 30 days prior to screening; (iii) no health problems or current medication use contraindicated for alcohol; (iv) fluent English; (v) recently graduated from, or currently attending, an institution of higher learning (studies 2 and 3); and (vi) negative pregnancy test and not nursing, if female. Females were not screened for menstrual cycle [40-42]. Before beverage administration, participants who reported consuming alcohol, caffeine, prescription or over‐the‐counter drugs within the previous 24 hours, or food or beverage within the previous 3 hours, were rescheduled; those presenting with a positive BrAC were excluded from further participation; see Table 1 for participant characteristics. Under alcohol condition, the peak mean BrAC was 0.11 g% [standard deviation (SD) = 0.01; range = 0.09–0.15 g%]. Thirty‐three per cent (57) of respondents had BrAC between 0.09 and 0.104; 50.6% (87) between 0.105 and 0.124; 8.7% (15) between 0.125 and 0.134; and 7.6% (13) between 0.135 and 0.155. There were significant differences across beverage types for sex (P < 0.0001), but not for age, FHx, ADV or peak BrAC. Table 1. Participant characteristics. Beverage studied 7.2% ABV beer (n = 93) bourbon (n = 36) vodka (n = 43) Total (n = 172) Male** 72 (77.4%) 15 (41.7%) 13 (30.2%) 100 (58.1%) Age Mean ± SD 28.9 ± 8.9 24.2 ± 2.6 24.2 ± 2.6 26.7 ± 7.2 Range 21–57 21–31 21–31 21–57 FHx positive 26 (28.3%) 8 (22.2%) 11 (25.6%) 45 (26.2%) Weight (lb)* Mean ± SD 174.5 ± 42.0 153.3 ± 23.8 153.2 ± 28.5 164.7 ± 37.1 Range 90–369 111–235 103–234 90–369 Smokers 17 (18.3%) 3 (8.3%) 3 (7.0%) 23 (13.4%) Study design The three studies used a double‐blinded, within‐subjects, cross‐over design (i.e. each participant served as his/her own control) wherein all the subjects received two beverage conditions (alcohol and placebo) in counter‐balanced order. Participants took part in the studies over 4 days (2 consecutive days followed a week later by 2 consecutive days). Procedures On the first evening, participants were randomized within gender to receive either alcoholic beverage or an equivalent amount of placebo; on the second evening they received the other beverage. They were told that they had a 50% chance of receiving alcohol the on first night and would receive the other beverage on the other night. Beverage administration procedures Alcoholic beverage administration targeted 0.10 g% BrAC (1.2 g/kg body weight for men and 1.1 g/kg for women [43]). If participants randomized to alcohol did not reach 0.10 g% BrAC after their final scheduled drink, the ratio of actual to target BrAC was used to determine an additional amount of beverage administered. To maintain blinding, some placebo participants also received extra beverage. In studies 1 and 2 the beverage alcohol was beer (7.3% alcohol by weight) (Elephant Beer®; Carlsberg A/S, 100 Ny Carlsberg, DK‐1760, Copenhagen, Denmark) and the placebo was Clausthaler® non‐alcoholic beer (Radeberger Gruppe, Darmastaedter Landstrasse 185, Frankfurt, Germany). High‐alcohol beer was used to reduce the volume. In study 3, the alcoholic beverages were bourbon (101 proof Wild Turkey®) or 100 proof vodka (Absolut®), mixed with chilled caffeine‐free cola (Coke®). The placebo for both these beverages was caffeine‐free cola plus de‐carbonated tonic, in amounts equivalent to the alcoholic beverage, chilled, with a few drops of vodka or bourbon floated on top. Beverages were served in plastic cups between 8.45 p.m. and 10.00 p.m. in studies 2 and 3 and between 7.30 and 9.00 p.m. in study 1, in small groups of three to five participants. (Dosing times varied according to the availability of facilities at the study sites.) Total beverage volume was determined by dosing tables with the number of milliliters of alcohol by weight and gender, and in the case of bourbon and vodka, the number of milliliters of caffeine‐free cola (with a ratio of one part vodka or bourbon to four parts cola). Participants were told the number of cups of beverage they were to consume in an hour and to pace their drinking. In studies 1 and 2, each cup was equivalent to one bottle of beer and participants were asked to complete their dose before being breath‐tested. In study 3, the total amount of beverage was divided into three equal portions. Participants were breath‐tested 15 minutes after completing two of the three portions. Depending on their BrAC relative to the target, they then received an adjusted final quantity of beverage. Unfinished beverage was measured so that the exact amount of beverage consumed by each participant could be documented. To maintain double‐blinding, the research staff who prepared beverages and conducted breath tests were different from those who collected all other measures. After drinking and a 30‐minute absorption period, participants completed subjective measures, received snacks and were escorted to individual rooms for an 8‐hour sleep period, observed by nursing students (study 1) or a licensed emergency medical technician (studies 2 and 3). Participants were awakened at 7.00 a.m. They completed the hangover rating scale, ate breakfast and were breath‐tested. At 8.00 a.m. they completed other questionnaires and performance measures (these times were 1 hour earlier for study 1). The time of day was based on literature indicating that subjective effects of hangover are most detectable before 10.00 a.m. [44] and that decrements in performance the day after heavy drinking were limited to the morning [20]. Performance during the first 30 minutes after waking is likely to be impaired by sleep inertia [45]; allowing an hour before performance testing avoids this potential confounder. Assessments Hangover was assessed using the nine‐item validated Acute Hangover Scale [38]. Participants rated ‘hangover’ on a scale ranging from 0 (none) to 7 (incapacitating) and eight symptoms (thirst, tiredness, headache, dizziness or faintness, nausea, stomach ache, heart racing and loss of appetite), selected from previous studies [3, 44, 46]. In the data analyses for this study, the ‘hangover’ and the discrete symptoms were coded as present or absent (positive rating versus zero). Hangover severity was coded as follows: 0 = none; 1–2 = mild; 3–5 = moderate; and 6–7 = severe. Participants' gender and age were recorded at enrollment. The interviewer‐administered Family Tree Questionnaire [47] determined FHx, with a first‐ or second‐degree relative with alcohol problems coded as FHx positive. ADV of alcohol intake was calculated to establish recent drinking practices (other than when participating in the study) using a two‐item alcohol use questionnaire: (i) ‘Considering all your drinking times in the past 30 days, about how often did you have any beer, wine or liquor?’, rated from 1 ‘once a day’ to 7 ‘did not drink’ with each point anchored; and (ii) ‘In the past 30 days, on a typical day that you drank, about how much did you have to drink in one day?’, rated from 1 to 8, with choices of one to seven drinks and ‘eight or more drinks’. One drink was defined as 12 oz of beer or wine cooler, 4 oz of wine or 1 oz of liquor. Data analyses We used χ2 analysis to assess participant differences by type of alcoholic beverage received and differences in specific hangover symptoms. We used a logistic regression model with incidence of hangover (0 versus ≥ 1 on the hangover question scale) as the dependent variable and gender, age, type of alcoholic beverage received, FHx and ADV as independent variables. Adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals from this model are reported. Human subjects The studies in these analyses were approved by the Institutional Review Boards at Boston University Medical Center and Brown University (studies 1–3) and the University of Michigan (study 3).
RESULTS Frequency and severity of hangover In the placebo condition, 97% (167) reported no hangover and 3% (five) reported mild hangover. In the alcohol condition, 24.4% (42) of participants reported no hangover; 43.6% (75) reported mild hangover; and 31.9% (55) reported moderate hangover. None reported severe hangover. Incidences of all symptoms were significantly greater for those reporting greater hangover severity levels. Frequency of each symptom by hangover severity level is displayed in Table 2. Table 2. Frequency of hangover symptoms by hangover severity. Symptoms associated with hangover Hangover severity No hangover (n = 42) Mild (n = 75) Moderate (n = 55) χ 2 (2 df) Thirst 38 (90.5%) 75 (100%) 55 (100%) 12.68* Tiredness 36 (85.7%) 72 (97.3%) 55 (100%) 12.14* Headache 6 (14.3%) 43 (57.3%) 43 (78.2%) 39.87** Dizziness/faintness 3 (7.1%) 28 (37.3%) 37 (67.3%) 36.29** Loss of appetite 10 (23.8%) 28 (37.3%) 30 (54.6%) 9.68* Stomach ache 3 (7.1%) 12 (16.0%) 22 (40.0%) 17.62** Nausea 1 (2.4%) 12 (16.0%) 21 (38.2%) 20.43** Heart racing 1 (2.4%) 8 (10.7%) 15 (27.3%) 13.49* Hangover by characteristics of participants and beverage type In multivariate analysis, none of the independent variables was a significant predictor of hangover. The beta sign for ADV was negative (i.e. as ADV increases, the odds of hangover increase). The C‐statistic for the logistic regression model was 0.59 (Table 3). Table 3. Multivariate analysis of hangover under alcohol condition. Predictor variables Odds ratio 95% confidenceinterval Sex Male 1.63 0.68, 3.91 Female Referent Age 21–25 1.10 0.24, 5.05 26–40 1.21 0.27, 5.47 > 40 Referent FHx for drinking problems Positive 0.91 0.41, 2.03 Negative Referent Decrease in average daily volume 0.78 0.54, 1.11 Beverage type Beer 0.85 0.34, 2.14 Bourbon 1.41 0.47, 4.20 Vodka Referent
DISCUSSION The morning after a mean peak BrAC of 0.11 g%, 24% of these healthy drinkers reported no hangover. Although most survey data do not control for the level of alcohol consumption and tend to use some unit of time (e.g. prior year) in the incidence measure, our results are consistent with those of Harburg et al. [6], who found that 23% of a sample of drinkers reported not having had a hangover the last time they were intoxicated and those of Pristach et al. [7], who found that 23% of a sample of alcoholics reported never having had a hangover. Our findings were also comparable to the one experimental study that reported the incidence of hangover after intoxication [3]. Chapman found that 29% of participants with BrAC levels (mean BrAC = 0.124 g%; range = 0.10–0.15 g%), comparable to our participants' BrAC levels, reported no hangover the morning after alcohol administration, using the same scale metric as used in our study [3]. The consistency indicates that the incidence and severity levels we obtained are reliable for this level of intoxication. In our study, congener differences between beverages did not account for differences in hangover severity. As 28% of our vodka drinkers reported moderate hangover, our result is not consistent with Chapman's [3] finding that bourbon yielded more moderate hangover (33% of participants) than did vodka (3%). Moreover, our findings are inconsistent with those of Pawan [29], |
a trade, which turned into a nightmare for Kelly, because everywhere he went after that, he was pretty much only asked one question: Are you going to trade Kaepernick?
Between the combine and the NFL Draft, Kelly had to answer dozens of questions about Kaepernick, but now that the draft's over, those questions have died down, which has allowed Kelly to start coaching the team without the tension of Kaepernick's trade demands hanging over his every move.
Kaepernick reported to OTAs and he seems to be happy, which means Kelly's already doing a good job of cleaning up the mess left by Tomsula (and the 49ers front office).
Three negatives
1. They still don't have a starting quarterback
It's a good thing the Kaepernick trade drama is over because the 49ers are soon going to have deal with another type of drama: Quarterback controversy.
If Kaepernick had been traded, there would've been no quarterback drama in San Francisco because the job would've been handed to Blaine Gabbert. Instead, Kaepernick and Gabbert and going to duke it out to see who's the starter. Although it's easy to write off Gabbert because he's been pretty horrible during his five NFL seasons, it's hard to blame him for his struggles. The former first-round pick of the Jaguars has had to deal with five offensive coordinators during his five seasons in the league. That number jumped to six this year when Kelly and the 49ers hired Curtis Modkins.
Speaking of Kelly, he knows exactly what he wants in a quarterback, so this competition shouldn't last too long because he's going to play the guy who understands his system the best (Get the ball off quickly, don't take sacks, don't turn the ball over). Kaepernick's health will also play a key part in this competition. If he can't get healthy, it will be kind of tough to win the job. Kap had offseason surgery on his left shoulder and has also been dealing with knee and thumb injuries.
Who wins the starting job in San Francisco? USATSI
2. They're arguably worse at every offensive skill position
The Niners leading receiver from 2015 (Anquan Boldin) is no longer on the team and their leading rusher (Carlos Hyde) isn't exactly healthy. Hyde missed the final nine games of the season in 2015 after suffering a fracture in his foot during a Week 7 loss to the Seahawks.
Hyde could thrive in Kelly's system if he's healthy, but as of right now, it's hard to say how good he'll be. Hyde only rushed for 470 yards in 2015 and 35.7 of those yards (168) came in one game: The 49ers season opener. After that, Hyde only crossed the 60-yard mark one time over the final six games he played in.
The good news for the 49ers is that Hyde's foot was looking kind of healthy during some offseason training back in March.
49ers Carlos Hyde and Bruce Ellington @el_guapo1 @_elling10 =============================== Everything I do with my athletes has an exact purpose for what they will need from their bodies when they are playing. There is No cookie cutter workouts at @dbcfit It's all about our approach and the details. #WhereDoYouTrain A video posted by David Alexander (@dzandertraining) on Mar 21, 2016 at 4:14pm PDT
The above video doesn't mean Hyde's foot will hold up in an NFL game, but it's obviously a good sign.
As for the receiving game, there were seven players who went over 300-yards in Philly last season under Kelly. On the other hand the 49ers had just four. The 49ers are going to have to figure out who they can get the ball to through the air (besides Torrey Smith).
If the 49ers are looking for someone to sign, they can always add James Jones. The Packers leading receiver from 2015 recently said that he'd like to play in San Francisco.
3. The Anthony Davis situation keeps getting weirder
If you don't know who Anthony Davis is, or just forgot him, he's the 49ers offensive tackle who surprisingly decided to retire back in June 2015. The reason this situation is odd is because it seems like Davis wants to play football, he just doesn't want to play for the Niners, which is a problem because the Niners own his playing rights.
At least two times over the past two months, Davis has taken to Twitter to rip 49ers general manager Trent Baalke. In one tweet, Davis said that Baalke gives him a "headache" and in another tweet, Davis wrote that the 49ers front office isn't trying to win games.
The 49ers actually have a hole at right tackle and if a healthy Davis decided to return to football, that'd be a huge pickup for the 49ers offensive line. Unfortunately for San Francisco, it seems that Davis would rather send cryptic messages on Twitter than play football. As of June 1, the lineman hasn't applied for reinstatement.
If Davis does get back on the field, the 49ers will get a guy who started in every regular season game the team played in between 2010-2013.
Los Angeles Rams
Three positives
1. They might actually have a quarterback
Generally, trading up to land a quarterback in the first round of the NFL Draft is a horrible idea. If you need proof, just consider that Johnny Manziel, Tim Tebow, Mark Sanchez and Ryan Leaf were all picked after a team traded up to get them in the first round of their respective drafts.
That being said, you can't fault the Rams for going after Jared Goff, especially since they haven't had anything that even slightly resembles a capable quarterback since Kurt Warner left town 13 years ago.
If the Goff pick pays off, it will almost make up for all the games that Rams fans had to sit through over the past 12 seasons where Sam Bradford, A.J. Feeley, Kellen Clemens, Shaun Hill, Nick Foles, Case Keenum, Marc Bulger, Jamie Martin, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Gus Frerotte or Brock Berlin, Kyle Boller or Keith Null was the starting quarterback. Almost makes up for it.
Is Jared Goff finally the answer at quarterback for the Rams? USATSI
2. They're finally in Los Angeles
If you've ever made a big move in your life, then you know that it's not easy. Whatever you experienced, multiply that by 100 and that's what the Rams had to go through. Not only did the team have to move computers, whirlpools and 1 million pounds of equipment, but the Rams also had to worry about getting each and every player situated in Southern California. The move didn't happen overnight either. As a matter of fact, the Rams didn't move out of St. Louis until March, which was a full two months after the NFL approved the team's move to L.A.
Now that the Rams are officially in Los Angeles, several headaches should go away. The coaching staff won't be getting blitzed with relocation questions and players won't have to worry anymore about where they're going to live next year.
3. They dumped some people they needed to dump
Ending a long-term relationship is never easy. Just ask the Rams, who were forced to make some tough decisions this offseason. Three of those tough decisions were made on the same day (Feb. 19) when the team decided to cut ties with Chris Long, James Laurinaitis and Jared Cook.
The cuts probably weren't easy to make, but the Rams were almost certainly in a much better mood after they saw how much money they saved. The three cuts shaved roughly $23 million off the 2016 salary cap. If the Rams knew what to do what the kind of salary cap savings, this story would have a happy ending, but the team didn't really fill any holes during free agency.
Three negatives
1. They might have given up too much to land their quarterback
The downside of giving up everything to land the No. 1 pick in the draft is that if it doesn't work, then you just mortgaged your future. If Jared Goff somehow turns into a flop, then the Rams might end up being worse than they've been over the past 10 years, which is saying a lot because the Rams have been pretty bad.
The Rams had a front row seat to a similar trade in 2012 when the Redskins traded with them so they could land Robert Griffin III. Four years later, Griffin is no longer in Washington and neither is the coach who drafted him. As a matter of fact, the last six times a team has traded up in the first round to land a quarterback, the pick hasn't panned out (Mark Sanchez, Josh Freeman, Tim Tebow, Blaine Gabbert, RG3, Manziel).
On the other hand, the Rams could join the 1984 Patriots and the 1978 Oilers and make some NFL history. Before 2016, those were the only two teams ever to have traded up from a spot 15th or lower to land the No. 1 pick. The trade worked out in both cases: Both the Oilers and Patriots were in the AFC title game within two years.
Unfortunately for the Rams though, neither team drafted a quarterback. The Patriots selected a receiver (Irving Fryar), while the Oilers selected a running back (Earl Campbell).
2. Nick Foles decides he doesn't want to attend OTAs
If Nick Foles' goal this offseason is to make things as awkward as possible for the Rams, then he's probably going to succeed. In an ideal world, Foles would show up at OTAs with a smile on his face and help out Jard Goff. Instead, Foles has turned himself into a headline because he's decided to skip OTAs out of protest.
To be fair, Foles has no obligation to show up to OTAs -- they're voluntary -- but it's still a bad look. The Rams just gave him a two-year, $24.5 million contract that included $13.8 million in guaranteed money. If someone gives you that kind of dough, the least you can do is not cause them a headache, and make no mistake, Foles being a no-show is headache for the Rams whether they'll admit it or not.
3. They lost half of their secondary and there's some legal issues for half of the half that stayed
After three years together, the Rams secondary has officially been broken up. The unit of Rodney McLeod, Janoris Jenkins, T.J. McDonald and Trumaine Johnson had basically started every game together in the Rams secondary since 2013, but that won't happen anymore now that Jenkins (Giants) and McLeod (Eagles) both dipped out of town and headed for the NFC East.
Both players received huge contracts with their new teams and letting them walk might have made financial sense, but that doesn't hide the fact that there's now a gaping hole in the Rams secondary. That gaping hole could bust open even more if McDonald gets suspended by the NFL. The Rams safety was charged with a non-alcoholic DUI after an arrest on May 10.
Seattle Seahawks
Three positives
1. They were ready for Marshawn's retirement
If Marshawn decides to come back, there might not be any room for him in the Seahawks backfield. Coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider obviously had a game plan ready in case Lynch retired and they put that plan into action during the NFL Draft. During the three-day event, the Seahawks selected a total of three running backs in C.J. Prosise (third round), Alex Collins (fifth round) and Zac Brooks (seventh round).
Those three will join Thomas Rawls and Christine Michael in a Seahawks' backfield that's suddenly crowded. The added depth is good news for Rawls, who shouldn't feel any pressure to return early. Rawls is still recovering from a broken ankle he suffered in December.
2. They brought back some familiar faces
If you own a Chris Clemons or Brandon Browner Seahawks jersey, hopefully you didn't throw those away when the two left Seattle during free agency, because both players have returned. (On the other hand, if you own a Brandon Browner Saints jersey, you can probably get rid of that one.)
Although Clemons and Browner were both relatively successful during their time with the Seahawks -- which helped them score huge contracts in free agency -- both players struggled once they left and are now back in Seattle on relatively small deals.
Clemons, a former Jaguar, signed a one-year, $1.5 million deal to return. As for Browner, he signed an even smaller deal to return to Seattle (one-year, $760,000), although he probably doesn't care because he just fleeced the Saints for $7.75 million in guaranteed money -- or as he put it, "Saints weak a-- f--- I took that few millions ran with it sucka."
That's way more eloquent than anything I could have written.
3. Ricardo Lockette's retirement
A retirement doesn't usually qualify as a "positive" thing during the offseason, but it does in Lockette's case. The wide receiver announced on May 12 that he's done playing football. One of the main reasons that Lockette had to call it quits is because he's having trouble moving his head. Remember, this is a guy who almost died on the field after taking a crushing blow during a November game against the Cowboys.
"Tough day for me, but I don't want anyone to be sad," Lockette said.
The wide receiver also said he had no regrets about retiring: "I love my family, and I'd rather walk."
Three negatives
1. Russell Wilson running for his life is something that's likely to continue
Pete Carroll and John Schneider do a great job of identifying talent, but it's almost as if they've given up on trying to make the Seahawks offensive line better. If Russell Wilson was hoping that his team would beef up the line this offseason, he's going to be depressed when he shows up for minicamp because that definitely didn't happen.
Over the past three months, the Seahawks lost two starters on the offensive line (Russell Okung, J.R. Sweezy) and didn't exactly bring in adequate replacements (Bradley Sowell, J'Marcus Webb). Of course, the fact that the Seahawks' offensive line struggles almost every year isn't completely related to the amount of talent on the line, it also has to do with amount of money the Seahawks spend on that talent. According to OverTheCap.com, the Seahawks have only spent $11.69 million on their offensive line in 2016. That's an extremely low number when you consider that the Vikings have spent $43 million and no other team has spent less than $15 million.
For the third year in a row, Russell Wilson running for his life and then making a spectacular throw while being hit will probably be the most successful play in the Seahawks' playbook.
Russell Wilson will be on the run again in 2016. USATSI
2. They let two defensive starters walk
In what has basically become an annual tradition, a starter from the Seahawks defense jumped ship to sign with another team. This year, it was actually two starters who jumped ship when Brandon Mebane signed with the Chargers and Bruce Irvin signed with the Raiders. Of course, those two weren't jumping off a sinking ship, they were going to a ship that had way more money on it: Mebane signed a three-year, $13.5 million deal, while Irvin signed a four-year, $37 million deal.
Although both losses could sting, they likely won't and that's because the Seahawks have managed to overcome major defensive losses in the past. After the 2013 season, they lost Clemons and Browner, and managed to get along just fine. The Seahawks also lost Byron Maxwell after the 2014 season and managed to survive, so although the losses of Mebane and Irvin could hurt early, they probably won't hurt for long.
3. Marshawn Lynch's non-retirement retirement
It's been almost four months since Marshawn Lynch unofficially retired during the Super Bowl, yet, we're still talking about him today because no one seems to know if he's actually retired. Richard Sherman and Seahawks general manager John Schneider both seemed unsure about Lynch's future plans when they were recently asked whether or not they thought he would stay retired.
The negative here is that if Lynch does come back, the Seahawks will have to decide pretty quickly what they're going to do with him. Although the Seahawks placed Lynch on the reserve-retired list on May 5, that doesn't make him retired. Lynch still hasn't filed his retirement papers, which means all he has to do to play in 2016 is let the NFL know that he wants to play. At that point, Lynch would be taken off the reserve-retired list and the Seahawks would have an $11.5 million decision to make.
As mentioned earlier, it seems like the Seahawks have already moved on from Lynch, so if he does decide to unretire, it's very likely that Seattle wouldn't hang on to him.
Arizona Cardinals
Three positives
1. They pulled off the best trade of the offseason
It's not often that you can add an elite pass-rusher to your roster for under $8 million, but that's exactly what the Cardinals did in March when they pulled off a trade for Chandler Jones. All the Cards had to give up to land Jones was trade a player they didn't want anymore (Jonathan Cooper) and a second-round pick in the 2016 NFL Draft. It was probably the easiest trade that Cardinals general manager Steve Keim will ever make in his life.
The Cardinals defense was already good and the addition of Jones has the potential to make them great this season. It's almost unfair that the Cards will have Jones and Calais Cambell on the same defensive line (Plus first-round draft pick Robert Nkemdiche). Arizona had the fifth-best defense in the NFL in 2015, so don't be surprised if they crack the top 3 in 2016.
The Cards are ecstatic about landing Chandler Jones in a trade with the Patriots. USATSI
2. They added by subtraction on the offensive line
Unlike the Seahawks, the Cardinals aren't afraid to spend money on their offensive line, something they proved once again this offseason when they brought in veteran guard Evan Mathis on a one-year, $6 million deal. The move comes two years after the Cards brought in Jared Veldheer and one year after they brought in Mike Iupati. The Cardinals are slowly constructing a Frankenstein offensive line that will likely dominate the division in 2016.
In Mathis, the Cardinals get a player who's an instant upgrade over Jonathan Cooper.
By the way, Cooper wasn't the only offensive lineman to leave Arizona this offseason, the Cardinals also lost Bobby Massie to the Bears. However, "lost" might not be the right word to use there because the Cardinals were completely OK with his exit. When you lose two linemen and only sign one, but still improve your team, that's some old-fashioned addition by subtraction.
3. Tom Brady's suspension
If Tom Brady's four-game suspension sticks, the biggest winner would probably be the Cardinals. The Patriots only play one road game during Brady's suspension and it happens to be at Arizona in the regular-season opener.
Although there are no easy games in the NFL, there are definitely winnable games and the Patriots game becomes a lot more winnable if Brady's out. The Cardinals' 2016 schedule is actually front-loaded with winnable games, and if Arizona can get past New England in the opener, they'll have a good shot of starting 6-0.
And by the way, don't think this Brady suspension isn't being talked about in the Cardinals locker room. As a matter of fact, Larry Fitzgerald didn't even try to hide his feelings when he was asked recently if he wanted Brady to play in the opener.
"C'mon, man, I think that's a pretty easy question to answer," Fitzgerald said. "I love Tom, that's my man. But if he doesn't play, I wouldn't shed any tears. I'd love to see him back the next week, though."
Three negatives
1. Everyone's going to be a free agent after 2016
If the Cardinals are going to win a Super Bowl, they might want to do it this season, because there's quite a few guys who likely won't be around after 2016. There could be a mass exodus from Arizona after this season because several important contracts are set to expire.
Tyrann Mathieu, Calais Campbell, Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Floyd, Chandler Jones, Evan Mathis and Jeramine Gresham are all starters going into the final year of their current deal. The Cardinals will likely get something done with the Honey Badger before the 2016 season starts, but unless the NFL abolishes the salary cap, don't look for all of the other guys to return to Arizona in 2017.
2. Negotiations with the Honey Badger could get interesting
It's pretty much a certainty that the Cardinals are going to give a contract extension to the Honey Badger, but it's not clear when that's actually going to happen. Negotiations with Mathieu could get tricky for two reasons: For one, he's coming off an ACL injury for the second time in three years.
Mathieu tore his right ACL in December, an injury that came two years after he tore his left ACL in a December 2013 game.
The other tricky part of negotiations is that it's not clear what position Mathieu plays. The Cards basically put Honey Badger on the field wherever they see fit, which sometimes means he's playing safety and sometimes means he's playing corner. That's fine and dandy when he's on the field, but it's not an easy thing to hash out in terms of a contract because the NFL's best corners make a lot more money than the NFL's best safeties.
The good news for the Cardinals is that Mathieu doesn't want to be paid like a corner, it sounds like he's willing to split the difference between the two positions.
"I just want to get paid as a top defender," Mathieu told ESPN.com recently. "I don't want to be slotted as a corner or a safety, because I'm not Patrick Peterson and I'm not Earl Thomas. I'm kind of different than both of those guys, but I still have the same type of impact on the game as those guys do.
3. They still need to fill some minor holes
When it comes to their offensive and defensive starters, the Cardinals don't have any glaring holes on their roster, but they could definitely stand to beef up their depth at a few key positions. Both the offensive line and secondary could use another player or two. Right tackle D.J. Humphries, who was the 24th overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft, has never played in a regular season game, so it'd probably be smart for the Cardinals to make sure they have some extra depth behind him.Brazil, in the grips of an unusually large yellow fever outbreak, has asked for millions of doses of vaccine from an international emergency stockpile.
The body that maintains and manages the stockpile, the International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision, has approved the release of more than 3.5 million doses of the vaccine, according to the Brazilian office of the Pan American Health Organization. The office said the vaccine should arrive in Brazil over the next few days.
The request signals public health officials’ increasing concern over the scale of Brazil’s outbreak. The country is already home to one of four yellow fever vaccine manufacturers in the world, and it normally produces enough to meet its own needs.
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But since last December, Brazil has recorded a larger-than-normal number of cases of yellow fever. And as cases have crept ever closer to two of the country’s largest cities — Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo — there have been fears that the disease could start to spread in these cities and, from them, to other parts of the Americas.
As of March 13, there had been 1,538 cases of yellow fever reported, according to Brazil’s health ministry. Of those, 396 have been confirmed and 184 discarded. More than 950 suspected cases remain under investigation.
There have been 255 deaths. The confirmed cases have been recorded in three states: Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo, and São Paulo.
The health ministry recently announced it would vaccinate everyone in Rio de Janeiro state, and would also vaccinate people in parts of São Paulo state that have been deemed at risk.
The yellow fever virus, like the related dengue and Zika viruses, is spread by mosquitoes. It is deadlier, though, than its cousins, with a significant fatality rate.
The virus normally spreads in what is known as a jungle or sylvatic cycle, with transmission between Haemagogus mosquitoes and monkeys. Occasionally a person becomes infected, but human cases are generally rare in the jungle cycle
But if the virus finds its way into cities, it can infect Aedes mosquitoes, which live in close proximity to people, and that can trigger a cycle of hard-to-contain urban yellow fever. Given the severity of the disease, the specter of urban yellow fever alarms public health officials. Still, the World Health Organization said last week that to date there is no evidence that Aedes mosquitoes are spreading the virus.
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People who contract yellow fever can experience fever, headache, backache, muscle pains, loss of appetite, and nausea or vomiting. Those symptoms typically last three or four days. But about 15 percent of people then suffer a relapse, entering what is called a toxic phase in which they develop jaundice and more severe illness. Roughly half of the people who reach the toxic phase die.
In the Rio de Janeiro state, there have been two confirmed cases in a city located about 62 miles from the city of Rio de Janeiro, and four cases have been confirmed in cities located in São Paulo state between 160 miles and 220 miles from the city of São Paulo. The urban centers of Rio and São Paulo have populations of more than 6 million and 12 million people, respectively.
Given the situation, the WHO announced last week that international travelers who are traveling to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo states should be vaccinated against yellow fever, though it exempted those whose travels are restricted to the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo as well as the cities of Niterói and Campinas.
The international emergency yellow fever stockpile, which normally contains 6 million doses, is managed by the International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision, which is a coalition of four agencies: the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Doctors Without Borders, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the WHO.
Last year that stockpile distributed nearly 30 million doses of yellow fever vaccine to help extinguish a dangerous outbreak in Angola that spilled into the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as an unrelated outbreak in Uganda.When Carol was eight years old, she was baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormon church. But she refused to stand up in front of the congregation and bear her testimony – to make a declaration about how she knew that God, the Heavenly Father, loved her.
Her father punished her by raping her.
Carol only remembered this years later, in her 20s, while working with a therapist who specialized in childhood trauma. She gradually came to realize that she had been abused since she was a very young child. Her father justified sexual abuse by using an example from the Bible.
“He told me that Mary was impregnated by God the Father. That’s why Mary had to have sex with God,” Carol said.
Now, at age 56, Carol (not her real name) has watched her Facebook feed fill up with messages of women saying #metoo. She thought these very small words held huge stories. As she read others’ experiences, she decided to write her own post.
“It’s almost impossible to describe how heinous this crime is, especially when perpetrated against a child. There’s a reason we call these crimes ‘unspeakable’ … I have no sweeping answer about how to stop the violence. But I have this voice. And I was born to tell the truth,” her post read.
Telling the truth about sexual abuse is hard for anyone, but it has particular challenges in the conservative, Mormon community of Utah where Carol was raised for most of her life and where she now lives. Carol, who identifies as a Mormon feminist, sees a parallel with powerful men in Hollywood and those in the Mormon church.
“It’s men in power taking advantage of their positions of authority,” she said. “In the LDS church or any patriarchal religious community, it’s even more condensed and insulated, and there’s a lot of pressure to forgive and to not rock the boat.”
‘In the hands of God’
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The LDS Temple in Draper, Utah. Photograph: Kim Raff for The Guardian
On paper, the rules are clear. “The Church’s position is that abuse cannot be tolerated in any form,” reads the official church policy handbook. “Those who abuse or are cruel to their spouses, children, other family members, or anyone else violate the laws of God and man … Members who have abused others are subject to Church discipline.”
But Carol’s father was not disciplined after Carol and her sister, who also remembers being raped by him, reported the abuse to local church leaders. It was 1990; Carol was 29 years old by then, and her father had since remarried and moved to another state.
According to a three-page letter (read it in its entirety here) addressed to Carol, church leaders confronted her father, and he denied it.
“I had fasted and prayed, as to how I should proceed … If he had admitted the transgressions and confessed them, the course of action would have been clear,” the stake president (the lay leader of the Mormon equivalent of a diocese) wrote to Carol. Having informed the father’s current wife and her adult daughter about the allegations, church leaders decided they could do nothing more to help him repent and reform, leaving him “in the hands of God”.
“In conclusion, I pray the Lord’s blessings upon you,” the letter to Carol closes. “With all that you have been through, I hope that he will pour out his spirit, and richest blessings upon you and your family.”
Carol remembers feeling devastated at the time.
“I had a period of disillusionment about the church,” she said. “If God is in it, you would think the truth of something like this would be worth taking some kind of action on.”
She decided not to bring her rape to the attention of an even higher church authority or to take legal action. Instead, she focused on her own healing, and she says her Mormon community has been instrumental in that.
“When I was in the deepest grief, despair, and loneliness in dealing with residual horrors of assaults, I opened myself to a profound and hope-filled relationship with Jesus,” Carol wrote on her Facebook wall. Over decades, she says she has had many positive relationships within the church, including some supportive local bishops. She is committed now to helping to contribute to these difficult conversations among her fellow Mormons.
‘Our culture objectifies women’s bodies’
One of the most high-profile cases of sexual abuse in the Mormon community was the abduction and repeated rape of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart by a religious fanatic in 2002.
Smart spoke publicly at Johns Hopkins University in 2013 about how she was taught that a woman who has sex out of wedlock is like a “chewed-up piece of gum”. Smart has said those teachings contributed to her sense of hopelessness. At the time, she feared she was ruined, not worth saving.
Since that time, a controversial verse from the Book of Mormon has been removed from a workbook on virtue for Mormon girls. Chapter nine of the Book of Moroni describes rape as a depravation of “that which was most dear and precious among all things, chastity and virtue”.
While the church continues to teach chastity and abstinence, spokesman Eric Hawkins says victims of abuse should be assured that they are not to blame.
“They do not need to feel guilt,” Hawkins said. “If they have been a victim of rape or other sexual abuse, whether they have been abused by an acquaintance, a stranger, or even a family member, victims of sexual abuse are not guilty of sexual sin.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tara Tulley, a therapist whose patients are mormon women who are victims of sexual abuse and struggle with finding support in their church communities. Photograph: Kim Raff for The Guardian
But the shame persists among victims, and it can create a ripe environment for abuse, according to Tara Tulley, a therapist practicing in the predominantly Mormon community of Utah County.
“It helps perpetrators to keep victims quiet,” said Tulley, a survivor of sexual abuse herself.
According to Uniform Crime Reports, the rape rate in Utah has been consistently higher than the US rate; it’s the only violent crime in Utah that occurs at a higher rate than the rest of the nation. Tulley said these reported rapes represent only a small portion of the actual numbers. In Utah, she said, the internalized shame runs deep.
“Our [Mormon] culture objectifies women’s bodies. You’re told that if you’re wearing something immodest, you are walking pornography. It’s your responsibility to control how men see you,” Tulley said.
This is reflected in Mormon literature: “Central to the command to be modest is an understanding of the sacred power of procreation, the ability to bring children into the world,” reads the official church website at lds.org. “Revealing and sexually suggestive clothing, which includes short shorts and skirts, tight clothing, and shirts that do not cover the stomach, can stimulate desires and actions that violate the Lord’s law of chastity.”
The website also advises members to always be neat and clean in appearance, and not to disfigure themselves with tattoos or body piercings. Tulley does not look like a typical Mormon with her purple hair and tattooed skin. She says many women here feel pressure to appear perfect, to avoid showing any vulnerability.
“We have that internal pain and we don’t know what to do with it so we put it on our bodies. If we look good enough, if we are appealing enough, then people will like us, and people won’t be able to see what we feel like is broken inside.”
Tulley encourages people to seek healthy support. Often in the Mormon community, people’s first response is to talk to their local bishop, but Tulley says a bishop may not be educated about how to deal with sexual assault. Church leaders are instructed to work with the victim in ensuring the abuse is reported to authorities, and they have access to a 24-hour help line provided by the church, but Tulley says a well-meaning bishop can sometimes give psychologically damaging messages to a vulnerable person.
“If you’ve been abused, you’re often told you need to forgive,” Tulley said. “That’s putting the responsibility on the victim.”
‘The message to be a witness comes from God’
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Carol poses for a portrait at her home. Photograph: Kim Raff for The Guardian
Sometimes, talking about assault can have real costs for survivors.
At Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, several students spoke last year to the media about how they were afraid to report sexual assault because it meant putting themselves at risk of investigations into their own conduct.
Students at the church-owned school must sign the Honor Code, which prohibits use of alcohol and illicit drugs and sexual intercourse before marriage. If students reporting sexual assault were found to be in violation of the Honor Code, they could be disciplined – even barred from attending the school. After investigations by the Salt Lake Tribune and the federal Office for Civil Rights, the school changed its policies in June last year to give accusers amnesty from Honor Code investigations.
A survey conducted in March this year on BYU campus revealed that most students who said they had experienced unwanted sexual contact did not report it. If they did talk to anyone, they were most likely to speak to a religious leader like a local bishop. Survey committee leaders determined that more work needed to be done to educate students about reporting, sexual assault policies and support services. The school now has a new full-time Title IX coordinator and an advocate for victims of sexual assault. For the first time this fall, BYU trained new students on consent at orientation.
“The attention that has come because of that case at BYU, I think things have changed,” said Holly Richardson, a Mormon columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune and a former Utah Republican legislator. “I’m glad to see that there’s more conversation around it. I would love to live in a society where victims are believed and not shamed or blamed.”
Richardson wrote in a recent column about how she posted #metoo on her social media feed. She said the very first comment on her post was, “Have you really or are you just jumping on the bandwagon to add your voice?”
“The way we’re going to stop the shame culture is believing people when they speak up,” Richardson said.
She would like to see a response from the highest levels of the LDS church, to create opportunities and training for members to talk about sexual harassment and assault in a church setting.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Mormon ward near the Draper temple. Photograph: Kim Raff for The Guardian
At this point in her life, Carol says she would be happy to never speak of her father and the abuse again, but she feels a moral responsibility to do so.
“The message to be a witness comes from God,” she said. She’s made a vow that when the opportunity to talk about her experience arises, she will say yes. That includes church meetings, where it may be hard for people to hear what she has to say.
“There is an emphasis in the [Mormon] community to focus on ‘the good’, to affirm the innate goodness of the human spirit,” said Carol. Through her difficulties at home, it was this community and her belief in God that affirmed her sense of self-worth, but she says, there is a dangerous and hurtful flip side.
“Those elements are also used to ignore and deny the bad. Sharing these types of truths in the Mormon community, there is a social pressure or expectation that you just don’t bring it up. People want to believe it’s not a problem in their community, certainly not in God’s chosen church.”
In a religion where you are supposed to spend eternity with your family, she adds, “it’s hard for people to hear about how your dad is a pedophile”.
But Carol knows she is not the only one in the room who has been abused. She speaks for them, and others in a position to help them.
“If it’s truth, there’s something about it that is important,” Carol said. “Truth is light, even when it looks like darkness.”
Andrea Smardon is an award-winning reporter and contributor to National Public Radio based in Utah and executive producer of the podcast Changing Our StoriesA new witness has come forward saying he was in the look |
next season's Heat roster could set up around a core of:
Center: Hassan Whiteside, Bam Adebayo, Udonis Haslem.
Power forward: Kelly Olynyk, James Johnson, Okaro White
Small forward: Justise Winslow, Rodney McGruder.
Shooting guard: Dion Waiters, Josh Richardson, Wayne Ellington.
Point guard: Goran Dragic, Tyler Johnson.
That would leave two open roster spots, plus the ability to add two players to two-way contracts for their Sioux Falls Skyforce development-league affiliate.
See photos of new Miami Heat forward Kelly Olynyk from his college days at Gonzaga to the NBA's Boston Celtics.
Whiteside Ejected After Flagrant Foul On Olynyk. Hassan Whiteside runs over Kelly Olynyk and gets ejected from the game. - Mar 9, 2015 Whiteside Ejected After Flagrant Foul On Olynyk. Hassan Whiteside runs over Kelly Olynyk and gets ejected from the game. - Mar 9, 2015 SEE MORE VIDEOSThe options for aerobic exercise during the Canadian winter can seem grim: slipping and sliding along icy streets, pedalling nowhere under the fluorescent lights of the gym, and so on. But there's a better option, one that, recent research suggests, actually offers unique advantages compared to the alternatives. When it snows, why not make for the cross-country ski trails?
Stay young
Researchers in Sweden and at Ball State University in Indiana assembled two remarkable groups of octogenarian men. All of the volunteers were healthy, lived independently and were capable of completing a vigorous exercise test to exhaustion. The difference was that one group was composed of lifelong cross-country skiers who trained four to six times a week, while the other group didn't do any formal exercise beyond the activities of daily living.
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It's not difficult to predict the punchline here: The skiers were in better shape than the non-skiers. But the magnitude of the differences is jaw-dropping. The results of a battery of physical tests, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology, show that the skiers had approximately twice the cardiovascular and muscular fitness of the untrained group.
Even compared to previous studies of lifelong endurance athletes in their 80s, the skiers were about 40-per-cent fitter, suggesting that the full-body workout provided by cross-country skiing is uniquely effective. In fact, their fitness "places them in the lowest all-cause mortality risk category for men of any age," the researchers point out.
The results are consistent with earlier studies of cross-country skiers: An analysis of 73,000 men and women who participated over a 10-year period in Vasaloppet, an annual long-distance race series in Sweden, found that they were less than half as likely to die during the follow-up period as matched controls from the general population.
In contrast, the untrained subjects, despite being blessed with remarkable health, were perilously close to the "prognostic exercise capacity" that's associated with an inability to live independently. The message: Good genes can help you live a long life, but if you want to fully enjoy those later years, go skiing.
Use your arms
One of the big differences between cross-country skiing and other forms of endurance exercise, like running and cycling, is that your upper body plays a big role. How big? A forthcoming study in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports offers some clues.
Researchers tested a group of 16 elite Norwegian skiers, half of the group male and the other half female, in four different exercise protocols, each requiring different levels of upper-body contribution. The most arm-intensive activity was double-poling, where the propulsion is provided entirely by the arms. Next was "G3 skating," the freestyle technique in which skiers double pole with every stride. Then came the classic skiing style, with skis kept parallel. And the final exercise was running, which doesn't use the arms at all for forward motion.
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The goal of the study was to understand how the male skiers' greater upper-body strength would affect performance in the different techniques. Sure enough, the men were comparatively better in the most arm-dependent tasks: They were 20-per-cent faster at double-poling, 17-per-cent faster at skating, 14-per-cent faster at classic style, and just 12-per-cent faster while running.
The results suggest that you should vary your technique on different types of terrain in order to maximize your full-body workout. In particular, include some double-poling – particularly on long, gradual downhills, where it's tempting to just coast.
Climb hard
The occasional steep uphill on a cross-country course is a necessary evil. (How else do you earn the downhill that follows?) You can turn your skis perpendicular to the hill and side-step your way up, or even take your skis right off. But the quickest solution – like pulling a band-aid off – is to angle your skis slightly outward and herringbone up at top speed.
Clambering up a hill in this style is like a miniature sprint, and it will send your heart rate shooting upward. That's a good thing: Over the past few years, researchers have shown that including some short bursts of intense activity in your workout can produce a much more effective and time-efficient workout.
It's possible to insert similar bursts into other types of workouts, like running or cardio machines at the gym, but a rolling cross-country ski loop integrates them naturally, since you'll slide backward if you don't keep pushing.
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Of course, cross-country skiing isn't without drawbacks. For city-dwellers in particular, it can be difficult to find good trails, though temporary tracks blossom in many urban parks after a good snowfall.
More importantly, it's a strictly limited-time option. Come spring, you'll be back to your usual workout routines. So ski while you can.
Alex Hutchinson blogs about exercise research at sweatscience.runnersworld.com. His latest book is Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights?slapper
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Activity: 1008
Merit: 1001
🤖UBEX.COM 🤖
LegendaryActivity: 1008Merit: 1001🤖UBEX.COM 🤖
Re: delete March 29, 2014, 03:32:57 AM #8 The Bitcoin mafia will never let any altcoin succeed.
Let's brainwash them with naivettes like "Do you want NSA Coin, Fed Coin, fiat/goverment money?" No here, suck on my bitcoin tit and buy it for a grand. The others are not secure. If they were to become secure one day, we will make sure to unsecure it.
There is a reason Satoshi left the scene. He didn't want mining companies to produce bitcoins so laymen buy it like they buy gold. The idea was for a decentralized p2p currency. He saw greedy maggots take over in the name of being anti-establishment.
Maybe Dogecoin does need to win out.Approximately twenty million Americans visit a chiropractor each year, according to the American Chiropractic Association, making it the largest alternative medicine profession. But if those people were aware of these five facts about chiropractic, I wonder if they'd still be so keen to get their spines manipulated. If you haven't tried chiropractic, these facts might banish any desire to do so.
1. Chiropractic doesn't work. Thousands upon thousands of studies have placed chiropractic under the microscope, examining its effectiveness in treating conditions such as back pain, neck pain, infant colic, headache, and scoliosis. Some studies have found positive results, but many more have shown no effect whatsoever. When the jumble of mixed data is grouped together and examined, only one conclusion is warranted: "these data fail to demonstrate convincingly that spinal manipulation is an effective intervention for any condition."
2. There's a genuine risk of stroke. While spinal manipulation at the hands of a trained chiropractor is generally safe, there's a boatload of evidence to suggest that you should never let a chiropractor touch your neck. The primary vertebral artery, which supplies blood to the brain, is located at the crest of your neck just below your skull. Abrupt manipulations of the cervical vertebrae in the neck, can, and have, caused the artery to rupture, resulting in stroke, coma, or even death. As one would expect, the American Chiropractic Association denies the existence of these events.
3. Chiropractic's most fundamental theory is bunk. Chiropractic was founded on the idea that correcting misaligned vertebrae in the spine -- called subluxations -- could cure all forms of disease. "A subluxated vertebra... is the cause of 95 percent of all diseases... The other five percent is caused by displaced joints other than those of the vertebral column," D.D. Palmer, the creator of chiropractic, wrote. Most modern day chiropractors now admit that this is totally wrong.
In 2009, four curious chiropractors reviewed all available evidence on the topic and concluded, "No supportive evidence is found for the chiropractic subluxation being associated with any disease process or of creating suboptimal health conditions requiring intervention. Regardless of popular appeal, this leaves the subluxation construct in the realm of unsupported speculation."
4. Chiropractic's founder was probably crazy. D.D. Palmer created chiropractic back in the late 1800s, but if you asked him, he would say that he got the idea from a medical physician named Dr. Jim Atkinson. As humble as it is for Mr. Palmer to share credit, it's also a little strange, especially considering Jim Atkinson was dead, and according to Palmer, relayed the instructions for chiropractic from beyond the grave. According to B.J. Palmer, D.D.'s son, "Father often attended the annual Mississippi Valley Spiritualists Camp Meeting where he first claimed to receive messages from Dr. Jim Atkinson on the principles of chiropractic."
5. Chiropractic hurts. Simply put, spinal manipulation usually doesn't feel good. "It often involves a high velocity thrust, a technique in which the joints are adjusted rapidly, often accompanied by popping sounds," described Edzard Ernst, a Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. These disconcerting sounds are often harbingers of adverse side effects. Thirty to 61 percent of patients generally experience pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness, tingling and headaches, which can persist for up to 48 hours after their appointment. These generally mild pains might be worth the discomfort if chiropractic actually worked in the long term. But it doesn't.
(Image: AP)Kalis Party
I have been toying with Kalis decks over the last few days and aside from just being super fun to play, the card Torrent of Spiders has jumped out as being great. This got me thinking, how can I generate more spiders? Enter West-Wind Herald! Once I decided to splash Primal, Scouting Party felt like a perfect fit. In fact, West-Wind into Scouting Party is just a great combo on its own as you play the Party on turn 6 and replay it with West-Wind with the Infiltrate trigger.
4 Combust (Set1 #392)
4 Grenadin Drone (Set1 #5)
4 Seek Power (Set1 #408)
4 Slumbering Stone (Set1 #255)
4 Dark Wisp (Set1 #264)
4 Devour (Set1 #261)
4 Quarry (Set1001 #15)
4 Assembly Line (Set1 #29)
4 Bloodrite Kalis (Set1 #397)
2 Madness (Set1 #267)
4 Torrent of Spiders (Set1 #272)
4 West-Wind Herald (Set1 #231)
4 Scouting Party (Set1 #488)
3 Fire Sigil (Set1 #1)
2 Primal Sigil (Set1 #187)
4 Shadow Sigil (Set1 #249)
4 Seat of Chaos (Set0 #60)
4 Seat of Cunning (Set0 #62)
4 Seat of Fury (Set0 #53)
4 Stonescar Banner (Set1 #419)
One of the reasons this deck works is the super light influence requirements of the Stonescar cards. That is something I noticed playing the traditional Kalis decks, you only ever needed double shadow for Oblivion Spike. This build cuts the Spike and given that we are just splashing for West-Wind and Party, the requirements are quite easy to meet. Just be careful to Seek Power knowing you need double Primal for West-Wind. Quarry is great in this deck to find the pieces you might need or just to make a West-Wind or Party cheaper. There is a conspicuous lack of Torch, but this deck is so combo/synergy oriented that I don’t think you need it. Madness/Combust/Spiders buy enough time for you to go off with the various combos. This is a deck that wishes there were more space for units on the board! It is not uncommon to have full boards of Spiders/Yetis. This allows for some preposterously sized Kalis’.
This is a super grindy deck. There is not much point to making aggressive plays early. Often you are just chump blocking until you can start generating multiple spiders with Torrent. You might get a few quick wins if you can curve some combination of Grenadin Drone, Slumbering Stone, or Dark Wisp into a fast Kalis, but more often you will save Kalis until it can be 10/10 or bigger. The more patient you can be with setting up Madness with Combust/Devour/Kalis, the better. Try only to go after targets that can legitimately kill you before you can go off.
This isn’t a deck that I can recommend as top tier ladder climber, but I can certainly recommend it as a fun diversion that should have a positive win-rate. The deck just takes a long time to win, and lose, in most circumstances which is the main reason it might not be the best choice for climbing. This is also a strong Gauntlet deck if you are looking to complete quests there.
SPJ Warden Control
1 Permafrost (Set1 #193)
4 Seek Power (Set1 #408)
2 Suffocate (Set1 #251)
1 Annihilate (Set1 #269)
2 Lightning Storm (Set1 #206)
2 Lightning Strike (Set1 #197)
4 Feln Bloodcaster (Set1 #386)
4 Scheme (Set1 #213)
4 Valkyrie Enforcer (Set1 #151)
4 Wisdom of the Elders (Set1 #218)
1 Deathstrike (Set1 #290)
2 Steward of the Past (Set1 #287)
4 Harsh Rule (Set1 #172)
2 Staff of Stories (Set1 #234)
4 Throne Warden (Set1 #514)
2 Black-Sky Harbinger (Set1 #385)
2 Celestial Omen (Set1 #241)
1 Azindel’s Gift (Set1 #306)
1 Shadowlands Feaster (Set1001 #10)
5 Justice Sigil (Set1 #126)
2 Primal Sigil (Set1 #187)
3 Shadow Sigil (Set1 #249)
2 Cobalt Monument (Set1 #418)
4 Feln Banner (Set1 #417)
4 Seat of Cunning (Set0 #62)
4 Seat of Order (Set0 #51)
4 Seat of Vengeance (Set0 #55)
I have always been intrigued by Shadow/Justice/Primal control decks in Eternal. Justice for Harsh Rule, Primal for card advantage, and Shadow for spot removal and utility units. The previous incarnations have had a lot of trouble gaining life and surviving against aggressive decks. Enter Throne Warden! Throne Warden has been shooting up the ranks of my favorite Ranked cards. He shines brightly here to give your Staff of Stories a much need boost in armor and to provide a nice life buffer.
Shadowlands Feaster also is quite good in this deck to combat Relic Weapons and is just a generally strong finisher. The deck sports several one-ofs that get more value with the two Celestial Omens. Make sure you have the deck list handy when you play as one of the keys to winning with this deck is being precise with Celestial Omen. The influence requirements are fierce in this deck, but I believe the power-base is up to the challenge. You will need to use Scheme to find the appropriate influence from time to time, and Wisdom of the Elders plays an important role in hitting your power drops. You need to be very careful in what you find with Seek Power. You need to balance what the demands of your hand might be with what the requirements of important cards you might draw. One of the keys will be hitting double Justice for Harsh Rule/Warden. Luckily the deck doesn’t need double shadow until turn 4, and only 3 cards need it that early, so you can safely aim to land double Primal or Justice early on. I am running Feln Banner over Hooru banner despite this because of how important the Shadow cards like Feln Bloodcaster and Scheme are early in the game.
The game plan with this deck is straight forward. Do whatever you can to survive the early/mid game while fixing your influence and hitting power drops. Have a defensive presence on the board with some combination of Feln Bloodcaster, Steward of the Past, and/or Throne Warden, and/or set up a nice Harsh Rule. Drop a Staff of Stories or cast Wisdom of the Elders/Scheme and start gaining card advantage/selection. Eventually cast Celestial Omen for whatever you might need at the time. Against other control decks, Azindel’s Gift is your trump card. If you need to end the game, Shadowlands Feaster will do the trick. If you need another sweeper, you can always find a Harsh Rule. If you have control of the board, Staff of Stories is a great choice if you don’t already have it.
As far as control decks go, I feel this is a solid choice. However, similarly to the Kalis deck, it ultimately is not the optimal choice as a deck to climb the ladder with. Again, I believe it will have a positive win-rate but it wins and loses so slowly that choosing a faster deck is probably better if your only goal is to climb the ladder the fastest. Though, if your goal is to climb in style, I highly recommend either of these decks.
Thanks for reading,
Ben Chapman
@bchap55
CommentsIsraeli jets struck four positions in Gaza on Thursday, with shelling in the southern part of the enclave killing a woman, in the worst flaring of violence since the 2014 war.
Zeina al-Amour, 54, was killed when Israeli shelling hit her home in the eastern part of Khan Yunis, officials at Khan Yunis' Nasser hospital told AFP.
The tank shelling came in response to a mortar attack from Gaza on Israeli forces, the Israeli army said.
Amour is the first person to die as tensions between the Israeli army and Hamas have escalated in recent days.
The air strikes on Thursday come a day after Israeli jets targeted Gaza's defunct international airport near the southern city of Rafah and nearby farming areas, and also as reports emerged that a captured Hamas fighter was providing information on the group's tunnel network.
"In response to the ongoing attacks against Israeli forces, IAF (Israeli airforce) aircraft targeted four Hamas military posts in the southern Gaza Strip," the army said in a statement.
According to the army, Hamas had earlier fired "more than five mortar rounds at forces during operational activities adjacent to the security fence with the Gaza Strip".
Local sources told the Ma'an News Agency that Israeli F-16 jets launched several rockets on Gaza late on Thursday afternoon, hitting agricultural land in the Abu al-Rus area in eastern Rafah.
Earlier in the day, four Palestinians, including three children, were injured when Israeli forces carried out several air strikes on the strip.
One attack hit a metal workshop in the al-Zaytoun area southeast of Gaza City.
Hamas has accused Israeli forces of encroaching into Gazan territory.
Army spokesman Peter Lerner said in the past 24 hours "we have had at least six incidents where Hamas has fired at IDF activities," referring to the Israeli army.
He said that Israel had responded in what was the first direct confrontation with Hamas fighters since the war of 2014, which killed more than 2,100 Palestinians and 73 Israelis, 67 of whom were soldiers.
Clashes between Palestinian fighters and Israeli forces were continuing east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip Thursday afternoon, security sources and witnesses said.
Israel's military said on Twitter that its forces had "responded with tank fire" to mortar rounds fired from the Palestinian enclave.
Hamas tunnels unearthed
On Thursday it was revealed by the Shin Bet intelligence agency that Israel had arrested a reported Hamas member, Mohammed Atawa, who had given the agency information about Hamas tunnels, digging sites and tunnel shafts.
The tunnels, used by operatives fighting within Israeli territory, have been targeted by both Israel and Egypt for demolition.
The Israeli army said that a major target of the strikes was suspected infiltration tunnels under the border like those whose destruction it cited as one of the principal achievements of the 2014 conflict.
Gaza has been devastated by three conflicts between Israel and its Hamas rulers and other Palestinian factions since 2008, and reconstruction has been painstakingly slow amid an Israeli blockade on all imports that could have military purposes.
Over the past two days, the Israeli army says that its soldiers, operating along the fence that tightly encloses the territory, have been repeatedly targeted from inside Gaza.
But army spokesman Lerner said Israel had "no interest in escalation whatsoever".Hints from senior Obama administration officials that the United States could put off the planned end-of-2016 military withdrawal from Afghanistan are viewed positively by neighboring Pakistan, the country’s ambassador to Washington, Jalil Abbas Jilani, told reporters at a Monitor breakfast Tuesday.
A slowing of the timetable for withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan “would be viewed very positively in Pakistan,” given the increased militant activity the country has seen along the border as US troops in eastern Afghanistan have drawn down, Ambassador Jilani said.
The Pakistani military has had to carry out a “surge” of its troops along the border with Afghanistan “over the last several months” as the departure of US troops has led to an increase in cross-border militant activity, Jilani said.
The increased deployment of troops on the border, from 145,000 to about 177,000, has meant that Pakistan has had fewer soldiers to help carry out the counter-militant offensive the government has under way in the restive North Waziristan province, Jilani said.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter suggested after meetings in Kabul last week that the timetable for withdrawing the 10,000 US troops still in Afghanistan could be adjusted. The US is considering leaving some troops longer to ensure that “progress sticks” as Afghan security forces take over the country’s security, Mr. Carter said.
Under the current plan, the 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan are to fall by half by the end of this year, with the remaining 5,000 scheduled to be out by the end of 2016. The plan could be announced when Afghan President Ashraf Ghani visits the White House later this month.
Jilani said the offensive under way in North Waziristan has been a “huge success” and has succeeded in clearing 90 percent of the territory of militant groups. He said the military would soon “go after” the remaining 10 percent unsecured territory.
The Pakistani diplomat, who has been in Washington for 14 months, said the Haqqani Network, one of Pakistan’s militant organizations, has been “completely disrupted” and has not carried out any recent attacks in North Waziristan.
Many regional experts doubt that longtime official Pakistani links to certain militant groups have been severed, particularly those maintained by the country’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence. But Jilani insisted that the longtime perception of Pakistan differentiating between “good” and “bad” militants is outdated.
Jilani also expressed support for President Obama’s policy of avoiding the use of words like “Islamic” and “Muslim” to describe the violent extremism that is surging in parts of the world.
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Around the world “only a small number of Muslims... engage in such activities,” so it would be unfair and counterproductive “to paint the entire community with the broad brush” of extremism, he said. “This is not activity exclusive to any religion.”
At the same time, he acknowledged that many countries, including Pakistan, need to do more to counter the influence of radical extremists. Jilani said the Pakistani government is considering hosting a regional conference on best practices for tackling radical influences as part of Mr. Obama’s global initiative on countering violent extremism.Baby Milk Action press release 29 October 2015
Media coverage: Huffington Post 5 November
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) announced yesterday that it has finally retracted a fraudulent study used by Nestlé, Mead Johnson and other formula companies to weaken laws all over the world in order to create a multi-million pound market for so-called hypoallergenic formulas. Claims for these products have been challenged since the 1980s. The work of Professor Ranjit Chandra came under scrutiny in 1994, when a nurse who worked for Chandra on his research in Canada revealed that published papers referred to far more mothers and babies than had been recruited to the studies. It has taken decades of campaigning by Baby Milk Action, editors and journalists, and other IBFAN groups, particularly Infact Canada (which questioned Prof. Chandra’s research from the beginning), for action to be taken.
Chandra’s reputation as a scientist started to unravel when he submitted a study to the British Medical Journal in Spring 2000 about the effects of his own patented multivitamin on the memories of seniors. BMJ Editor-in-chief at that time, Richard Smith, asked a statistician to look at it and was told that “the data had all the hallmarks of being entirely invented.” The BMJ rejected Dr. Chandra’s study and asked Memorial University where he was based to investigate.
In 2006 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ran a three-part investigation into Professor Chandra (watch it at the bottom of this post). Chandra sued CBC and a jury ruled this summer that the allegations against him were “true”.
This week the BMJ finally retracted a Chandra study it published in 1989 based on research he conducted for Mead Johnson: “This concluded that mothers with a family history of allergy should use hypoallergenic (hydrolysed) formula feed if they were not breast feeding.”
Nestlé, Mead Johnson and other companies continue to promote hypoallergenic formulas. Nestlé’s “NEW SMA HA Infant Milk” is the focus of a new marketing campaign targeting health workers in the UK (below, Nestlé continues to claim that its SMA HA Infant Milk is “clinically proven to reduce risk of developing cow’s milk protein allergy”).
Nestlé has recruited a network of Clinical Representatives, with a job description giving their main responsibility as obtaining brand endorsements for SMA products from health professionals.
Mike Brady, Campaigns and Networking Coordinator at Baby Milk Action, said:
“This scandal demonstrates the importance of scrutinising company-backed research and seeking out independent information. Nestlé used Chandra’s discredited research for over a decade to build the marketing for so-called hypoallergenic formulas. As it embarks on another major marketing campaign for these milks, independent reviews cast serious doubts on the validity of the claims it makes today, with the Cochrane Library, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) all stating there is little or no evidence of any benefit from these formulas. But it is a multi-million pound market and Nestlé is today effectively encouraging parents to self-diagnose their children as being at risk of developing cows’ milk protein allergy, while it targets health workers with misleading information and study days.”
Nestlé is the target of a boycott because of its systematic violations of baby milk marketing rules. Baby Milk Action is currently promoting the boycott through International Nestlé-Free Week (26 October – 1 November).
Professor Chandra is now selling IMMUNOBOOST nutrition supplements in India as Chairman and Managing Director of Peridot Life Sciences.
For further information contact:
Mike Brady
Patti Rundall on 07786 523493 – prundall@babymilkaction.org
Supporting information
In an article posted on 28 October 2015, the BMJ writes:
[Chandra’s university] had already investigated Chandra for suspected data fabrication, prompted by his research nurse Marilyn Harvey, whom Chandra later tried to sue. She was responsible for recruitment to the infant formula studies Chandra had been asked to carry out for Ross Laboratories, Nestlé, and Mead Johnson in the 1980s.
She told internal university investigators in 1994 that the numbers of infants recruited and reported on for the Nestlé study didn’t match and that neither a three year follow-up study of these infants nor the Mead Johnson study had ever been carried out.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ran a three-part investigation into Chandra in 2006. Chandra unsuccessfully sued CBC, the jury in the case ruling this summer that the claims were “true”. (From the archive: Baby Milk Action press release from the time of the broadcasts).
In July 2004 Baby Milk Action reported Nestlé to the Advertising Standards Authority when it tried to launch NAN HA in the UK (right, a stand targeting health workers that year). The ASA refused to investigate on the grounds that the publishers and health workers should be able to judge whether claims were correct or not.
Nestlé referenced Chandra in claiming: “Nan HA significantly reduces the potential for atopic symptoms (eczema, asthma, rhinitis) in infants with a strong family history of allergy” and “Nan HA is palatable and affordable”.
In a brochure distributed to the public on a Nestlé stand at an Allergy UK event in 2004, Nestlé referenced Chandra in claiming:
“Significantly Reduces the Risk of Allergies. Nan HA 1: the partially hydrolysed infant formula from Nestlé with proven efficacy in the reduction of allergic reactions when used exclusively.” [stress as in the original – left].
In the US Nestlé used Chandra’s research to promote its Carnation “Good Start” formula.
At one time it made a hypoallergenic claim for this formula, but removed it after legal action was brought by 9 US States over babies suffering anaphylactic shock after being fed on it. Attorney General, Robert Adams, said in 1989: “In its eagerness to break into the lucrative US formula market [Nestlé] Carnation led the public to believe that it had created a formula that could not cause an allergic reaction.” Adding, “Those babies who had severe allergic reactions to Carnation Good Start have paid a high price for the company’s irresponsible conduct.” (original press report).
In its article retracting the study, the BMJ states:
Nestlé declined to respond directly to The BMJ’s questions about the thoroughness of its monitoring of the Carnation study or whether it had been under pressure in 1988 to provide evidence to the US regulator of the benefits of its infant formula, as CBC had claimed.
But in a statement Catherine O’Brien, vice president of corporate affairs at Nestlé Canada, said that the company had cooperated fully with Memorial’s formal investigation and had ceased referencing Chandra’s study in 2006.
While Nestlé references other studies, independent reviews do not substantiate the hypoallergenic claims either. The charity First Steps Nutrition Trust critically appraises studies cited by companies and has produced a briefing on Partially hydrolysed whey based infant formula and the prevention of allergy: A summary of current evidence and policy.
This quotes the an independent, systematic review of the evidence from the Cochrane Library as follows:Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is not over yet. But the billionaire mogul already seems to be using his moment in the spotlight to begin hyping up the long-rumored “Trump TV.”
Thirty minutes before the debate, Trump’s Facebook page went live with a video. It ran with the message: “If you’re tired of biased, mainstream media reporting (otherwise known as Crooked Hillary’s super PAC), tune into my Facebook Live broadcast. Starts at 8:30 EST/5:30 PST -- you won't want to miss it. Enjoy!” The ensuing show had its own anchors and guests.
This is exactly the kind of thing that, as Matt Yglesias pointed out at Vox, could be Trump’s next business venture after the election:
While Trump and his team do not appear capable of winning a general election in the United States, they certainly have the right mix of skills and experience to operate a successful media company, folding the existing Breitbart and Hannity franchises together with the Trump brand to form Trump TV or Trump Media.
Trump’s people, for their part, haven’t done much to dispel the rumors. Here’s what Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon said recently, according to CNN anchor Brian Stelter’s newsletter:
Bannon did not deny talk about a potential "Trump TV" network or streaming service. When asked if there is anything to the rumors, Bannon responded with a smile and said, "Trump is an entrepreneur." He repeated the answer again later. "Trump is an entrepreneur." He also pointed out Trump's social media prowess on Facebook and Twitter. "Look at the engagement. It's incredible..."
The Facebook Live video, however, suggests that Trump’s team isn’t even bothering to wait until after the election to pull this off.
So far, though, the operation looks pretty amateurish. The lighting is poor, the sound is messy, and the show featured former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer rambling aimlessly for way too long. It’s awful.
Watch: This election isn’t just Democrat vs. Republican. It’s normal vs. abnormal.========= Multi-Author AdSense ========= Skipped due to [standard ad slot 1] being empty for [user ID 2]. ========================================
Mayor Libby Schaff has ordered a ban on nighttime protests. She claims however that it is not a new “law”, but is in fact a different interpretation of an old law. Mayor Schaff told the East Bay Express “We are making better use of our existing policies to prevent vandalism and violence. Our intent is to ensure that freedom of expression is not compromised by illegal activity and that demonstrators, bystanders, and property are kept safe.”
The BlackOUT Collective has been marching in order to call attention to the value of women, and transgender lives. It is their sentiment that the media only cares about a woman’s body when it can be sexualized or used for profit or gain, not when it is used to accomplish something peaceful, or call attention to something important.
Saturday May 23rd hundreds met at Frank Ogwa Plaza. They marched a few blocks to the Oakland Police Headquarters. Police did not order anyone out of the street, the way they have done in previous marches, and allowed everyone to walk. Around 9 O’clock the gathering was declared unlawful, and the police gave the dispersal order. 50 or so people refused to budge, and sat in the street until they were arrested.
The police had the street kettled, and were dressed for a fight. Armed with night sticks, bean bag shotguns, and wearing armor, the 2 lines of police began walking forward 1 step at a time. Using loud speakers they demanded that protesters disperse or face arrest, by force if necessary, which could lead to bodily injury or harm.
People who were vocal were grabbed by the police, and this happened on 2 different occasions just a few feet from me. One man was snatched right in front of me, it appeared to be coordinated, and happened so fast that members of the crowd considered the fact that he might have been an informant. Minutes later a group of police snatched the Oakland Planning Commissioner. She dropped her candle, and was dragged to the ground.
The police line kept moving. They had effectively split the protest in half, and pushed them to the north, and south intersections. On the north side a line of police officers blocked the street, and observed the protesters, while on the south side of the street officers were busy writing tickets, and taking select people into custody. The police numbers were equal if not greater than the amount of people who had assembled in the streets of Oakland to defend freedom. After everything was said and done it is estimated that 47 people were cited, and 5 people were arrested.
If you ever doubt the power of your voice, take a look at what people who disagree with you, will do to silence you.While top income earners have actually lost ground under the Conservatives, Canada is still significantly less egalitarian than it was during the early 1980s.
The Ottawa Citizen’s associate business editor James Bagnall explains how we got here and why it’s so difficult for governments to change things.
It may be one of the strangest aspects of the federal election campaign to date: Liberal leader Justin Trudeau pledging to hike income taxes for anyone earning more than $200,000 annually.
The odd part is not that he is taking aim at people such as himself – the top one per cent of Canadians in terms of income. Rather, it’s that the policy would attempt to reverse what happened during the Liberals’ lengthy stretch in office from 1993 to 2006.
That’s when the “One Percenters” substantially improved their relative position, as their share of the country’s after-tax income surged from 6.3 per cent to 9.7 per cent – a far bigger jump than any other major income group.
The Liberals, under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, did not set out to produce this result. They simply pushed ahead with an agenda that favoured economic growth, which was helped along by a dramatic economic recovery in the United States, Canada’s largest trading partner. The rise in corporate profits triggered a wave of executive bonuses and increases in stock-based compensation, especially during the 1990s tech boom. All groups enjoyed gains in real income, but the top earners gained the most.
Achieving a fair division of economic spoils is one of the most difficult things for a country to get right.
When there’s too much equality — if, for example, governments tax top earners too much — entrepreneurs don’t see enough incentive. When there’s too little equality — if the top earnersvastly outstrip everyone else — resentment builds among middle- and lower-income citizens.
It’s a political vein being tapped to great effect south of the border by Democratic Party presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. The Vermont Senator’s popularity has been climbing sharply along with his attacks on America’s One Percenters.
Related
While top earners in the U.S. take home nearly double what their counterparts |
of many that exist, but this one is substantiated with links, extremely comprehensive, and paints a picture we as Americans have never fully understood and been apprised of in anything that was widely disseminated:
Pakistan: The Taliban takeover Ziauddin Sardar - Advertisement - Published 30 April 2007 (Excerpts.) Pakistan is reverberating with the call of jihad. For more than two months, the capital, Islamabad, has been held hostage by a group of burqa-clad women, armed with sticks and shouting: “Al-jihad, al-jihad.” These female students belong to two madrasas attached to the Lal Masjid, a large mosque near one of the city’s main supermarkets. I found the atmosphere around the masjid tense, with heavily armed police surrounding the building. Though the students were allowed to go in and out freely, no one else could enter the mosque. The women are demanding the imposition of sharia law and the instant abolition of all “dens of vice”. Away from the masjid, Islamabad looked like a city under siege. A new generation of militants is emerging in Pakistan. Although they are generally referred to as “Taliban”, they are a recent phenomenon. The original Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan briefly during the 1990s, were Afghan fighters, a product of the Soviet invasion of their country. They were created and moulded by the Pakistani army, with the active support of the United States and Saudi money, and the deliberate use of madrasas to prop up religious leaders. Many Taliban leaders were educated at Haqqania by Maulana Sami ul-Haq. The new generation of militants are all Pakistani; they emerged after the US invasion of Afghanistan and represent a revolt against the government’s support for the US. Mostly unemployed, not all of them are madrasa-educated. They are led by young mullahs who, unlike the original Taliban, are technology- and media-savvy, and are also influenced by various indigenous tribal nationalisms, honouring the tribal codes that govern social life in Pakistan’s rural areas. “They are Taliban in the sense that they share the same ideology as the Taliban in Afghanistan,” says Rahimullah Yusufzai, Peshawar-based columnist on the News. “But they are totally Pakistani, with a better understanding of how the world works.” Their jihad is aimed not just at “infidels occupying Afghanistan”, but also the “infidels” who are ruling and running Pakistan and maintaining the secular values of Pakistani society. “They aim at nothing less than to cleanse Pakistan and turn it into a pure Islamic state,” says Rashed Rahman, executive editor of the Lahore-based Post newspaper. The Pakistani Taliban now dominates the northern province of Waziristan, adjacent to Afghan istan. “They are de facto rulers of the province,” says Yusufzai. Waziristan is a tribal area that has historically been ruled by the tribes themselves. Pakistan has followed the policy of British Raj in the region. The British allowed tribal leaders, known as maliks, semi-autonomous powers in exchange for loyalty to the crown. Pakistan gives them the same power but demands loyalty to the federal government. They have been sidelined by the Taliban, however. Pro-government maliks who resisted the onslaught of the Taliban have been brutally killed and had their bodies hung from poles as a lesson to others. The Taliban have declared Waziristan an “Islamic emirate” and are trying to establish a parallel administration, complete with sharia courts and tax system. MUCH MORE
The above article is extremely enlightening in regard the situation as it is unfolding - but keep in mind this reference material was published in April 2007 and the situation is even more fluid, and much more of the population has become radicalized. CNN appears to be attempting to over-simplify the matter, as indicated in this recent story:
Pakistan crisis: ‘It ain’t easy’ for U.S. - Advertisement - * U.S. official: “We are looking at our options, and none of them are good”
* Washington weighs how to respond to Gen. Pervez Musharraf
* U.S. officials say any response will boil down to one thing: al Qaeda By Elise Labott
CNN Editor’s note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents and producers share their experiences in covering news and analyze the stories behind the events. Here, producer Elise Labott, who covers the State Department, offers insights into U.S. options in dealing with Pakistan.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3Although I’m a grown-up, I always get a colouring book for Christmas. Last year, I knew something was up when, instead of “Tudor Fashions” or “Mythical Beasts”, it had the words “art therapy” stamped across the front. Staring back at me for my colouring pleasure was the baroque visage of a cat; the face was fashioned from tiny boxes, each of those boxes contained more tiny boxes and the miniature colour-me rhomboids in its unblinking irises – barely large enough to fit the nib of a pencil – receded to infinity. Looking at the image, I felt faintly distressed. Nothing about it said: kick off your shoes and crack open the Caran d’Ache.
“These exquisite art therapy patterns allow you to access your inner creativity, balancing your physical, spiritual and emotional well-being,” says the Bromleigh House series Relax With Art. “You will embark on a personal journey exploring the world of creative art, discovering the secrets of harmony, balance [and] tranquillity and accessing your inner voice.” Five minutes colouring the Inca moggie and my inner voice was baying for release.
Last year the Telegraph ran a piece saying that French women were turning to adult colouring books in droves. Sylvie, a crèche worker from Marseilles, described herself as “anguished and stressed by nature” and colouring was helping. Last year that melancholic nation sold 3.5 million colouring books in the art therapy category. Similar titles now have vast audiences in the US and UK. Clearly I was missing something.
I’ve always bought colouring books. As a child, I wasn’t very good at drawing but I was a girly swot, and there was tremendous satisfaction in being given a ready-made drawing and just finishing it off. Colouring is a rather anal business and that’s a fact – you’re completing a task within very strict guidelines, and unless you’re in the psychedelic business of mixing up colours for the sake of it, it is essentially uncreative – the artist equivalent of writing a shopping list. Knights in armour were my figures of choice. There were ample opportunities for the best of all colours – red – on shields and banners. I never went near the Regency era: all those wigs and pastel breeches. Your black pencil went down quick on the Victorians, but sometimes you got canaries, cakes and surprisingly bright domestic interiors.
It was all about getting a balanced grain. Use the side of your palm as a fulcrum, rest the pencil along your fourth finger and make confident, smooth arcs of even weight. The sooner you wear down the tip of the pencil to a shiny wedge, the quicker you hit your stride. KEEP IT EVEN! The efforts of my peers saddened me, their crayons practically drilling through the page. And the unfinished efforts! Why sign up to a picture of the sea if you’re not willing to do all that blue? How will you function in the world of work?
The bizarre thing about the new adult colouring books is they are virtually impossible to complete. They have to be difficult, because adults are still embarrassed to be seen working away at infant activities. “So many people have said to me that they used to do secret colouring in when their kids were in bed,” said Johanna Basford recently: her ornate Secret Garden colouring book has sold over 1.5 million copies and Zooey Deschanel is a fan. “Now it is socially acceptable, it’s a category of its own.”
This “category” is a piece of marketing genius. By branding themselves as “analogue” activities, the new colouring books seize on our half-formed anxieties about living a digital life, providing commercially packaged screen-free pastimes that promise to reconnect us with ourselves. The analogue hobby then becomes a craze, with people sharing their work on Twitter or Instagram, thus bringing themselves right back to the digital world they were so keen to escape.
But the main thing making colouring “socially acceptable” is the link to mental health. The mindfulness industry has planted its flag on the business and many books are being sold as an offshoot of meditation. So you can now buy one title that calms your nerves, eases your mental pain, helps you to live in the present and become a creative artist all in one go. Result!
In the progressive 1970s, when Lego was advertised by little girls in denim dungarees and Tee Corinne’s Cunt Coloring Book (“the drawings in this book are of real women’s cunts”) was helping feminists reclaim their vaginas all over the world, an American art teacher called Susan Striker produced a hugely popular series called The Anti-
Coloring Book, which fought against the “damaging effects” of giving a young child such a strictly-defined task. Striker felt colouring books turned children into robots. Her books had semi-blank pages and captions such as: “The artist got stung by a bee and couldn’t finish his drawing. You finish it for him.” In 1982 she produced a version of The Anti-Coloring Book for adults, too.
I called Striker as she drove to Manhattan for a jazz concert. Susan, I said, what do you make of the new colouring book craze? “I feel like my life has been a total failure!” she cried. “Even though my books sold really well, the message clearly never got out to the general public that colouring books are not just innocuous but they’re actually very bad for you!”
She recalled one case study from the 1960s in which a child drew “a wonderful, lyrical picture of a bird” from his imagination. He was then supplied with a colouring book in which birds were represented only as “Vs”, as adults often draw them, and was told to colour them blue. The next time he drew a bird, he drew a V: “No eyes, no wings, no nothing. That was visual proof that when you are working with colouring books, it sends children the message that they are supposed to be drawing like adults – but since you’re too stupid to draw like an adult, here’s an adult’s picture and you can colour it in.”
This put me in mind of the popular new title Animorphia by the Filipino-born artist Kerby Rosanes. His book is billed as an Extreme Colouring and Search Challenge: one page has 30 bats drawn on it, with a large space in the middle and the instruction “Fill the page with bats”. What hope for the adult who wants to unleash their inner Van Gogh?
“If you want to turn off your mind, instead of turning it up, then colouring is one way to do it,” Striker said. “It can allow you to tune out of your life – it’s a choice: should I take a drink, or drugs, or pick up a colouring book?”
So what does she make of the link to art therapy? “People really have been educated to believe that they cannot do art,” she said. “A colouring book can help you empty out your mind. Yet to be ‘mindful’ is not to escape from your problems, but to face them head on. The new mindful colouring books are mindless. You should be drawing your own pictures!”
Even if you’re convinced you can’t draw, surely there are better ways of exercising your creative muscles – or destressing, for that matter – than by embarking on the sad face of a complex bejewelled rabbit, which, incidentally, appears in The Art Therapy Colouring Book half coloured already. If you want to experience the simple, untherapeutic pleasure of colouring, start with Tom Tierny’s Tudor and Elizabethan Fashions (Dover, £5.99). Then go wild and do that ermine cloak whatever colour you want.
Susan Striker’s “Adult Anti-Coloring Book” is reissued this month as an app and will be available on iTunesCapital in the form of money and talent is fleeing the country of Russia at a pace that is raising fears within the Russian banking industry and investment institutions. Sanctions by the U.S. and the EU, along with the increasing isolation caused by Russia’s support of pro-Russian separatists operating in two key areas of eastern Ukraine, continue to threaten the Russian economy.
Speaking Thursday to a group of lawmakers in Crimea, an area of southern Ukraine recently annexed by Russia, president Vladimir Putin did not mention the economy. He did emphasize that he would not allow the West to treat Russia with arrogance. Russia’s economy is strained, and even economic leaders at home have begun to question the wisdom of a new three percent sales tax. Putin’s recent policy of reverse sanctions against the West have begun to drive up prices as removal of Western food products from store shelves commences. German Gref, chief executive of Sberbank, was also in Crimea, where he told the news agency ITAR-TASS that Russia’s future development should be integrated with the international community.
The Russian economy is primarily driven by sales of natural resources, and Russian economists are worried that oil and gas are not the only assets flowing out of Russia. Recent bans prohibit government officials and employees from exporting personal assets, but that has not stopped those impacted from buying dollars and euros as a hedge against a falling rouble.
The Russian Ministry of Finance has projected capital flight as being around $100 billion in 2014. The Moscow Times reports that the 2013 estimate from the Finance Ministry was $61 billion, but some economists believe the flight of assets has already eclipsed that figure this year. At the same time, Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia, reports that government cash reserves are in danger of falling below government estimates.
Capital flight out of Russia is raising fears across Europe, too. In May, Europe’s Central Bank president, Maria Draghi, projected that capital flight out of the country has already exceeded $214 billion this year. While some say that Draghi’s figure is high, even Moscow’s prestigious Higher School of Economics has said that capital outflows might reach $150 billion for 2014.
Capital controls, as least so far, have only been mandated for elected officials and government employees. Many Russian citizens, however, fear that private assets may be targeted next for restriction. The Moscow Times quotes one official who says that millions of U.S. dollars are being hidden “under Russian mattresses.”
Money is not the only asset leaving Russia. The Levada Center in Moscow is a widely respected and independent polling firm that tracks Russian attitudes on a wide variety of issues. Lev Gudkov, Levada’s executive director, told reporters recently that Russia is losing some of its most intelligent and entrepreneurial citizens.
As relations falter between Russia and the West, it seems that more Russians are leaving Russia permanently. Officials have noticed an increase in the number of citizens migrating out of Russia since the large scale protests over allegedly rigged Duma (parliament) elections in 2010, the reelection of Vladimir Putin to the presidency in 2012, the continuing crackdown on opposition figures and the muzzling of independent media since Putin has returned to the Kremlin.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea seemed to convince some to leave. Russian support of fighters in Ukraine’s east has caused more to leave. Along with the prospect of rising inflation, capital flight out of Russia is raising fears about the long-term prospects for the economy.
By Jim Hanemaayer
Sources:
Reuters
Bloomberg Businessweek
The Moscow TimesGoogle has spent the last couple of years making a big push into the classroom with its affordable Chromebook laptops, education-focused versions of its productivity apps, and its Classroom learning management software, which aims to help teachers reduce the use of paper in their schools. Now the company is taking another step by bringing its Classroom app to iOS and Android devices.
Classroom already lets teachers issue and grade assignments using apps like Google Docs and Google Calendar. Using the new mobile app, students will be able to take pictures and attach them to projects their teachers have assigned in the Classroom system. In a blog post, Google offers examples of a student attaching a photo of her science project or getting a parent to take a picture of homework she accidentally left at home.
The Classroom app will also be integrated into the share functionality of many other apps, so users can attach PDFs, drawings and other media to Classroom assignments. Finally, the new app will automatically cache video streams and assignment information each time the app opens with an Internet connection so that content can also be accessed for offline viewing later on.
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Google is also expanding the desktop version of Classroom with a new teacher assignments page, where teachers can review completed and outstanding student assignments on a single screen. Classroom will also introduce the ability to archive individual classes to make them read-only and remove them from the main Classroom home page.
Though Google hasn’t released user base figures for Classroom, the company says 30 million assignments have been turned in using the product since it launched six months ago.
Contact us at editors@time.com.Presidential nomination acceptance speeches surely aim to create great quotes, not to repeat them. So I should have figured that when I went digging around in such speeches this past week looking for lines of poetry, I'd come up empty handed. Well, almost. George McGovern quoted William Butler Yeats in '72: "Count where man's glory most begins and ends, and say: My glory was I had such friends," but went on to win just one state and 17 electoral votes. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the political power of verse.
It's not that candidates never quote. Many, including Obama Thursday night, pull from the Bible, and everyone, and I mean everyone, quotes Lincoln. Gerald Ford, oddly, quoted himself in his acceptance speech. Twice. He then--and I'm not making this up--quoted an imaginary voter saying, "Jerry, you have done a good job, keep right on doing it." Eisenhower, in his '56 speech, quoted the great 19th Century Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen: "I hold that man is in the right who is most clearly in league with the future." Because nothing says America like 19th Century Norway!
While poetry may not be referenced often, the best speeches are full of poetry themselves, most notably in their emphasis on rhythm. I'm not thinking of the metrical regularity of formal verse, but rather the cadences of the bible--seized upon by great preachers like Martin Luther King--which Walt Whitman turned into his grand and rolling verse. It's rhythm as Mary Oliver described it in her book A Poetry Handbook:
"When we feel a pleasurable rhythm we hope it will continue. When it does, the sweet grows sweeter. When it becomes reliable, we are in a kind of body-heaven."
What's "body-heaven"? I'm pretty sure that it's what happens when you listen to Barack Obama speak.
Repetition is another commonly used poetic technique. When it's well delivered orally or on the page, repetition ratchets up the intensity of a poem or speech--each reappearance of a familiar phrase becomes a brief moment of pleasure, and repetitions build on each other, heightening the effect. Look at the power of refrain in this famous speech Winston Churchill delivered on June 4, 1940, during the early, dark days of World War II:
"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender..."
Obama, too, is masterful at building momentum through refrain, as he did in this excerpt from his speech Thursday night:
"Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their job and caring for a sick child or an ailing parent.
Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses, and the time to protect Social Security for future generations.
And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have the exact same opportunities as your sons."
Of course, when it's poorly presented, repetition can seem stilted and suffocating. Remember McCain's speech before that infamous lime green jello backdrop: "That's not change we can believe in....he he he..." (shudder).
Finally, one of my favorite poetic and rhetorical tricks is the chiasma. The term is related to the Greek letter Χ and means "crossing". Chiasmas have a symmetrical/mirrored structure, and have the effect of subconsciously signaling a conclusion. Here's a simple example from Romeo and Juliet:
"This love feel I that feel no love in this."
Shakespeare's is an interesting line, but a good chiasma is a literary firework--an "OH!" moment -- and Bill Clinton's delivered a great one Wednesday night:
"People around the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."Electronic waste, such as discarded mobile phones, computers, and tablets, contains a large amount of precious metals including copper, zinc, gold, silver, etc.
Electronic waste has been considered as one of the most important resources of urban mining. However, recovering valuable metals from the waste requires lots of efforts and time.
A typical industrial process to recycle metal from waste includes high temperature burning, smelting of metal, chemical leaching, and further electrochemical treatment.
A drawback of this process is that it only focuses on “clean” waste like batteries and mobile phones after disassembly. How to recover precious metal from mixtures of all kinds of end-of-life electronic waste is unknown.
Now researchers from Netherlands and China solve the problem. In a study newly published in Waste Management, they report an effective method that can extract copper from complex electronic waste.
In their research, copper was selectively recovered using an ammonia-based process. Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula NH3.
Researchers focused on the role of different ammonium salts during the whole process of copper recovery. The recovery process has two stages: selective extraction of copper from waste and copper electrowinning from the solution.
Researchers compared the reactivity of the leaching solution with different ammonium salts, their physiochemical behavior, and the leaching efficiency.
They found that the copper recovery rate could reach 95% with ammonium carbonate as the leaching salt. When copper was recovered from the solution, electrodeposition (the deposition of a substance on an electrode by the action of electricity) was introduced.
Researchers found that when the electrodeposition was carefully controlled, the recovery efficiency could be improved to 80 – 90%, depending on the ammonia salts and high purity copper (99.9 wt.%).
This research provides a useful to extract and recycle copper from waste, and it may improve electronic waste management. Future work will examine the recovery of other precious metals.
Citation: Sun ZHI, Xiao Y, Sietsma J, Agterhuis H, Yang Y. (2016). Complex electronic waste treatment – An effective process to selectively recover copper with solutions containing different ammonium salts. Waste Management, In Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2016.03.015
Figure legend: This Knowridge.com image is for illustrative purposes only.YouTube content creators are up in arms over the video website removing their ability to earn money through advertisements.
Beginning late Wednesday night, the Google subsidiary began removing monetization from many videos as part of a decision to better enforce its community guidelines, including what content is considered inappropriate for advertising.
YouTube did not notify its users beforehand that it would suddenly enforce its guidelines more stringently, leading many content creators to believe it was a new policy.
YouTuber Philip DeFranco, who has more than 4.5 million subscribers, had at least 40 videos demonetized. He described the feeling as “a little bit like getting stabbed in the back after 10 years.”
Producer just got off the phone with Youtube and it wasn't a mistake. Feels a little bit like getting stabbed in the back after 10 years. — Philip DeFranco (@PhillyD) August 31, 2016
The company, however, denied that it had changed its policies, but had instead decided to enforce them.
“While our policy of demonetizing videos due to advertiser-friendly concerns hasn’t changed, we’ve recently improved the notification and appeal process to ensure better communication to our creators,” a YouTube representative said in a statement.
The notification comes in the form of an email or a yellow dollar sign, where a white one in a green circle used to be.
The problem is that what is considered “inappropriate for advertising” is extremely subjective. For instance, a video showing a new mom ways to hold her baby while breastfeeding could be viewed as “sexually suggestive content” to some people ‒ just look at the uproar on Facebook about whether such an act is risque or au naturale.
Proving that anything anywhere can be offensive to anyone, the last guideline is basically a catch-all that could keep monetization from anything but the most innocuous kitten video: “Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown.”
Melanie Murphy, whose channel has more than 400,000 subscribers, tweeted that her videos about acne have been demonetized. She doesn’t appear to know why, but many content creators who have had monetization removed believe it’s because their videos contain foul language.
YouTube's new update means ads are disabled on my acne videos because advertisers don't like it. Seriously @YouTube? pic.twitter.com/DoMokuvJvn — Melanie Murphy (@melaniietweets) August 31, 2016
“There is no bad language in these videos, nothing inappropriate in the tags, so I’m left with the assumption that the fact that acne is visible in the thumbnails…is off-putting to potential advertisers,” she told CNET. “If that’s the case, it’s very upsetting.”
Murphy isn’t the only user who’s confused by the new enforcements. Many content creators are blasting the decision on other social media sites with the hashtag #YouTubeisoverparty. Apparently even viral videos can “jump the shark.”
#YouTubeisoverparty
Some have grudgingly accepted that YouTube can enforce its policy as the company sees fit ‒ but that doesn’t mean that they have to like it.
“By taking away monetization, it’s a form of censorship,” DeFranco said in a video posted Wednesday.
Murphy agreed, especially when it came to stigmatized subjects.
“If YouTube deems some mental health/sex/lgbtq+ videos as unfriendly for advertising, less creators will approach these important subjects,” she tweeted.
https://twitter.com/melaniietweets/status/771349090684788739
Users who believe that monetization was removed in error can request a manual review of their video. However, YouTube is vague as to how long it might take them to consider the request.
“Review time depends on a variety of factors, such as video and channel performance, the history of videos you’ve submitted for monetization, and the eligibility of your content,” it said in a support forum. “Keep in mind that we receive many requests to monetize videos every day and review these submissions as quickly as possible. We may not be able to process every submission, but we continually monitor these factors and prioritize accordingly.”With two road wins to close out the season, the Pirates will host a playoff game for the first time in 21 years. While they clinched a playoff birth last week, they were not assured of a home playoff game until today. It had been 21 years, so really, what was another day to wait for Pirates fans? If there was any question about their fans excitement, the $270 average price for Pirates tickets to the game Tuesday, put that to rest. It is $72 more than the average price for the AL Wild Card, which will be hosted in Cleveland on Wednesday night. It’s also $152 more expensive than the Rangers and Rays wild card tie-breaker tomorrow night.
When it comes to the NLDS, Pirates fans are also blowing away the competition at the box office. At an average price of $287, tickets to the NLDS at PNC Park are 73% higher than the next closest NLDS Series, which are for Dodgers tickets. For one Pirates ticket, you can get two Cardinals tickets and three Braves tickets.
If the Pirates actually get to the NLDS, it will be interesting to see where prices go. With the Steelers at 0-4, and done before October, and the Penguins yet to drop a puck, Pittsburgh is all-in on the Bucs. If they parlay their wild card into a pennant, it would be their first since 1979, when the likes of Willie Stargell and Dave Parker ruled the Steel City.
Below is a full list of the One-Game Playoffs happening over the next three days as well as their premiums compared to the hosting teams average price on the secondary market for the season.UPDATE 8/29/2015: Deadline for public comment now September 30. See link below to make online comment or find address to mail in comments.
UPDATE 7/31/15: Park extends public comment period to September 16. See link below to make online comment or find address to mail in comments.
If you’ve ever been stuck in a traffic jam atop Cadillac Mountain or found mobs of other hikers on the trails of Acadia National Park, the park wants to hear from you.
In a major planning process that could help shape transportation and public access to the park for years to come, officials are holding two hearings this week to document concerns and get ideas, one at Mount Desert Island High School in Bar Harbor on July 29, and one at Peninsula School in Prospect Harbor on July 30, beginning at 6:30 p.m.
“We are looking for public comments – both positive and negative – about how people visit the park and use the roads and trails and the carriage roads. Those are all transportation networks and they are all interlinked. We want you to tell us about your experiences, the good and the bad, and even to the point of what you think we should do about it,” said Charlie Jacobi, resource specialist for Acadia National Park, in an interview with Acadia on My Mind.
And if you can’t make either hearing, the park is taking online and written comments about transportation problems and crowds in Acadia through Sept.30.
With approximately 2.4 million visitors a year coming to a relatively small park, a 350% increase in cruise ship passenger visitation to the park since 2000, and the limits of the current parking and transportation infrastructure, the park is at a planning crossroads for dealing with crowds in Acadia.
Crowds in Acadia a problem atop Cadillac and in other hot spots
In announcing the multi-year planning process, expected to be completed in spring 2018, Superintendent Sheridan Steele said in a statement, “The plan is needed at this time because the concentrated traffic creates public safety issues, severe congestion and crowding, reduced quality of visitor experiences, impacts on the road systems, impacts on the park’s natural and cultural resources, and pressures on the efficiency and sustainability of park operations.”
Among the traffic and crowding hot spots identified in the park’s transportation planning newsletter: Cadillac Mountain, where 29 accidents involving buses or RVs have happened between 1989 and 2000 on the road up or in the parking lot; and the Park Loop Road, where as many as 500 cars – or as much as 40% more than Acadia’s parking lot capacity – can be found parking informally along the roadside during peak times.
To help focus public comments on traffic and crowds in Acadia, these 4 topic questions are listed on the park planning and comment Web page:
What parts of your Acadia experience do you value most? What transportation-related issues most interfere with your enjoyment of the park? What transportation-related improvements would you suggest the park implement and why? What elements of the existing transportation system do you find helpful?
Any and all ideas are being entertained, but there are 3 things that will not happen, according to the park planning newsletter: Making the park car-free; instituting a park-wide ferry system; and raising historic bridges to accommodate buses and RVs.
Some ideas to manage traffic and crowds in Acadia already being experimented with, or floated, include: Car-free mornings in the park; a ferry to take cruise passengers to the less-visited Schoodic Peninsula portion of the park; limits to vehicles on Cadillac; expanded Island Explorer bus service; or changes to current parking.
If you care about Acadia National Park and don’t want to see it loved to death, here’s your chance to make your voice heard.Legalising the sale of cannabis in specialist shops could raise £1billion in tax revenues while reducing the harm done to users, a new study has found.
A panel of experts including scientists, academics and police bosses have concluded that the UK should follow some US states in alllowing over 18s to purchase cannabis in licensed stores.
Cannabis could also be home-cultivated for personal use and small-scale licensed cannabis social clubs under the proposals.
Advertising or branding of cannabis products would be banned and the pricing and packaging of cannabis would be controlled by the Government.
Cannabis and the law
A new regulator would also be created to oversee the industry.
The proposals will be discussed at the Liberal Democrats' spring conference next week.
Former Liberal Democrat health minister Norman Lamb set up the panel last year and it includes Mike Barton, the Chief Constable of Durham Constabulary, Professor David Nutt, the former chair of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs, and Niamh Eastwood, executive director of the drugs charity Release.
In the report they said: “Drug policy to date has (almost) always been driven by political and ideological agendas that have ignored scientific, public health and social policy norms.
“We are fully aware of the health harms associated with cannabis use, but contend that a rational policy must pragmatically manage the reality of use as it currently exists, rather than attempt to eradicate it using punitive enforcement.”
It could lead to the Liberal Democrats becoming the first British political party to back the legalisation of cannabis sales.
Tim Farron, the party's leader, said: “We need a new, smarter approach and I welcome this report ahead of the debate at spring conference,” he said.
“It is waste of police time to go after young people using cannabis and ludicrous to saddle them with criminal convictions that can damage their future careers.
“A legal market would allow us to have more control over what is sold, and raise a considerable amount in taxation.
“I have always said that we must have an evidence-led approach to drugs law reform, and this report should be taken seriously. Britain has to end our failed war on drugs. The status quo causes huge damage and we urgently need reform.”Space yacht powered by solar waves finally sets sail
Japan says its kite-shaped'space yacht', designed to float through space using only the power of the sun, has successfully set sail.
A Japanese rocket last month launched the experimental 'Ikaros' - Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun - designed to be propelled by the pressure of sunlight particles.
The technology could eventually enable space travel without fuel, as long as there is sunlight.
The device has a square, ultra-thin and flexible sail measuring 14m by 14m that is driven through space as it is pelted by solar particles
Similar to an ocean yacht pushed by wind, the device has a square, ultra-thin and flexible sail measuring 14m by 14m that will be driven through space as it is pelted by solar particles.
The sail, which was fully expanded on Thursday, is only a fraction of the thickness of a human hair and is partly coated with thin-film solar cells to generate electricity.
A statement from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)said: 'We have confirmed the full expansion of the sail and electric generation with thin film solar cells at about 7.7 million kilometres from Earth.'
JAXA will continue monitoring and studying 'navigation technology using the solar sail', it said.
The device was launched from the Tanegashima Space Centre on May 18.
This image sent back from the Ikaros spacecraft shows a portion of its solar sail being unfurled
'It is a hybrid technology of electricity and pressure', Japanese Space Agency expert Yuichi Tsuda said.
'Solar sails are the technology that realises space travel without fuel as long as we have sunlight. The availability of electricity would enable us to navigate farther and more effectively in the solar system.'
Scientists will steer the Ikaros by changing the angle at which sunlight particles bounce off the silver-coloured sail.
During a six-month mission they will head towards our sister planet Venus. If this is a success JAXA are planning further missions to the red giant Jupiter and Trojan using sails more than twice as the size of the Ikaros.
A computer graphic reveals the deployment of the sail
The £35million Ikaros is the first use of such technology in deep space. Past experiments have limited crafts to orbits around Earth.
It's name is an acronym for Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun. It also alludes to the Greek mythic hero Icarus who flew too close to the Sun and fell into the sea.
'Unlike the mythical Icarus, this Ikaros will not crash,' Mr Tsuda said.
Japan has become a major player in the space industry in recent years. In 2008 it installed a £1billion laboratory on board the International Space Station.
The space agency has proposed that the Japanese government send a wheeled robot to the moon in five years and build the world's first lunar base by 2020.
Under the plan, the robot's tasks would include setting up an observation device, gathering geological samples and sending data back to Earth. The robot would also set up solar panels to generate energy.
This would cost Japan around £1billion over the next |
in the Waverley Local Court in Sydney on March 21, charged with public mischief.
The charge was defined in Australian law as: "Any person who, by any means, knowingly makes to a police officer any false representation that an act has been, or will be, done" which "calls for an investigation by a police officer".
CHRISTOPHER PEARCE/FAIRFAX AUSTRALIA New Zealand Rugby Union boss Steve Tew outside the Intercontinental Hotel Double Bay after news broke about a bug in the All Blacks hotel room in August 2016.
The motives behind his alleged actions were unclear, but Gard could face a maximum of 12 months imprisonment.
Gard has not returned calls, but his brother Ashley, who was the director of BGI Security – the company Adrian also worked for in the operations department and the company used by the All Blacks – refused to comment when contacted on Tuesday, saying the matter was in the hands of lawyers.
Gard has had his fair share of high profile clients in the past. The company, BGI Security, has been hired by Schapelle Corby, Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods and Tara Reid when they have travelled to Australia.
BUG DISCOVERY
The bug was found by All Blacks team officials in the lead-up to the first Bledisloe Cup match at ANZ Stadium.
The All Blacks went on to beat the Wallabies 42-8.
Mark Nolan The bugging incident didn't knock the All Blacks off their stride as they ran out 42-8 winners in Sydney.
At the time, New Zealand Rugby said the device was found in a team meeting room.
Australian Rugby Union chief executive Bill Pulver said on Tuesday it was pleasing to have a degree of closure over the incident which gained major headlines on the morning of the first test between Australia and New Zealand.
He also took a swipe at New Zealand Rugby over the timing of the news breaking about the device, given that it had been found in the hotel room much earlier that week.
"On behalf of the ARU, I commend the NSW Police for their ongoing pursuit of this matter and for providing closure with a charge being laid against an individual today," said Pulver in a statement.
"The aspect that still leaves a bitter taste out of this whole affair is that the discovery of the device was reported publicly on game day, when it is understood that the alleged discovery of the device occurred much earlier in the week leading up to the test match.
"Clearly the media attention which resulted from it was a distraction that neither team needed on the morning of a very important test match.
"The ARU and the Wallabies were never accused of any wrongdoing, however it was still important that this matter reached a conclusion to provide complete reassurance to all fans that the organisation and the team had no part in any of this.
"There may be some questions that remain but certainly today's news is welcome news that an individual has been called to account over this incident."
Australian police said in August they only became aware of the "electronic device" via a media report five days after it was originally found.
Rose Bay Local Area Commander Superintendent Brad Hodder said at the time the delay was not ideal.
"We've started an investigation as to what that device is," Sydney policeman Hodder said.
"A delay in any investigation is always tough but we'll look at that information and treat it accordingly. Any offence is serious, we will be looking at all the avenues."
New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew said at the time: "The hotel immediately launched an investigation, we have informed the Australian Rugby Union, and jointly we have now decided to hand over the investigation to the Australian police.
"We are taking this issue very seriously, and given it will be a police matter, it would not be prudent to go into further details."
- Sydney Morning Herald, Stuff.A while back, I made the decision that I was going to get “good” at Starcraft. I failed. But I did manage to get better. In order to do so, I made a number of changes to my gameplay. I paid attention to my supply so I wouldn’t get blocked. I kept my eyes on my minimap whenever possible so I didn’t lose to something I could have seen coming. But the most effective technique to make me better, faster wasn’t something I did during the game.
After the match had ended, but before the adrenaline had stopped pumping, I loaded up my replay and took a look. Win or lose.
When pro players look at replays, they tend to look at what they’re opponent did. Since they already know what they did or didn’t do, focusing on themselves is redundant. But for us lesser players, it’s amazing what we miss when we play the game. In order to improve, focus your replay analysis on yourself and the things you didn’t notice while the match was actually happening.
For starters, look at these parts of your gameplay.
Macro
This is a huge umbrella of gameplay aspects that I’m lumping together, but I’ll keep it simple: Keep your minerals and gas below 500 until you’re at 200 supply. This is a monumental task all on its own. Sometimes, it’s even impossible, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
When you watch the replay, pause the game every time your minerals get high. What’s going on? If you’re anything like me, it won’t take a pro-level analysis to quickly discover what has gone wrong. Supply block is a common culprit, as is the occasional group of Barracks that haven’t made anything for three minutes because I forgot to hotkey them.
Supply block at minute four. That's how bad I am, people.
Perform this analysis enough, and you’ll undoubtedly start to notice patterns. One of the first things I noticed about my own play is I would forget to build a Spire when I’m Zerg. I build the Lair at about the right time, then I sit there with Zerglings and Roaches for another two minutes before I think, “Hmm, some air units might be nice about now”. Meanwhile, I’ve stockpiled 700 gas.
Hopefully, your own analysis won’t turn up anything as silly as that, but you’d be surprised.
Have you ever watched Tech Lab for three minutes, waiting for Siege Tech to start? I have.
If you’re truly at a loss as to what went wrong, then check the production tab (the “D” button for the uninitiated). Your production tab keeps track of everything you and your opponent are currently building. That tab should be fat, forced beyond its normal bounds with all the stuff you’re making simultaneously. Upgrades. Town Halls. Tech structures. Units, even.
If you’re floating 500+ minerals/gas, the issue is usually easy to spot right there. Nine times out of ten, you’re not building enough stuff. Next game, make that tab bigger.
Vision
Seeing what your opponent does gives you a huge advantage. Sometimes you’re operating under the impression that you know what’s going on, only to lose because there’s a base hidden away in some corner of the map you didn’t scout. When you watch the replay, take a look at what you saw in game and compare it to what you are seeing while you watch.
Hidden expansions are just one of the things you’re looking for. Are you also aware of what kind of tech you’re up against? Do you know where your opponent’s army is? Do you know what units are in that army? Every player makes certain assumptions when they play. Make sure your assumptions are right.
And the most important question: Where the hell did that drop come from?
Sure, you can see everything easily enough now that the replay is on, but once again, your play is more important than your opponent’s. If you were surprised by Mutalisks, it’s important you see why. Maybe the Spire was planted at his second expansion, which you never bothered to scout. The other day I was caught off guard when my Terran opponent didn’t have as many Marines as I was expecting. I thought the others were hiding, but the replay revealed he took two expansions when I had assumed he only took one.
Replays make painfully obvious these deficiencies in our vision. Learn from them and discover what, when, and where to scout. Everything is clearer in retrospect.
Timing
Starcraft II is a game of strict time limitations. No matter how good a player is, he can’t make a Marine in less than 25 in-game seconds, and every worker unit collects resources at the same rate.
When I began playing Starcraft, the furious pace of the game took me by surprise. Everything felt like it was moving impossibly fast and I couldn’t keep up with it. A few weeks of effort and the game was slowing down to more comprehensible levels, but I still maintained the illusion that my opponent was moving faster than the game allowed. I was scared of Banshees at the five minute mark, and prepared for Infestors even earlier.
When you’re up against a shadowy opponent on the ladder and you can’t see what’s going on, it’s easy to fall for this illusion. You worry about units that aren’t on the field yet, and think they’re coming at you in numbers that your opponent’s economy wouldn’t allow.
Zergs with three quick bases have crazy income, but can't have an early army.
Replays, especially if you play then at in-game speed, reveal the true limits of every strategy. The first time I went up against a fast-expanding Terran, I was terrified of the sheer number of Marines that would inevitably come storming across the battlefield.
Looking at the replay, I saw how painfully long it took for the Marine numbers to reach dangerous levels. After all, 400 minerals that normally went toward Marines were invested in a structure that takes 100 seconds to build. In the meantime, I could do whatever I wanted without fear of repercussion. The replay helped me plan out my strategy for my next battle against a fast-expanding Terran by giving me a realistic sense of how much time “free time” I had after I saw that extra Command Center.
Even Four Gates look slow when you watch a replay.
Keep in mind that whenever you go out of your way to prepare for something, you are spending money that could otherwise go toward helping your economy. For that reason, the most economical preparation is one that is only there at the last possible second.
Watch the replays. Learn the timings. See your opponent is human and just as slow as you are.
Finally
While it’s tempting to watch your replays at x8 speed (especially if they went longer than 20 minutes), you’ll miss everything if you go too fast. I would recommend staying at x2 and below. Good luck, and may all your mistakes have easy fixes.This week, the British Journal of Cancer published an incredibly important report that found a strong relationship between a simple blood test and the risk for various forms of cancer. The study found that the common blood test used by diabetics to measure their average blood sugar, A1c, was strongly predictive in terms of cancer development.
For those of you who are not diabetic, you may not be familiar with this simple test that has profound health implications well beyond diabetes. Basically, the A1c test measures the amount of glycation that the protein hemoglobin has undergone. Glycation simply means that sugar has become bonded to a protein, in this case hemoglobin, and this is a relatively slow process. Hence, it’s a way to get a sense as to how high the blood sugar has been, in this case over a 3-4 month period of time, and this is why it’s so helpful for diabetics.
But with this new report, we now understand that having elevated A1c translates to risk for cancer, and as I’ve explained in Grain Brain, it is also a powerful indicator of risk for developing dementia. If you look at the chart on page 117 of the book, reproduced below, you’ll note that A1c is also directly related to the rate at which the brain shrinks on an annual basis.
Think of it, this one simple blood test can give you incredibly important information about cancer risk, risk for dementia, and even risk for shrinkage of your brain!
Most commonly people are told that having an A1c of 5.6 – 5.8 should be considered normal, but when you look at the graph above, these levels already put you in the second highest category for brain shrinkage! I believe that, based on this information, we should strive to keep our A1c at 5.2 or even lower. The way to accomplish this is simply by reducing your consumption of carbohydrates and sugar. Who knew!
Why the process of glycation is such a bad player for health likely stems from the fact that when proteins are glycated (bound to sugar), it dramatically increases the production of damaging chemicals called free radicals. Free radicals end up damaging our protein, fat and even our DNA. In addition, glycation of proteins dramatically increases the chemical mediators of inflammation, and inflammation is the pivotal player in so many issues including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, asthma and arthritis, just to name a few.
Beyond keeping your carbs low, there are several “anti-glycating” supplements that are helpful to reduce this process. These include alpha-lipoic acid, the omega-3 DHA, and a form of thiamine called benfotiamine.By Greg Murphy
Senator Aodhan O'Riordáin has given an impassioned speech in the Seanad in reaction the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.
He said he was "embarrassed" by the reaction of the Irish Government and repeatedly asked if the best we could do was ask "whether it was ok to still bring the shamrock on St Patrick's Day".
"I'm embarrassed by the reaction of the Irish Government to what's happened in America. I can't believe the reaction from An Taoiseach and the Government," he said.
"America has just elected a fascist, and the best thing good people in Ireland can do is to ring him up and ask him is it ok to still bring the shamrock on St Patricks Day.
Mr O'Riordáin went on to quote the contrasting and conditional reaction from Angela Merkel to Mr Trump's election.
In her statement she said: "Germany and America are connected by values of democracy, freedom and respect for the law and dignity of man.
"Independent of origin, skin-colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views. I offer the next president of the United States close cooperation on the basis of these values."Tuesday was a very raw and chilly day in June. To put it in perspective, since 1872, that was only the 17th time there's been a day in June where the temperature didn't go above 52 degrees in Boston. Indeed, as the day progressed, the temperature actually went down with most of the time spent in the 40s.
The storm responsible for the wet and cold weather is now moving south. This means clearing will take place today. Skies will clear slowly at first, but in earnest by the middle of the day. As I wrote Monday, today is a transitional day. If it turns out nicer than expected, it's a bonus, but some areas south of Boston might take most of the day to clear.
Tomorrow is a really nice day with sunshine and warm air. Highs will be in the 70s inland and 60s at the coast.
One more system threatens us for Friday. If the storm trends further west than expected we see more in the way of rain and wind, but if it stays east we just see some clouds and showers.
A storm off the coast Friday may impact southern New England with rain and some wind. The best chances south of Boston. (Courtesy WeatherBell)
The weekend looks nice with sunshine and warm air. Highs Saturday reach 80 inland and well into the 70s at the coast. There's a risk for an afternoon shower, but most miss it. Sunday highs make it well into the 80s, and then temperatures in the 90s are possible for the beginning of the workweek.
June was expected to start on a wet and cool note, and indeed, it has, but there is summer heat coming.
You can follow my updates here and on Twitter @growingwisdom.
Wednesday: Clouds followed by developing sunshine. Highs 58-64 along the coast and 66-70 inland.
Wednesday night: Clear to partly cloudy. Lows 45-53.
Thursday: Sunshine with afternoon clouds south. Highs 65-72 coolest at the coast.
Friday: Clouds, showers possible. Highs in the 60s to near 70 well inland.
Saturday: Sun and clouds. Highs 71-80. Warmest inland.
Sunday: Sunshine, warm. Highs in the 80s.You may have seen this map of an introvert's heart that's been making the rounds on the Internet. A few people have sent it to me. It's very cute, with its "Alone Time Lake," "River of Daydreams," and "Privacy Beach." But I haven't shared it myself because something about it bothers me.
Here's the problem: Nowhere in that heart is other people.
Yes, introverts like and need quiet and solitude, but that's not the whole story. Introverts are people, and people need people. That's human nature. That's mental. That's being part of the world. A lot of public discussion of is about how WE WANT TO BE ALONE. But by emphasizing that, we might be doing ourselves a grave disservice, running the risk that people will take us at our word.
Perhaps we interact with others differently than do. Perhaps we don't want to be the life of the party, or see a different friend every night, or join a happy-go-lucky gang. That doesn't mean that there is no place in our hearts for other people.
So let's turn the conversation from "leave me alone" to "we enjoy connecting."
Here are just a few things I value in friendships:
Long, intimate talks. I love deep, abstract, navel-gazing discussions with a close friend who knows me well and enjoys digging deep with me, especially into our own psyches. (Or books. That's fun too.) This is the opposite of chitchat—instead of draining my life force, it leaves me energized.
I love deep, abstract, navel-gazing discussions with a close friend who knows me well and enjoys digging deep with me, especially into our own psyches. (Or books. That's fun too.) This is the opposite of chitchat—instead of draining my life force, it leaves me energized. "Let's have lunch". I have a few friends with whom the extent of our relationship is lunch now and then, and these are important friendships to me. I like and enjoy these people and lunch is a perfect get-together. It's usually one-on-one; it's long enough to feel a connection but short enough to not drain my energy for the rest of my workday (even if it's a long lunch, which is the best kind); and it's an opportunity to hear fresh perspectives on the world. Plus: food.
I have a few friends with whom the extent of our relationship is lunch now and then, and these are important friendships to me. I like and enjoy these people and lunch is a perfect get-together. It's usually one-on-one; it's long enough to feel a connection but short enough to not drain my energy for the rest of my workday (even if it's a long lunch, which is the best kind); and it's an opportunity to hear fresh perspectives on the world. Plus: food. Low-key hanging out. One of my closest friends and I enjoy getting together in the afternoon to drink tea or watch a movie. It's relaxed, casual, low, and there are no cosmetics necessary. Delightful. Props to friends for whom getting together can be just...getting together.
One of my closest friends and I enjoy getting together in the afternoon to drink tea or watch a movie. It's relaxed, casual, low, and there are no cosmetics necessary. Delightful. Props to friends for whom getting together can be just...getting together. Doing things. This same friend is a wonderful go-to when there's a play, lecture, or museum exhibit I want to attend. She's almost always open to doing whatever. I don't have a lot of people in my life I feel comfortable calling on for this kind of thing, so I value friends who are game.
This same friend is a wonderful go-to when there's a play, lecture, or museum exhibit I want to attend. She's almost always open to doing whatever. I don't have a lot of people in my life I feel comfortable calling on for this kind of thing, so I value friends who are game. Email buddies: I have a friend who lives in another city with whom I am in pretty constant contact via email and/or text during the workday. Granted, face-to-face is always preferable to computer-mediated communication (CMC), but we have an awful lot of fun swapping links and bon mots throughout the day, and sometimes even having serious discussions. It's like having a friend in the next cubicle.
I have a friend who lives in another city with whom I am in pretty constant contact via email and/or text during the workday. Granted, face-to-face is always preferable to computer-mediated communication (CMC), but we have an awful lot of fun swapping links and bon mots throughout the day, and sometimes even having serious discussions. It's like having a friend in the next cubicle. The right groups. I used to belong to a writing group of about five women. We met every few weeks at a restaurant and spent a couple of hours doing creative writing exercises. I looked forward to those evenings tremendously, and although the group dissipated years ago, I still miss it. I don't like being among big groups of strangers but enjoy small groups of people I know. These women were interesting and funny, the writing exercises were inspiring, the evening was just long enough. Plus: wine.
I used to belong to a writing group of about five women. We met every few weeks at a restaurant and spent a couple of hours doing creative writing exercises. I looked forward to those evenings tremendously, and although the group dissipated years ago, I still miss it. I don't like being among big groups of strangers but enjoy small groups of people I know. These women were interesting and funny, the writing exercises were inspiring, the evening was just long enough. Plus: wine. Friends for the ledge. A friend and I joke about talking each other off the (metaphorical) ledge—lending a sympathetic ear in times of trouble; offering sage advice in times of confusion; when necessary, even smacking some sense into each other (again, metaphorically). I value friends who don't let my introversion deter them from calling when they need support, and who will listen when I'm on the ledge. It's also wonderful if friends are sensitive enough to pick up that something is troubling me and draw it out when, in my introvert way, I'm reluctant to spill. It's a fine line between drawing and prying with some people, but close friends have carte blanche.
A friend and I joke about talking each other off the (metaphorical) ledge—lending a sympathetic ear in times of trouble; offering sage advice in times of confusion; when necessary, even smacking some sense into each other (again, metaphorically). I value friends who don't let my introversion deter them from calling when they need support, and who will listen when I'm on the ledge. It's also wonderful if friends are sensitive enough to pick up that something is troubling me and draw it out when, in my introvert way, I'm reluctant to spill. It's a fine line between drawing and prying with some people, but close friends have carte blanche. Friends who reach out. Sometimes I get unintentionally isolated. Because I work at home, dislike the telephone, and my default is "stay home," I can lose track of how long its been since I've connected with anyone other than my husband. It often takes a wash of blue over my mood to remind me how much I need my friends. So I am abundantly to the ones who don't let me overindulge my introversion, who aren't put off by it, and who extend invitations. I am equally grateful to far-flung friends who allow me to be squirrely about the phone, who are fine with scheduling catch-up calls, and who make sure we stay in contact, whatever it takes.
What do you value in your?
Check out my books, Introverts in Love: The Quiet Way to Happily Ever After; The Introverts Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World; and 100 Places in the USA Every Woman Should Go. Support your local independent bookstore; click here to find an indie near you. And please join me and a bunch of cool introverts on my Facebook page.Pandagon is daily opinion blog covering feminism, politics, and pop culture. Come for the politics, stay for the complete lack of patience for the B.S. and bad faith coming from conservative leaders and pundits.
Jay-Z likes hanging out with his wife, which is unimaginable to the Mike Huckabees of the world.
I guess Mike Huckabee wants to buy another vacation home or something, because he’s dusting off the conservative hustler’s favorite money-making tactic: Pretending to run for president. I mean, I don’t know if he’s said that yet, but he has a new book out, which is about as good as an announcement for a fake presidential run/money-making opportunity gets. And in this money-grub, Huckabee shares his ideas about the Beyoncé/Jay-Z marriage:
Beyonce is incredibly talented – gifted, in fact. She has an exceptional set of pipes and can actually sing,” Huckabee writes. “She is a terrific dancer – without the explicit moves best left for the privacy of her bedroom. Jay-Z is a very shrewd businessman, but I wonder: Does it occur to him that he is arguably crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife as a sex object?
Oh, there is so much there: The misogyny, the racism, the sex-phobia. The inability to imagine that a woman makes her own choices. The unquestioned assumption that women are owned by their husbands. The inability to see a black businessman as anything but a “pimp”. The prudish unwillingness to admit that sexual expression has a place in art. And inability to imagine that it’s possible that a man actually likes his wife and wants to have fun with her instead of treating her like a cum sock. In one quote, Huckabee managed be convey roughly 95% of what is wrong with conservatism. Naturally, he’s doubling down on this, in an interview with People.
In an interview about his new book, God, Guns, Grits and Gravy, Huckabee tells PEOPLE he doesn’t get how the Obamas can encourage their daughters’ love for Beyoncé. Especially, the former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister says, if the president and first lady ever actually listened to the lyrics to – or seen a performance of Beyonc´’s steamy “Drunk in Love.”
The Obamas “are excellent and exemplary parents in many ways,” Huckabee says.
“That’s the whole point. I don’t understand how on one hand they can be such doting parents and so careful about the intake of everything – how much broccoli they eat and where they go to school and making sure they’re kind of sheltered and shielded from so many things – and yet they don’t see anything that might not be suitable for either a preteen or a teen in some of the lyrical content and choreography of Beyoncé, who has sort of a regular key to the door” of the White House.
Yeah, why are the Obamas encouraging their daughters to look up to a woman who models how a woman can be tough, creative, and independent while also having a loving marriage with someone who enjoys having fun with you? Especially when “good” parents teach their daughters that sex is dirty and that marriage is supposed to be sad and dutiful instead of joyful and loving? Get it together, Obamas! Next you’re going to tell me they don’t make their daughters beg their father’s forgiveness for having the temerity to be born female. The way they raise girls these days, I tell you what.
Of course, as Kelly Faircloth of Jezebel points out, in the same interview Mike Huckabee is singing the praises of the Duggar family.
As for any 2016 bid for the White House, Huckabee says he’ll decide sometime this spring and, if it’s a yes, he wants some of the only reality TV stars he can stomach – the Duggars of TLC’s 19 Kids & Counting beside him.
“I’ve pointed them out as an example of something that’s wholesome and wonderful and I’ve known them since Jim Bob was in the legislature when I was governor,” says Huckabee. The Duggars campaigned for Huckabee in 2008. “Should I run, I’m hoping they’ll do it again. And now there’s more of ’em!”
Oh fuck me. If you want to talk about someone who objectifies his wife, it sure as shit isn’t Jay-Z, who treats his wife as a professional and a colleague and his equal. It’s Jim Bob Dugger, who treats his wife like an object put on earth to make babies for him. That is what “objectification” means: Reducing someone to an object and denying them agency or having value outside of how you can use them. I realize people use it to mean “thinks someone is sexy”, but those people are wrong. Sex is a good thing and thinking your spouse is sexy is key to a healthy marriage.
No, objectification is about reducing someone to an object. And thus, few celebrities are more objectified than Michelle Duggar, who belongs to a religious cult that teaches that women should have no agency whatsoever when it comes to how their body is used, because they are objects to be owned and controlled by their husbands. They are not allowed to decide when to have sex or when to have children. Only the man who currently controls them is allowed to make that decision. Their father owns them until marriage, denying them the autonomy to decide to have sex if they want. After marriage, their husbands own them, and the decision of when to have sex is solely the husband’s. They don’t hide this, openly explaining that a woman is obliged to have sex whenever the husband wants it, regardless of how she feels, because—being an object—her feelings don’t matter. Since they are not allowed to use birth control, this also means they get pregnant not when they want to, but strictly according to what the husband wants. Their bodies do not belong to them. They are objects to be used by men. Sort of sex-and-breeding appliances, if you will.
That’s what objectification looks like. Does anyone honestly think Beyoncé is denied autonomy in her marriage? Obviously, there’s different levels of objectification, and there are plenty of marriages where men control their wives without it going so far as to deny them any birth control or right to control when they have sex. But let’s be honest: Odds are that Beyoncé is not in one of those marriages. She’s independently wealthy and married to a man who is clearly not threatened by her success, whereas you get the feeling that Jim Bob Duggar melts down if his wife takes a 15 second break from staring at him with dog-like adoration.
Someone should straight up ask Huckabee if Michelle Duggar is a better role model for girls than Beyoncé. I’d love to hear him explain directly that we should be teaching girls to be submissive breeding machines instead of independent women who marry men who actually like and respect them. That would be interesting.Stephen King is the undisputed master of horror. He’s an incredibly prolific writer, penning over 56 books under his own name alone, and is one of the most adapted authors alive, with over 120 adaptations of his books, scripts, and short stories on film and television. In those thousands of pages, there have been more deaths than anyone could count—until now. After scouring every one of King’s novels, films, mini-series, and collections of short fiction, here are the 28 worst deaths in the Stephen King canon.
28. Mile 81
In this short story, originally published in King’s Bazaar of Bad Dreams, several people (most notably Doug Clayton, an insurance salesman) are devoured by an alien that has disguised itself as an old station wagon at a rest stop. Pretty gruesome, but we’re just getting started.
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27. The Rainy Season
A young couple named John and Elise Graham are crushed in their cellar under a mass of sharp-toothed toads when they decide to stay in their homes during the titular rainy season, despite the warnings of many of the townsfolk. Weird, yes, but crushing isn’t that bad, considering.
26. Firestarter
One of King’s earliest novels, Firestarter is about Charlie McGee, the daughter of two test subjects of a super-soldier formula that grants users pyrokenesis. When the Shop, the government agency that created the formula—led by Cap Hollister—sends assassin John Rainbird to kill Charlie, both men are burned alive by the pyrokinetic girl. When will bad guys learn? Don’t mess with super-soldiers. I’d still pick fire over what’s coming up, though.
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25. The Long Walk
In an alternate Earth’s far future, a war-torn United States is under martial law, ruled by a dictator known as “The Major.” Each year, a competition called the Long Walk is held, wherein 50 boys walk nonstop across America, under threat of death, until only one remains standing. Near the end of the marathon, participant Gary Barkovitch loses his mind and rips out his own throat to stop the psychological agony of the Walk. Not the best way to go, but it gets much, much worse.
24. Pet Sematary
After being run over by a truck and brought back to life by his father Louis’ misuse of the titular magical cemetery, a demonic toddler named Gage Creed kills neighbor Jud Crandall with a scalpel, toying with him by slicing his Achilles tendon before finishing the job. A brutal death, but it’s made worse by the killer, not the method.
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23. Dolores Clayborne
The eponymous character, a housemaid, gets her abusive husband drunk and tricks him into falling down a well, after he takes all of the couple’s savings and turns their kids against her. If that weren’t enough, she hits him with a rock when he tries to climb out. If the rock didn’t kill him, the fall back to the well surely did the trick. He definitely deserved it, but maybe he deserved one of the lower entries on this list.
22. The Rage: Carrie 2
(NOTE: Though this story was not written by King, it kills one of his original characters, so we’re including it.) In the film-only sequel to Carrie, Sue Snell—one of the only survivors of Carrie’s Black Prom—becomes a school counselor only to be brained with a fire poker by another telekinetic girl, Rachel Lang. Bullies Monica and Eric are also murdered very creatively when Rachel breaks Monica’s glasses and shards of glass fly into her eyes. In her distress, she fires a harpoon gun into Eric’s crotch, castrating him. Both bleed out, hopefully quickly in Eric’s case.
21. The Green Mile
Death row inmate Eduard Delacroix (played by Michael Jeter in the 1999 film) is put to death via the electric chair, and is cruelly denied conducive brine on the sponge by cruel guard Percy Wetmore, prolonging his execution and ensuring he dies in screaming agony. This is one of the most realistic deaths on the list, but you know we have to go supernatural for our best picks.
20. Sleepwalkers
In this movie-only story, an incestuous mother-son, vampire-werecat duo invade a small town to drain virgin women of their life force. After killing a police deputy, mother Mary Brady murders another cop by stabbing him with a corn on the cob and delivering a one-liner as corny as the murder weapon... I’ll see myself out.
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19. The Drawing of the Three
In the second of the Dark Tower books, sadistic killer Jack Mort is killed when gunslinger protagonist Roland Deschain possesses his body and forces him to jump in front of a subway train, dispossessing him at the last possible second. Talk about a mindfuck, though he probably didn’t end up feeling it much.
18. Children of the Corn
A corn-based cult of youths in service to an otherworldly monster crucify housewife Vicky when she and her husband, Burt, attempt to turn in the body of a young boy they run over with their car. After the couple gets separated, the kids rip out her eyes and stuff her mouth full of corn husks, hopefully post-mortem. I like this death a lot, but it’s off-page, so I can’t get too scared.
17. The Langoliers
After a cross-country flight where everyone who fell asleep entered a time warp, business man Craig lands in Maine and tries to get back to his own time. Unfortunately unhinged, he has his legs cut off and gets eaten by the Langoliers, black spheres with razor-sharp teeth that clean up the time stream. He dies screaming. Great death, but it’s by some of King’s least inspired monsters.
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16. Misery
When the cops come to her home looking for missing mystery writer Paul Sheldon, his kidnapper—former nurse Anne Wilkes—stabs a police officer with a cross then runs over his head with a lawnmower. Later, Paul hits her over the head with a typewriter and forces her to eat the burnt pages of the manuscript she tortured him in order to get him to write. She wanders off and later dies in her barn from her injuries. It’s a great conflict, but Wilke’s final fate should have been at Paul’s hands directly.
15. The Regulators
A malevolent spirit named Tak takes over the mind of an autistic boy named Seth and terrorizes the neighborhood with the figments of his very active imagination. Neighbor Peter Jackson (no relation) is killed when Tak magically grows a cactus and stabs him in the back, paralyzing and eventually killing him. I bet Jackson wishes it were just a figment of his imagination.
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14. Graveyard Shift
A group of the unluckiest laborers ever are sent to exterminate a rat infestation in the basement of a textile mill, and are all eaten by the aforementioned rats, which have mutated into giant, horrific bat and weasel-like creatures. Claustrophobia and monsters are horrific on their own |
If your local politician supports Hillary, isn't that hurting any chance Eastern Kentucky has of surviving?
National Democrat funding comes from environmental extremists whose entire agenda is to kill off coal.
Obama clearly and unapologetically said he would end the coal industry when he ran. Hillary has done the same. We should believe them and we should believe that their allies would do the same, no matter what they say when running in Kentucky.
I promised to lead the fight in defending Kentucky from the Obama-Clinton agenda of abusive EPA regulations, and I've fought back at every chance I've had.
In 2011, when the EPA proposed its newly modified and regulation-heavy Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, I introduced a bill to throw out the rule and ban the EPA from producing any substantially similar mandates. I also proudly co-sponsored legislation to stop the destructive effects of both the Clean Power Plan and Stream Protection rules. When Hillary bragged about putting coal miners and their families out of business, I stood up for Kentucky and demanded an apology.
I've also introduced a plan to help revitalize the communities that have already been so incredibly damaged by the Obama-Clinton war on coal. I have proposed designating eligible counties in Kentucky as Economic Freedom Zones, which is an empowering solution using the resources we have right here in Kentucky.
Economic Freedom Zones are areas of reduced taxes and regulations, and increased incentives for businesses. They empower communities by leveraging the human capital, natural resources and business investment opportunities that already exist. By slashing the federal tax rate to 5 percent for a 10-year period in these areas, we can incentivize more businesses to locate in our struggling communities and provide more jobs and opportunities. With my plan, Eastern Kentucky would have kept over $500 million this year alone.
Government shouldn't be picking winners and losers, like politicians have done with the overregulation of the coal industry. My plan gets government out of the way, and lets consumers in the community decide who succeeds. Reducing the taxes in economically depressed areas is a stimulus that will work because the money is returned to businesses and individuals who have already proven they can succeed.
This week I'll be headed to Western Kentucky, and although it's the opposite side of the state, the War on Coal has inflicted destruction upon Kentuckians there too. I plan to meet with leaders in the coal industry there, as I have done many times before, to hear their concerns and relay what I'm doing to fight back against the regulations strangling their industry and destroying the livelihoods of our families.
I'm leading the fight for Kentucky, our coal miners, and their families, but Kentuckians can join me in that fight. We can put a stop to the Clinton-Obama agenda, and it can happen at the ballot-box this November by electing true friends of coal, not allies of the very people calling for mass destruction of our industry.
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul is the Republican junior senator from Kentucky.Shisha is one of the most popular social trends of recent years, especially in cities with a buzzing nightlife. Even smaller towns now have one of two Shisha bars where people can meet up and smoke Shisha as often as they like. For those who aren’t aware, Shisha is a flavoured tobacco, usually mixed with charcoal, which is filtered through water in a pipe. This filtration is believed to give Shisha (also known as Hookah) its unique taste and flavour. The waterpipe and tobacco usually last for over an hour and users are subjected to massive amounts of smoke and toxins. The number of Shisha bars seems to be increasing and this is a troubling statistic, especially since it’s far more dangerous than cigarette smoke.
E-Shisha is a bit different but follows the same principle as real Shisha
E-Shisha is the electronic form of traditional Hookah, with the main difference being that it lacks any tobacco or smoke. E-Shisha has been likened to e-cigarettes in this respect, particularly since they both contain nicotine cartridges and come in a variety of flavours. E-Shisha tends to come as a disposable product but there are some refillable versions on the market. One of the biggest differences between electronic Shisha and e-cigs is that the former produces much more “smoke” and gives more intense flavours. This isn’t real smoke though; instead it’s water vapour that is created using the device’s internal cartridge and battery. The battery heats up the e-liquid and produces vapour, which the user can inhale and exhale in the same way they would with real Shisha.
Electronic versions of anything will never be as good as the real thing
Just as electronic cigarettes aren’t the same as real cigs, E-Shisha isn’t as good as traditional Hookah. Nobody can argue with that statement, however, real Shisha is extremely dangerous for your health, far more dangerous than any other tobacco product. The reason for this is that Shisha is mixed with charcoal and other chemicals to give it flavour and increase the amount of smoke.
Another one of the biggest benefits of E-Shisha over Hookah is that it can be used in places where tobacco is restricted, namely indoor public areas. They can even be used on trains, buses and in cafes in most countries.
Traditional Shisha has some health concerns that might put some people off
Since Shisha is produced using a mixture of tobacco, charcoal and some additives to give it flavour, it also contains massive amounts of undesirable toxins. The tobacco present in Shisha is much the same as that found in cigarettes, except the addition of charcoal makes it even more hazardous than regular tobacco. Some believe that since it passes through water it’s safer than regular smoke; however, this is completely spurious. Another noteworthy point about Shisha is that the amount of smoke produced in one session is far greater than any cigarette gives, with 600 puffs (cigarette equivalent) being typical for a one hour Shisha session. This would be the equivalent of smoking two packets of cigarettes in one go!
The increasing popularity of Hookah is worrying
Almost every major city now has at least one Shisha bar and that’s a worrying statistic. Lots of people think that since the tobacco is filtered through water it’s safer than cigarette smoke. This is completely untrue and it’s time that more people were educated about this. It’s even more worrying that the smoke consumed in one session is far greater than cigarette smoke will EVER give. The addition of charcoal and other additives to produce flavour makes Shisha one of the most hazardous recreations of the modern era.
E-Shisha might not be the same as the real thing, but it has some advantages.
The health problems associated with Hookah are troubling but it’s safe to assume that lots of users aren’t aware of these dangers. Some governments are recognizing the legal loophole that permits Shisha bars to exist, namely because the tobacco is filtered through water. However, as discovered that does nothing to the smoke as far as toxins goes. They travel through water just as easily as they travel through smoke. Although there haven’t been any conclusive studies, it is widely accepted that E-Shisha contains fewer harmful compounds than traditional shisha.
References:
www.livestrong.com/article/207147-pros-cons-of-smoking-from-a-hookah/
www.ushealthworks.com/blog/index.php/2013/04/hookah-pen-the-latest-smoking-craze/
This Article was written with the help of Jay Andrews of Future Shisha www.future-shisha.co.uk, the Electronic Shisha specialist. Connect with them socially on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +
Disclaimer: Read our full disclaimer hereStacey's Bookstore closing down in S.F. SAN FRANCISCO Competition, souring economy doomed store with a technical niche
Dan Davis, who visits San Francisco from his home in Phoenix, Arizona always makes a stop at Staceys and is very sad it may close. Longtime San Francisco landmark bookstore Staceys is closing its' doors in March 2009, a victim of the poor book sales. less Dan Davis, who visits San Francisco from his home in Phoenix, Arizona always makes a stop at Staceys and is very sad it may close. Longtime San Francisco landmark bookstore Staceys is closing its' doors in... more Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Stacey's Bookstore closing down in S.F. 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
Stacey's Bookstore, the iconic San Francisco shop that called Market Street home for all of its 85 years and had carved out a niche for technical publications, announced Tuesday evening that it would close in March.
Like other independent book sellers, Stacey's had been hurt over the past decade by the rise of national chains, like Barnes & Noble, and Web-based booksellers, such as Amazon.com. The store's general manager, Tom Allen, said sales had dropped 50 percent since March 2001.
But the final blow was the crumbling economy, which hit hard during the holidays. Stacey's sales in the fourth quarter of 2008 plummeted 15 percent from the same period in 2007.
"That in itself would not have spelled the end," said Allen. "But it came on top of several years of more gradual decline."
The store was founded in 1923 by John W. Stacey in the historic Flood Building on the corner of Market and Powell streets. Stacey specialized in medical books, a niche that made him a rarity at the time, Allen said. Over the years, the store would build its reputation as a home for technical books for professionals. It would expand, establishing other Stacey's Bookstores in Palo Alto, Modesto, Richmond, Cupertino, Los Angeles and San Bernardino - though the current Market Street location is now the last one standing.
In 1947, Stacey's started a series of professional books that included some of the first books on computers, a status that Stacey's claims earned it recognition in Publishers Weekly as "the most modern bookstore in the country." It moved to its current location, at 851 Market St., in the 1950s, when it also became a general interest bookstore.
Even today, the store has sections on engineering, chemistry, construction manuals, and complex math and science texts, though they only account for 15 percent of the sales. Allen said the era when technical books were obscure has vanished.
In many cases, "information available on the Web has made it unnecessary to buy a book on a technical subject," said Allen, who has worked at the store for the past 11 years.
The store's distinct location, on the edge of San Francisco's Financial District, gave it an unusual customer base. While suburban bookstores might have their busiest times on weekday evenings or weekends, Stacey's thrived on the lunch hour crowds.
Still, as word trickled out Tuesday evening, customers said they were stunned by the news.
"I'm devastated," said Melissa Davis, 37, who had picked up Spanish and Italian language CDs and an Italian grammar book and has shopped at the store regularly for eight years.
When other independent bookstores closed, Davis vowed to shop at Stacey's more. Still, she wondered how Stacey's survived.
"I guess they're hit by it as well," said Davis, a San Francisco resident.
Now, she hopes that a community effort will help save it, similar to what happened with Kepler's Books in Menlo Park. Davis said independent bookstores make sure that there's a diversity of opinion, and not one that's dictated by corporate mandates.
"If you lose an independent bookstore, you're losing an independent voice," she said.
John Himel picked up a book on digital video and another on internal medicine. The former electrical engineer said he feels like the store's closing reflects a shift in how society views learning.
"Books are the greatest obsession," said Himel, 43, a San Francisco resident who now works as an elderly caretaker. "You must have books to think and improve your life."
Igor Royzen understands that people can buy books on the Web. But the chess enthusiast is always amazed at how every time he went to Stacey's, there was a book on chess that he had never seen before.
"Yeah, you can do it on the Web, but it takes away from human interaction," said Royzen, 33, a computer programmer from Daly City. Standing in the third-floor reading area, which overlooks Market Street, Royzen added, "people can also sit here and enjoy a wonderful view. You don't have that on the Internet."Facebook not only is on course to go bust but will take the rest of the ad-supported Web with it.
Given its vast cash reserves and the glacial pace of business reckonings, this assertion will sound exaggerated. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
At the heart of the Internet business is one of the great business fallacies of our time: that the Web, with all its targeting abilities, can be a more efficient, and hence more profitable, advertising medium than traditional media. Facebook, with its 900 million users, its valuation of around $60 billion (as of early June), and a business derived primarily from fairly traditional online advertising, is now at the heart of the heart of this fallacy.
The daily and stubborn reality for everybody building businesses on the strength of Web advertising is that the value of digital ads decreases every quarter, a consequence of their simultaneous ineffectiveness and efficiency. The nature of people’s behavior on the Web and of how they interact with advertising, as well as the character of those ads themselves and their inability to command attention, has meant a marked decline in advertising’s impact.
Things Reviewed Facebook ads
At the same time, network technology allows advertisers to more precisely locate and assemble audiences outside of branded channels. Instead of having to go to CNN for your audience, a generic CNN-like audience can be assembled outside CNN’s walls and without the CNN-brand markup. This has resulted in the now famous and cruelly accurate formulation that $10 of offline advertising becomes $1 online.
I don’t know anyone in the ad-supported Web business who isn’t engaged in a relentless, demoralizing, no-exit operation to realign costs with falling per-user revenues, or who isn’t manically inflating traffic to compensate for ever-lower per-user value.
Facebook has convinced large numbers of otherwise intelligent people that the magic of the medium will reinvent advertising in a heretofore unimaginably profitable way, or that the company will create something new that isn’t advertising, which will produce even more wonderful profits. But because its stock has been trading at about 40 times its expected earnings for the next year, these innovations will have to be something like alchemy to make the company worth its sticker price. For comparison, Google has been trading at a forward P/E ratio of around 11. (To gauge how much faith investors have that Google, Facebook, and other Web companies will extract value from their users, see this graphic.)
Facebook currently derives 82 percent of its revenue from advertising. Most of that is the desultory, ticky-tacky display advertising that litters the right side of people’s Facebook profiles. Some is a kind of social marketing: a user chooses to “like” a product, which is supposed to further social relationships with companies. The social network sells its ads by valuing various combinations of the cost of a thousand ad impressions (or CPM) and the cost of a click (CPC). Both forms of ads are more or less coarsely targeted to users on the basis of information they’ve volunteered to provide to Facebook and the sharing or “liking” of media within Facebook’s universe. General Motors recently announced it would no longer buy any kind of Facebook ad.
Facebook’s answer to its critics is: Pay no attention to the carping. Sure, grunt-like advertising produces the overwhelming portion of our $4 billion in revenues, and yes, on a per-user basis, these revenues are in decline. But this stuff is really not what we have in mind. Just wait.
It’s quite a juxtaposition of realities. On the one hand, Facebook is under the same relentless downward pressure as other Web-based media. The company’s revenue amounts to a pitiful $5 per customer per year, which puts it ahead of the Huffington Post but somewhat behind the New York Times’ digital business. (Here’s the heartbreaking truth about the difference between new media and old: even in the New York Times’ declining traditional business, a subscriber is still worth more than $1,000 a year.) Facebook’s business grows only on the unsustainable basis that it can add new customers at a faster rate than the price of advertising declines. It is peddling as fast as it can. And the present scenario gets much worse as people increasingly interact with the social service on mobile devices, because on a small screen it is vastly harder to sell ads and monetize users.
On the other hand, Facebook is, everyone has come to agree, profoundly different from the Web. First of all, it exerts a new level of hegemonic control over users’ experiences. And it has its vast scale: 900 million, soon a billion, eventually two billion people. (One of the problems with the logic of constant growth at this scale and speed is that eventually Facebook will run out of humans with computers or smart phones.) And then it is social. Facebook has, in some yet-to-be-defined way, redefined something. Relationships? Media? Communications? Communities? Something big, anyway.
The sweeping, basic, transformative, and simple way to connect buyer to seller and get out of the way eludes Facebook. It has to sell its audience like every humper on Madison Avenue.
The subtext—an overt subtext—of the popular account of Facebook is that the network has a proprietary claim to and special insight into social behavior. For enterprises and advertising agencies, it is therefore the bridge to new modes of human connection. Expressed so baldly, this account is hardly different from what was claimed for the companies most aggressively boosted during the dot-com boom. But there is, in fact, one company that created and harnessed a transformation in behavior and business: Google. Facebook could be, or in many people’s eyes should be, something similar. Lost in such analysis is the failure to describe the application that will drive revenues.
Google is an incredibly efficient system for placing ads. In a disintermediated advertising market, the company has turned itself into the last and ultimate middleman. On its own site, it controls the space where a buyer searches for a thing and where a seller hawks that thing (AdWords, its keywords advertising network). Google is also the cheapest, most efficient way to place ads anywhere else on the Web (through the AdSense network). It’s not a media company in any traditional sense; it’s a facilitator. It can eliminate the whole laborious, numbing process of selling advertising space: if a marketer wants to place an ad (that is, if it is already convinced it must advertise), the company calls Mr. Google.
And that’s Facebook’s hope, too: it wants to be a facilitator, the inevitable conduit at the center of the world’s commerce.
Facebook has the scale, the platform, and the brand to be the new Google. It lacks only the big idea. Right now, it doesn’t actually know how to embed its usefulness into world commerce (or even, really, what its usefulness is).
But Google didn’t have the big idea at its founding, either. The search engine borrowed the concept of AdWords from Yahoo’s Overture network (a lawsuit for patent infringement and a settlement followed). Now Google has all the money in the world to buy or license the ideas that could make its platform and brand pay off.
What might Facebook’s big idea look like? Well, it does have all this data. The company knows so much about so many people that its executives are sure the knowledge must have value (see our feature “What Facebook Knows”).
If you’re inside the Facebook galaxy—a constellation that includes an ever-expanding cloud of associated ventures—there is endless chatter about a near-utopian new medium for marketing. Round and round goes the conversation: “If we just … if only … when we will …” If, for instance, frequent-flier programs and travel destinations actually knew when you were thinking about planning a trip … If a marketer could identify the person who has the most influence on you … If an advertiser could introduce you to someone who would relay the advertising message … Get it? No ads, just friends! My God!
But so far the sweeping, basic, transformative, and simple way to connect buyer to seller and get out of the way eludes Facebook.
So the social network is left in the same position as all other media companies. Instead of being inevitable and unavoidable, it has to sell its audience like every humper on Madison Avenue.
But that’s what Facebook is doing: selling individual ads. If you consider only its revenue, it’s an ad-sales business, not a technology company. To meet expectations—the expectations that took it public at $100 billion—it has to sell at near hyperspeed.
The growth of its user base and its ever-swelling page views mean an almost infinite inventory to sell. But the expanding supply, together with equivocal demand, results in ever-lowering prices. The math is sickeningly inevitable. Absent that earthshaking idea, Facebook will look forward to slowing or declining growth in a tapped-out market, and ever-falling ad rates, both on the Web and (especially) in mobile applications. Facebook isn’t Google; it’s Yahoo or AOL.
Oh, yes … in its Herculean efforts to maintain its overall growth, Facebook will force the rest of the ad-driven Web to lower its prices, too. The low-level panic the owners of every mass-traffic website feel about the ever-downward movement of their CPM is turning to dread. Last quarter, some big sites observed as much as a 25 percent decrease, following Facebook’s own attempt to book more revenue.
You see where this is going. As Facebook gluts an already glutted market, the fallacy of the Web as a profitable ad medium will become hard to ignore. The crash will come. And Facebook—that putative transformer of worlds, which is, in reality, only an ad-driven site—will fall with everybody else.
Michael Wolff writes a column on media for the Guardian; is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair; founded Newser; and was, until October of last year, the editor of AdWeek.
This article was revised on June 16, 2012.The term kawaii in its modern form emerged in the 1970s, according to a paper written by professor Sharon Kinsella of the University of Manchester. She says that it sprung out from a trend in “cute handwriting,” but that soon child-like cuteness became the dominant pop culture and fashion aesthetic of the period. It was during this decade that Sanrio came to prominence, introducing the mega-popular Hello Kitty in 1974 and soon becoming a billion-dollars-a-year company. Kawaii culture only grew bigger as time went on, showing up in household appliances, food, and sex toys.
The traditional characteristics of kawaii, according to Kinsella, are “sweet, adorable, innocent, pure, simple, genuine, gentle, vulnerable, weak and inexperienced.” In the ‘90s, though, younger Japanese people, bored of those traits, coined “kimo-kawaii.” The early Internet meme of the “dancing baby” originated in America but came across in Japan as prime kimo-kawaii, becoming popular enough to appear in a Toyota ad. Another example was the comic-turned-cartoon Coji Coji. The title character seemed cuddly enough, but was surrounded by far stranger-looking types, and the show generally took kawaii to a more surreal place.
A similar trend happened in America during the decade, with the rise of raunchy animated series like Ren and Stimpy, Beavis and Butt-head, and The Simpsons. Yet those shows, filled with adult references and jokes, aimed to prove cartoons weren’t just for kids. Kimo-kawaii, meanwhile, offered an alternative to the traditionally child-like definition of “cute.”
It wasn’t until the 2000s, though, that kimo-kawaii really became a cultural force. Characters like Pikachu, “relaxation bear” Rilakkuma, and Hello Kitty remained extremely popular, but more alternatives emerged. One was Gloomy Bear, a pink critter that a graphic designer going by the name Mori Chack created as an explicit response to kawaii, saying, “Say there’s an illustration of a bear holding hands, dancing happily with a human. Is this not the epitome of cruelty?” Tall and violent, Gloomy usually has blood splattered on his face and claws from repeatedly attacking his human companion, Pitty. His official website allows users to bludgeon the kid in three different ways.
The year 2006 brought the debut of Kobitodukan, a set of dwarf-like creatures with weird faces, who became popular enough to warrant several convenience-store tie-ins. They were soon joined in pop culture by video-game characters like the mushroom-come-alive Nameko and the strange-faced alpaca from “Alpaca Evolution.” The vogue for the bizarre hasn’t been limited to Japanese creations—Spongebob Squarepants, America’s favorite cartoon freak, has become newly popular in Japan over the last few years, as has the unsettling ‘90s fad toy Furby.
Most kimo-kawaii stars of late, however, are government creations. The last four years have seen a boom in hyper-specific mascots for everything from the post office to electronic tax filing. These yuru-kyara (“loose character”) most often represent cities and regions, and at their best can help bolster an area’s tourism and overall economy. The most famous yuru-kyara is Kumamon, a rotund black bear representing Kumamoto Prefecture. Items featuring him have racked up millions of dollars, and have helped draw visitors to his homeland. Success stories like Kumamon’s inspired nearly every town in the country to create multiple characters of their own.Alpha Centauri is one of the best strategy games ever made. It casts a long shadow, such that a game like Civilization: Beyond Earth [official site] cannot escape comparison, even though it wasn’t intended to be the direct spiritual successor many saw it as. But how would you improve on Meier and Reynold’s sci-fi masterpiece? Keegan Chua has some ideas. His Alpha Centauri Redux project is a fully documented attempt “to completely redesign the look and feel of the user interface in the Sid Meier classic”.
Strategy game UI design has made some remarkable progress in recent years. Civilization V and Endless Legend are delightful, and as important to their respective games as a tight control scheme can be to an action game. Good UI design guides the player through the flow of information, allowing access to data should someone choose to dig for it, but concentrating on what is necessary at any given time. I tend to think of a solid strategic UI like a set of advisors (and maybe that comes from those early years with Civ), who step forward when summoned but never raise their voices and talk across one another.
The beauty of the Alpha Centauri Redux project is in the documentation as much as the possible end result. Keegan shares his thoughts and his failures, as well as his goals and changing approaches. He’s working with Dave Inscore, the artist responsible for the “look and feel” of the game’s original UI. Here’s a recent video:
Reading through the process of revamping the UI has given me an even greater respect for the work involved. The conflict between an attractive appearance and a functional design is apparent at every stage. Here’s one of the early blog posts:
“So, this project has been picking up the pace, slowly but gradually. The first thing I’m going about doing is redesigning the Governor/City Management screen. My thought process was that I want to give the game some screen space to breathe. The original Governor HUD took over the entire screen. I’m taking some inspiration from other 4x Strategy Games like Civilization and Endless Legend here and allowing the player to still see what’s going on behind all of the dialogue boxes that make up this HUD. “The first big pass I did got pretty close to what I had in mind in terms of shape language — angular and boxy, with a little bit of dimensionality from being transparent. Originally I went with a little bit of color, but felt like to really get the slick Sci-Fi feel that I’m going for I needed to make the overall palette more subdued with the main boxes being a transparent gradient of grey to black.”
UI design isn’t something we write about a lot, in isolation at any rate. We discuss it almost every time we discuss games though, even if we don’t make that explicit. Next time I visit a studio working on a strategy game, maybe I’ll ask them to show me where they keep the interface designers and see what they have to say for themselves. Until then, take a look at this article from Jon Shafer, one of the best minds in the strategy gaming field. Lovely.
Thanks to Andrew Smith at Spilt Milk for bringing this to my attention.Works in a web-browser (chrome), and hence in Steam Overlay.
Displays the current player position (icon, coords) and current biome
Displays all ping manager items on the map (beacons, signals, vessels)
Has multiple background layers (blank, biomes(default), lost river, etc).
Has a store of POIs, taken from the wiki, (off by default), for things like wrecks, degasi bases, vents etc. (very much spoilers, also probably out-of-date).
Displays a time of day indication. (v0.4)
Leviathan Spawn Locations map layer (v0.5)
Update wiki POIs (v0.5)
Can now switch layers automatically, e.g. for Lost River. (v0.6)
Support for Subnautica not in default Steam Library (0.7)
Improved Maps and more of them (0.8)
Displays player view direction (0.9)
I've created a mod that allows you to display a map in the Steam Overlay that can display various pieces of information.A lot of the game revolves around exploring, so using this map should be considered aShould the devs ever decide to add some form of auto-map or other in-game map, I'll most likely retire this mod.I tend to get lost a lot in Subnautica. Exploring is great fun, but once I've found something, once I know where something is, I really want to be able to find it again. Beacons help a great deal, but for some things, like resources, when I don't have a beacon available or when I simply want to know which way to turn to get to a biome a map is invaluable.If I were really trapped on 4546B I'd definitely be drawing a map, pinning it to wall in my cyclops, or drawing it in AlterraPaint on my PDA.This mod is my personal answer to not having an in-game map. I'm making it available as I'm sure there must be at least one other person that would like an in-game (ish) map.* You download the latest release from GitHub.* Install and usage instructions are also on the Project Page The main project readme also includes some troubleshooting steps for reported issues.Feedback welcome, please use GitHub for bug reports.At some point during the top of the eighth inning of Saturday’s 7-0 loss to the Yankees, the feeling at Rogers Centre turned from disappointing to uncomfortable. This wasn’t just the Blue Jays losing a game to the division leader anymore; it was Jason Grilli possibly watching his career come to an end.
Oh, I’m not suggesting he’ll never throw another pitch in the majors. Veteran relievers with high strike out rates who are popular in the clubhouse probably get more last chances than any other breed of baseball player, but Saturday afternoon’s outing in which the Yankees launched four home runs off Grilli was father time tapping him on the shoulder and saying... “I’m coming for you.”
Grilli didn’t speak to reporters after the game, and I can’t blame him. This season has to be an obnoxiously bitter pill to swallow after his 2016 campaign. The righty always wanted to play for the Jays growing up, and after being traded to Toronto at the end of May last season, he entered 2017 penciled in as a key bridge arm to Osuna and the ninth inning.
But the baseball gods had other ideas. Signs of trouble began almost immediately when Grilli served up a walk off bomb to Mark Trumbo on Opening Day, and things haven’t gotten much better since. Even before Saturday’s disaster, Grilli was already the second least trusted arm in the bullpen (next to J.P. Howell, but we’ll get to him in a moment), and he had given up five home runs in just 17 innings of work. Awful!
Too many walks and too many gopher balls. That’s been the story of his season. Over 20 percent of the plate appearances against Grilli this year have ended with one of those two results, leaving the rest of the team incapable of making a play to help him out.
Unfortunately, there’s not much the Jays can do here. Everyone from the front office to the local media will try and diagnose the issue, and some of the conclusions might even sound treatable. “His arm slot is too low. “He just needs to locate better. “He started off slow last year too. “He’ll start getting more guys out once he gets his confidence back,” and other excuses like these that don’t get to the heart of the issue will be tossed around.
That’s because the real issue here, the real problem holding Grilli back..... is that he has a case of the early forties, and they don’t have a cure for that. The electricity he provided last season when he came over from Atlanta was a perfect storm. You had an arm that only spent half a season in the American League since 2009 (2014 with the Angels) coming to the team he always wanted to play for, and that team was having all sorts of problems bridging the gap between the starters and Osuna.
It was an ideal situation for Grilli, and a shrewd pick up by Ross Atkins. The hitters in this division weren’t familiar with his stuff, Grilli was getting an extra boost because he was riding an emotional high, and he fit in perfectly with a bullpen that at the time needed a jolt.
However, as sweet at this was for everyone involved, the Toronto leg of 2016 was not a renaissance in Jason Grilli’s career, but rather the last gasp of a reliever who’s already held back the hands of time longer than most could reasonably expect. Even amid his successful summer, Grilli was serving up home runs at a higher rate than he had at any point since 2004. He made it work with lots of strike outs, fortunate sequencing, and holding opponents to a.563 OPS when they batted with runners in scoring position.
Now the magic’s gone, and a career is flashing before everyone’s eyes. AL East hitters suddenly have experience against Grilli and know exactly what to expect, the.208 BABIP hitters had against him in the first three months after the trade has disappeared, and he’s allowing home runs at an even more alarming rate than ever.
So far in 2017, opposing hitters have a 1.076 OPS off Grilli in 85 plate appearances. In other words, Grilli pretty much turns whoever’s in the batters box into Bryce Harper or Aaron Judge. This is a guy who only gave up more than four home runs in a season once in an eight year span between 2008 and 2015, so giving up four in less than an inning of work is pretty much all the proof you need that he’s no longer a guy who can miss barrels.
This brings us to the elephant in the room. What is it going to take for the front office to remove Jason Grilli from the roster? It’s clear they don’t want to do it. His teammates love him, he’s tied to several promotions the club is running, and when he has an outing where he doesn’t give up any home runs, he actually looks like a guy who can still be a successful big league reliever. But the sobering reality is that Grilli doesn’t belong on this roster anymore, and somebody who’s paid to make difficult decisions is probably going to have to make one very soon to keep the bullpen from flaming out.
During his post game press conference, John Gibbons went out of his way to cover for his veteran player, and in doing so he accidentally revealed one of the biggest reasons the Jays can’t afford to keep him around.
“It’s hard, simply because I like the guy so much,” Gibbons said. “Everybody does. He’s had a tremendous career and in other circumstances with more guys who could pitch he wouldn’t have stayed out there that long. Our guys in the pen are running on fumes right now. They can’t keep this up. [Grilli] actually pitched pretty good recently but today was one of those days. Going into the game, there were guys we needed to stay away from unless we were tied or had the lead late, so... that’s how that works.”
The most interesting part of that statement is Gibbons admitting the pen is running on fumes, and one of the biggest reasons it’s running on fumes is because he’s petrified (rightfully so) to use two of the arms during any high leverage situation. His hands are tied.
Here’s a quick look at the seven options out of the pen on the 25-man roster right now:
1) Roberto Osuna (Awesome closer)
2) Joe Smith (Awesome eighth inning man)
3) Ryan Tepera (One of the two best bridge options to get from the starter to Smith and Osuna)
4) Danny Barnes (One of the two best bridge options to get from the starter to Smith and Osuna)
5) Aaron Loup (The best left handed option in the bullpen)
6) Jason Grilli (Only use in close games if the previous five arms are gassed)
7) J.P. Howell (Only use in close games if the previous six arms are gassed)
Thanks to yesterday’s post game press conference, we now know the pen is gassed, and it seems to me that the Jays need two guys in the back of the pen who can actually mop up innings for the other five instead of getting lit up like a Christmas tree. Unfortunately, Grilli and Howell aren’t those guys. Their age and complete inability to get guys out consistently means that even in a 7-0 game like this, the Jays had to burn Danny Barnes in the ninth when they might need him in Sunday’s game.
That’s just bad baseball, and it comes in a stretch where both Grilli and Howell were only being used for the fourth time in 15 days. They should have been plenty rested to get six outs. The rest of the bullpen is getting abused like rented mules trying to pull out the nail biters the Jays have played over the home stand, and these two give you just one inning combined in a game the team was probably going to lose anyway. That’s just not fair to the other guys in that pen.
Now in |
X case. It was all nice and fancy until I wanted to stick StriX card into it. Which was wider and was obstructed by PSU next to it. Which is why I went back to regular width tower case. If you look, basically all high end cards have wider coolers now. And I don't want reference ones.
Right now you might have option to fit in tiny card, but things can change in the future and you'll have big problems... I personally think Lian Li should, well, fire whoever designs the internals for their cases. PSU blocking just a slightly wider GPU in an mATX case sounds just incredibly wrong. I personally think Lian Li should, well, fire whoever designs the internals for their cases. PSU blocking just a slightly wider GPU in an mATX case sounds just incredibly wrong. Posted on May 25th 2017, 14:52 Reply
#17 RejZoR
Well, it was a very short and low case thanks to PSU placed alongside motherboard. Unfortunately this blocked the graphic card by width in the case. It was basically half the size in height and 1/4 shorter than my current Corsair Carbide 330R. Posted on May 25th 2017, 15:28 Reply
#18 notb
RejZoR said: Small is fancy and all, but becomes a problem when you change components. I had a fancy Lian Li Mini ATX case. It was all nice and fancy until I wanted to stick StriX card into it. Which was wider and was obstructed by PSU next to it. Which is why I went back to regular width tower case. If you look, basically all high end cards have wider coolers now. And I don't want reference ones.
Right now you might have option to fit in tiny card, but things can change in the future and you'll have big problems... That's an interesting approach...
Being limited by the size is a built-in factor when going mITX. First of all you're limited to tiny subset of motherboards, you most likely have just 2 DIMM sockets and 1 PCIe. So by definition you can't use a huge majority of PC parts available - even before we come to size issues.
One would think that your Strix issue shouldn't have been a great surprise...
IMO mITX builds work best if you don't plan to upgrade. That's an interesting approach...Being limited by the size is a built-in factor when going mITX. First of all you're limited to tiny subset of motherboards, you most likely have just 2 DIMM sockets and 1 PCIe. So by definition you can't use a huge majority of PC parts available - even before we come to size issues.One would think that your Strix issue shouldn't have been a great surprise...IMO mITX builds work best if you don't plan to upgrade. Posted on May 26th 2017, 1:06 Reply
#19 RejZoR
Measurments said it would fit. It didn't fit when it arrived. I managed to redesign PSU holding bay to gain those extra few millimeters, but after a while I've decided to just sell it all and buy normal case. I can modify and fabricate things, but I just couldn't be bothered anymore with constant need to redesign things just to make them work. I mean, due to mATX case, I had to use soundcard in my first slot ABOVE the graphic card and graphic card below it with 1cm spacing. Doing it around meant soundcard was blocking half the graphic card intake. No such issues anymore with normal case. Like I've said, it was fancy, but not convenient at all. Posted on May 26th 2017, 1:49 ReplyWeirdly, the cranky-old-man persona has become one of his great assets in the 2016 race. It’s almost never talked about, thanks in part to his repeated insistence that the press focus on issues and not fluffy personality politics, but in the course of his run for president, Sanders has emerged as far more gifted at the politics of personal charm than the popular image of him as a cantankerous crank suggests. He’s shown a real pleasure for campaigning that’s obvious to anyone, managed to turn a career of stubborn commitment to his chosen policy issues into a convincing argument for the sincerity of his convictions, and learned to benefit from the caustic-septuagenarian caricature of himself. His charmless charm has become an unseen benefit over Clinton, who has worked (against immense sexism, among other things) for more than two decades to establish herself as the leader of the Democratic Party. Bernie, who’s never worried too much about getting people to like him, now has slightly higher favorability ratings and much lower unfavorability ratings than she does.
“It’s the rooms that move me, that energize me,” Sanders told The Guardian earlier this month, explaining how he’d come to enjoy the campaign grind and believe that he was onto something with voters. “I am really moved by it.” But it wasn’t really until the Democratic forum hosted by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last November that Sanders started to show that he could turn his reputation for self-seriousness into an endearing in-joke. Maddow, with apologies, told Sanders to pick from a stack of cards containing less-than-serious questions for the candidates. Sanders has a well-earned reputation of cutting off or interrupting reporters he finds unserious — he told a New York Times interviewer who asked him last year about the gendered coverage of Hillary Clinton, “I don’t mean to be rude here. I am running for president of the United States on serious issues, okay? Do you have serious questions?”
But instead of hectoring Maddow for the frivolity of the exercise, Bernie turned up the charm, mock-anticipating the questions he was going to be asked: “How many pairs of underwear do I own?” he guessed, referencing David’s SNL impersonation of him. “Am I really Larry David?” As the crowd responded to nearly everything with huge laughs, Sanders visibly softened a little. “Do you curse?” Maddow asked him, to which Sanders gestured at her like he was about to give her the best profanity-laced Brooklyn-tough-guy routine he had. “Not on this show!” he said. When asked what the biggest misconception was about him, he said, “People think I am grumpy. People think I am too serious.” He was deadpanning, and the audience was laughing along with him, but then he turned it into a moment that, with another politician, might have sounded canned: “I think what people don’t see is that I have seven beautiful grandchildren which are the joy of my life.” It was just about the least Bernie Sanders-ish thing he could have possibly said.
The Maddow event was not a one-off moment of crowd magic but a piece of broader campaign strategy, led by Sanders chief strategist Tad Devine, to revamp Sanders’s image. It appears to have worked, too, perhaps helping to broaden his base of support. Back in October, when Clinton still enjoyed comfortable leads with women and nonwhite voters, the campaign outlined a new strategy to Politico aimed at softening his image. It would entail forgoing some of the large rallies he held in progressive enclaves in favor of smaller venues where he could interact with voters. It included a plan to do more TV interviews to pitch himself on shows like Ellen and The View. It required hiring a pollster to look at his support in different slices of the electorate and cutting a series of ads aimed at introducing him to voters in early primary states.
Ultimately, Larry David may have done more to cement Bernie’s image as an endearing grump than anyone else. And it’s difficult to imagine how a female candidate could ever turn a similar quality into a great strength. But the Sanders running for president now is not the same one I saw on the Capitol’s lawn last April, when he launched his presidential bid in the least sentimental way imaginable. “Let me just make a brief comment,” he said. “We don’t have an endless amount of time. I’ve got to get back to work.” He went into a speech that lasted less than ten minutes and included an admonishment to the media. Then he turned around and did, in fact, go back to work. Back then, when he was waging a campaign primarily through free press coverage, he told reporters, “Don’t underestimate me — we’re going to do better than people think.” He was right.Since I was bragging a little too much in my description about how I enjoy difficult puzzles, my Santa messaged me about how tough it was for her to pick the perfect gifts. She wanted me to struggle with them and she chose not one, not even two, three perfect gifts!!
A Kingou chinese 3D wooden magic cube. I've been able to disasemble but I'm having a hard time to ensemble it again. The box does not include a rating but I can tell you it's hard.
A Galileo's Globe Puzzle from Great Minds. It's rated at 4 over 5 in difficulty. I was able to convert it in a jumble of wooden pieces but again, I can't turn it again in the magnificent globe i saw when I first took it from the box.
The final puzzle is a Marble from Cast Puzzles. Difficulty rate 5 over 5!! I've been messing around with it for a while and I cant understand how this (apparently simple puzzle can be put into pieces).
Thank you Santa for this amazing gifts. I'm going to mess around with them all the weekend.
Best regards,
ch0wch0wWorkers who earn 25,000 kronor ($3,810) per month end up paying 69 percent, or 17,200 kronor per month, in taxes, according to an analysis carried out by Swedbank.
According to Statistics Sweden, the average salary of a municipal worker in Sweden in 2011 was 25,000 kronor.
Meanwhile, two-child households earning 55,000 kronor per month contribute 38,000 kronor in taxes, Swedbank found.
The sum includes taxes deducted from one's paycheck; value added taxes paid on consumption; as well as payroll taxes paid by employers.
All told, taxes account for Swedes' largest monthly expense by far.
"Taxes visible in our paychecks are one thing, but when you include taxes on consumption and payroll taxes, taxes end up being three times as high," Maria Ahrengart of Swedbank's Institute for Personal Finance (Institutet för Privatekonomi) said in a statement.
In 2011, Swedes paid a total of 1.56 trillion kronor in taxes.
According to Swedbank's analysis, which traced exactly where Swedes' tax money is spent, municipalities and the pension system consume most of what Swedes pay in taxes.
"It's good to know what the money actually goes to and how tax money is divided," Ahrengart told the TT news agency.
Of the 17,200 kronor in tax generated by a monthly salary of 25,000 kronor, 6,100 kronor or about 35 percent, goes to municipal taxes, while the pension system receives 4,300 kronor, or about 25 percent.
Taxes paid directly to the state account for just under 20 percent of the worker's tax bill, or about 40,000 kronor per year.
Of that sum, about 1,700 kronor goes to help pay Sweden's European Union membership fee, with an equal amount going toward foreign development aid.
About 3,000 kronor is spent annually on education, compared with 2,500 kronor on defence and 4,200 on children and family programmes.
Meanwhile, of the 73,000 kronor paid in local taxes annually, elderly care consumes the largest amount -- 14,000 kronor, or about 19 percent -- while childcare and education account for about 30,000 kronor, or 41 percent.
"Much of what we pay in, we get out again in different ways," Ahrengart told TT.
The Local/dl
Follow The Local on TwitterImage caption The Swedish prime minister said it could be assumed no export laws would be broken
Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt is under pressure to clarify a report that his government is helping Saudi Arabia plan an advanced arms plant.
According to Swedish national radio, the country's Defence Research Agency (FOI) led the project to build weapons including missiles and torpedoes.
While not confirming the report, Mr Reinfeldt said Sweden had signed an initial deal with the Saudis in 2005.
There were no rules preventing deals with non-democratic states, he added.
Sweden has been involved in arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the past, but the planned factory is seen as unprecedented.
Although the plant has not yet been built, Swedish radio says Project Simoom began under FOI's leadership in 2007, but was handed to a private company in 2009, when it was felt that the defence agency was "legally hindered" from continuing.
The company, named SSTI, was then said to have been given an export permit to buy equipment for missiles, bombs and other weaponry.
"Today, we have no project agreement with that country," FOI head Jan-Olof Lind said, adding that any talks that had taken place between Stockholm and Riyadh were classified.
Under Swedish law, all military exports have to be regulated by the independent Swedish Agency for Non-Proliferation and Export Controls (ISP).
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mr Reinfeldt emphasised that he presumed that Sweden's export laws had been observed.
Sweden's opposition Greens Party has called for an investigation and for the defence minister to report on the issue to parliament.Vancouver Canucks President & General Manager Mike Gillis announced today that goaltender Cory Schneider has been re-assigned to the Manitoba Moose of the AHL.
Schneider, 23, has played in nine games for the Moose this season, posting a record of 6-3-0 record. He has registered one shutout and recorded a.910 save percentage. In his most recent recall with Vancouver, Schneider made an impressive start in Dallas on November 6th, stopping 45 of 47 shots faced in a 2-1 loss for Vancouver.
The 2008.09 AHL Goalie of the Year played 40 games with the Moose in 2008.09, posting a 28-10-1 record and a 2.04 goals against average. He also led the Moose to the Calder Cup Finals with a 14-7-0 record and 2.15 goals against average. Schneider made his NHL debut Nov. 29, 2008, against the Calgary Flames stopping 28 of 31 shots. In eight games with the Canucks, he posted a 2-4-0 record.
The 6’2” Marblehead, MA, native was selected by Vancouver 26th overall in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft.
Career Regular Season Statistics
Season Team GP W L T OT SO GA SA Sv% GAA Mins 2002-2003 Phillips Academy Andover-High-MA 23 13 7 2 3 39 1.69 1,385 2003-2004 U.S. Nat'l Team Dev. Program-U-18 10 9 1 0 1 15 1.61 559 2003-2004 Phillips Academy Andover-High-MA 24 17 5 2 6 32 1.42 1,336 2003-2004 USNTDP-NAHL 2 2 0 0 0 6 3.00 120 2003-2004 United States-WJ18-A 6 5 1 0 0 10 1.71 351 2004-2005 Boston College Eagles-H-East 18 13 1 4 1 35 1.90 1,102 2004-2005 United States-WJC-A 1 0 3 7.94 23 2005-2006 Boston College Eagles-H-East 39 24 13 2 8 83 2.11 2,362 2005-2006 United States-WJC-A 6 2 3 1 0 16 2.67 359 2006-2007 Boston College Eagles-H-East 42 29 12 1 6 90 2.15 2,517 2007-2008 Manitoba Moose-AHL 36 21 12 2 3 78 926.916 2.28 2008-2009 Canucks 8 2 4 - 1 0 20 162.877 3.38 355 2008-2009 Manitoba Moose-AHL 40 28 10 1 5 79 1,014.930 2.04 2,324 NHL Totals 8 2 4 0 1 0 20 162.876 3.38 355
Career Playoff StatisticsSurvivor 29th season, which will be filmed in Nicaragua early this summer and broadcast next fall, is another blood versus water season, but with all-new players, and season 30 will also include all-new players, according to host, executive producer, and showrunner Jeff Probst.
In an interview with HitFix’s Dan Fienberg, Probst was asked about Survivor Cagayan‘s all-newbie cast, and said, in part,
“So we were hesitant but we were optimistic and now we’re gearing up for two new seasons with all new people back to back.”
That’s such a definitive statement–“gearing up” means that something is about to happen, i.e. the filming of two new seasons–that it almost doesn’t matter that Probst back-peddled a little when asked specifically about season 30 having returning players:
“Don’t know about that but just in terms of our confidence with bringing back former players versus new players […] It doesn’t mean we won’t do it. […] I feel like there’s this ability to talk to an audience and get feedback from them. And it doesn’t mean they dictate the show but it does seem like a really valuable tool. And they’d been asking for new players and they’ve given us the confidence to try it and it’s spawned some new ideas about what we can do with the show that can satisfy everybody.”
Having all new cast members for Survivor‘s 30th season contradicts what I previously reported, which was that season 30 would have returnees, who were themselves referring to the season as “legends.” To be more specific, what I reported was that people being cast for season 29 were told by casting, within the last month, that season 30 was going to be returnees. I’ve since confirmed that with at least two others with knowledge of the casting process.
There are multiple possibilities here, including 1) casting is lying to prospective cast members for some reason, 2) returnees are being considered and are being atypically quiet, perhaps because they’ve been told to be so, or 3) the plan was to have returnees and then the casting for new players was strong enough to ditch the returnees in favor of two more casts of all-new players.
Based on Probst’s answer, the latter seems the most likely. That aligns well with what reliable Survivor Sucks spoiler Redmond noted last week:
“Heroes vs Villains 2 was definitely on the cards at one point as far as I heard. I mentioned this a while back. Production/Casting had a potential list of returnees drawn up, but other than general feelers, I don’t think any serious interviews took place. Abi-Maria was on that list though, along with Malcolm, Ciera, and Alicia Rosa. I’m still waiting to hear back from other sources. But as of now, I’m still sticking with newbies.”
Redmond’s theory matches pretty closely to what Probst said in his Reddit AMA this week. After dismissing casting and twist reports as “rumor” (which is what people tend to call reports they want to dismiss for some reason, such as this one), he said he did not agree that season 30 had to be a major season, and said that “I’m loving having new players,” though he mentions several people as those who “could be asked back.”
What is really interesting is how quickly plans seem to have shifted from bringing back people, possibly for another Heroes vs. Villains season, to casting all-new players–never mind how rapidly Probst has gone from returnees “as often as possible” to “I’m loving having new players.”[Introduction]
Ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful to have this opportunity to speak to you today. Wall Street, an entity that moves the global economy-- when I hear the name, my mind turns to Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas.
In the original film in 1987, the words "Nikkei Index" appear. Japanese businessmen also take the screen and the film reminds us of the era in which the Japanese economy was regarded as a juggernaut.
However, in the 2010 sequel, the investors that appear are Chinese and it is not Wall Street but London where Gordon amasses his wealth. Japan is conspicuous only in its absence. Just as the title, "Money Never Sleeps," indicates, the principle that money flows to wherever the profits are is decidedly severe.
It is certainly true that after the bursting of its bubble, from the 1990's Japan was mired in almost 20 years of deflation and the economy was sluggish. But today, I have come to tell you that Japan will once again be a country where there is money to be made, and that just as Gordon Gekko made a comeback in the financial world after 23 years of absence, so too can we now say that "Japan is back."
[Japan's potential]
Tomorrow is pitcher Mariano Rivera's last game at Yankee Stadium. I am really pleased that on this day which will remain in the memories of New Yorkers forever, I will be able to share in this moment here in the same city.
Even now, at age 43, Rivera has that one pitch -- that sharp-breaking cutter -- that every batter finds entirely unhittable. I am convinced he is the best closer anywhere in the world.
There is likewise no need to go to extraordinary lengths to find a scenario in which Japan reemerges. I believe that, just like one of Rivera's cutters, Japan will be able to revive as long as it unleashes its intrinsic potential.
Let me illustrate this using something familiar to us all. Let's talk sushi for a moment. New York has any number of authentic sushi bars.
I'm guessing that many of you have had the chance to experience the exquisite combination of rice, fish or other ingredients, hot wasabi horseradish and soy sauce, accompanied by sake to drink. It is all of these in combination that give rise to such superb harmony. When any of those are lacking, the entire experience comes up short. Japanese food is therefore a highly sophisticated system.
I travel overseas once a month. I have Japan's business leaders accompany me whenever possible and together we have been marketing Japan's potential. In particular, we have been bringing Japanese food with us and having our counterparts overseas sample them for themselves. Whether it's sushi or tempura, we never fail to have a tremendously long line at the counter.
Originally, both sushi and tempura were types of fast food eaten by the common folk at roadside food stands more than 200 years ago in Edo, now known as Tokyo. I have a dream that someday, even here in New York, we'll see sushi and tempura carts lined up next to the hot dog vendors at the corner of 40th Street and Fifth Avenue.
[Japan's train systems]
Japan's trains also form a world-class system. Our Shinkansen, or bullet trains, travel at the lightning-fast speed of 205 miles per hour and they are quiet as well as comfortable. Ever since the Shinkansen began operations in October 1964, never once has there been a single injury, let alone a fatality caused by the train service, giving it a superior safety record that people all over the world inquire about.
One of Japan's Shinkansen operators boasts a new rail system that uses superconducting magnetic levitation technology. It has already been tested multiple times in Japan with passengers aboard, running at a top speed of 311 miles an hour, making it the fastest train in the world.
Making use of this technology would connect New York and Washington, D.C. in less than an hour. It would free people from the congested roads that frazzle their nerves while saving not only 443,000 gallons of gasoline but also 682,000 hours of time that are now wasted annually. Compared to airplanes and automobiles, it would save time while cutting carbon dioxide emissions. It is truly a dream technology.
In Japan, preparations are already well underway even now towards opening the Tokyo to Nagoya section. But before that, let's first connect Baltimore and Washington, D.C. I have already presented President Obama with a proposal to do exactly that.
[Energy technologies]
You live in a country that is very lucky indeed, enjoying tremendous economic power through shale gas and shale oil, which will also lower your fossil fuel costs. Japan is not so fortunate. But it is exactly because we lack this good fortune that we have become masters of innovation.
Compared to 1973 when the Fourth Middle East War erupted, Japan's energy efficiency has improved by some 40 percent. Japan's petroleum-equivalent energy consumption per thousand dollars of GDP is now a mere 0.11 tons, in contrast to 0.17 tons for the United States. China's is 0.6 tons, showing how Japan's highly advanced energy conservation technologies outperform the rest of the field by a wide margin. Herein lies an opportunity for Japan to grow -- and an opportunity for you to invest.
Some 70 percent of the world's lithium-ion batteries for automobiles are made in Japan. Japan also makes the batteries in Tesla Motors' electric vehicles that are so popular here in the United States. Next-generation automobiles are -- to play on the famous phrase "Intel Inside" -- a case of "Japan inside."
Japan's LED lighting is also highly efficient, consuming less than one-fifth the electricity used by incandescent bulbs.
One provisional calculation asserts that if worldwide demand for 6.5 billion incandescent bulbs were replaced with Japanese LED bulbs, the energy conserved would exceed the output of 200 new nuclear power stations.
In addition, Japan will also continue to make contributions to the world in the area of safety technology for nuclear reactors. There will be no abandoning them. I believe that it is incumbent upon us to overcome the accident in Fukushima and contribute to the world by having the highest level of safety in the world.
In the waters off Fukushima, a power-generating technology of the future is now on the verge of blooming. That is technology for "floating" off-shore wind power. Currently, there exist only 2MW-class wind turbines anywhere in the world.
But we are now working to develop 7MW-class wind turbines off the coast of Fukushima. Its colossal wind turbines some 200 meters high generate electricity despite the roll of the waves. This will be a massive project that brings together concerted efforts from around Japan, with internationally respected steelmakers, heavy industry manufacturers, electronics industry manufacturers, and others participating.
Japan's energy technologies are a mass of sheer potential. That is exactly why I will push forward with reforms to the electric power system. In order to accelerate this kind of dynamic innovation still further, I will bring about a major transformation of Japan's energy market by liberalizing the electric power sector.
[Regulatory reform]
Various regulations stand in our way as we seek to take on new challenges. For example, there are numerous regulations that have to be cleared when developing and then demonstrating fuel cells. This makes originality and ingenuity impossible.
I am thinking of creating a new structure under which companies wanting to demonstrate frontier technologies would operate under zero regulations, provided they independently take measures to ensure safety.
The traditional and inflexible large corporations might need to be roused. I would like to turn Japan into an entrepreneurial powerhouse brimming with the entrepreneurial spirit, just like the United States.
I consider regulatory reform to be the key change that will break through obstacles in the private sector's way in every area.
There may be some skeptics wondering, "Will you really be able to pull off those reforms?" It is certainly true that over the last few years, Japan was the embodiment of "the politics that cannot decide."
However, this July, the people of Japan took a pivotal decision. They chose to do away with the deadlock that had resulted from the Upper and Lower Houses of our legislature being controlled by different parties, which is what had given rise to our "politics that cannot decide."
The ruling coalition that I lead succeeded in capturing a majority in both the Upper and Lower Houses. As the leader of the ruling parties, my decisions will most certainly be translated into action.
"Without action, there can be no growth." Action forms the very essence of my strategy for growth.
[The TPP]
Just before I departed Japan, a baseball record was broken. The record of 55 home runs in a single season set by Sadaharu Oh in 1964 was eclipsed by Caribbean native Wladimir Balentien.
Here in New York, Ichiro set a magnificent record of 4,000 career hits in Japan and the United States. Foreign players are making their mark in Japan, while Japanese players are making their mark here in the U.S. The era in which the world is overparticular about borders and nationality is now a thing of the past.
Japan and the United States are part of the Asia-Pacific region, the growth center of the world. We share the values of freedom, basic human rights, and the rule of law and together we have developed our economies.
It is historically inevitable that our two countries would help to craft the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, or "TPP."
Japan and the United States must lead the way forward to enable the negotiations to be concluded within 2013.
I very much hope to create a large market brimming with freedom and creativity within this Asia-Pacific region, working hand-in-hand with the United States.
[Active participation by women]
Now, you might not know that I am also doing some blogging for the Japanese edition of The Huffington Post. I am scheduled to meet Ms. Arianna Huffington again tomorrow and her straight manner of talking is quite striking.
I understand that Arianna once said, "If 'Lehman Brothers' was 'Lehman Brothers and Sisters,' they might still be around."
She says that for men, "there is now a kind of sleep deprivation one-upmanship." She continues saying, "they think that they are so incredibly busy and productive, but the truth is they are not." According to her, such men typically fail to see the icebergs lurking just ahead.
Being a male myself, and as someone who had been working without any time to rest since I took office as Prime Minister, these words really struck home with me. This summer, with Ms. Huffington's words etched in my mind, I took some proper time off from my duties.
In any event, there is another great source of potential lying dormant in Japan, and that is the power of women.
The first woman ever to have a seat here on the New York Stock Exchange was a woman named Muriel Siebert, known by all around her as "Mickie." She achieved her seat on the Exchange 46 years ago. I am reminded of something she said.
She stated, "American business will find that women executives can be a strong competitive weapon against Japan and Germany and other countries that still limit their executive talent pool to the male 50 percent of their population."
As someone who demonstrated the validity of those words personally, Mickie served as a leader for women succeeding in the United States. I understand that she passed away just last month. I would like to express my deep respect for her activities as a pioneer until now and offer my prayers that she rest in peace.
I will transform dramatically the Japan that is grappling with the feeling of being caught in an impasse because it "still limits its executive talent pool to the male, 50 percent of its population."
In Japan, a great many women quit their jobs when they get married or have children, even though they are still very highly skilled and capable. I am convinced that if such women rise to action, Japan will be able to enjoy dynamic growth.
To make this a reality, we need to eradicate the words "children on the waiting list for childcare." We will prepare, as one massive effort, childcare arrangements for 200,000 children over this year and next, and arrangements for 400,000 children over a five-year period. As of this summer, we already succeeded in achieving our goal of preparing places for 120,000 children. To repeat, the hallmark of Abenomics is action.
[In closing]
The Japanese economy that now surrounds us is exceptionally good. Japan's economy recorded negative growth in the July to September period last year, before I took the reins of government, but in 2013 we have had positive growth of greater than 3 percent annualized for two consecutive quarters. This is not simply some financial phenomenon due to bold monetary easing. Production is up, consumption is up, and, at long last, capital investment is now up as well. The corporate mindset, which had been cowering in the corner as a result of our prolonged deflation, has most certainly been turning a corner.
If at this juncture I implement my Growth Strategy and bring into bloom the various types of potential that I mentioned earlier, then I can succeed in putting Japan back on a stable track to growth. This is the fundamental approach that I have taken in my three-pronged policy I call my "three arrows."
As soon as I return to Japan, I will be firing the next arrow within my Growth Strategy. I will assertively push through a bold tax reduction in order to stimulate investment.
Japan, as the third-largest economic powerhouse on the planet, will be back in full force again. Make no mistake, this will serve as a major driving force for global economic recovery. Allow me to add here that Japan imports a great deal of products from the United States. An upswing in personal consumption in Japan will most assuredly contribute to an expansion of U.S. exports.
To paraphrase Gordon Gekko, "How are we going to revive the global economy? Well, I'll tell you. Three words: 'Buy my Abenomics!'" The Wall Street is always ahead of the curve. In light of that, now is your chance.
The other day in Saint Petersburg, President Obama gave me a hearty cheer of support as I flew off to Buenos Aires, some 23 hours away. As the sweet fruit of that and many other efforts, it was decided there that the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games would be held in Tokyo.
The Tokyo Olympics 49 years ago ushered in Japan's era of high economic growth. Japan is once again in the midst of great elation as we prepare for the Games seven years from now. It is almost as if Metallica's "Enter Sandman" is resounding throughout Yankee Stadium: you know how this is going to end.
I would like to end my address to you today paying my utmost respect to the magnificent closer, Mariano Rivera, for his fine achievements over so many years. Thank you so much.In typical feminist fashion, self-proclaimed fighter for "women's rights" (which only includes the "right" to murder babies in the womb apparently) Joy Behar of The View called the alleged rape and sexual assault victims of former President Bill Clinton "tramps" during Monday's episode. Of course, the "feminist" audience laughed along, and her "feminist" co-hosts sat idly by, refusing to rebuke Behar's despicably anti-women take.
All of which is deeply troubling, yet wholly unsurprising.
While discussing Republican nominee Donald Trump bringing along alleged Bill and Hillary Clinton victims Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones to Sunday night's presidential debate, one co-host offered: "[Trump] brought up these allegations, I wonder if [Hillary] missed the opportunity to address it in a way that the public would understand..."
Behar immediately vilified the victims in order to prop-up Hillary, sarcastically noting that the Democratic nominee should have addressed the alleged sexual assault survivors by saying, "I would like to my apologize to those tramps who have slept with my husband."
"Maybe she could have said that," she added.
The View's Joy Behar calls Bill Clinton's rape victims "tramps," liberal audience laughs.
But they really care about women. pic.twitter.com/pxZ02YMWPO — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) October 10, 2016
Juanita Broaddrick accused Clinton of rape in 1978; Kathleen Willey was allegedly sexually assaulted by the former president in 1993; and Paula Jones settled a massive lawsuit which accused Clinton of sexual harassment in 1997. But these women are mere "tramps" to Behar, for their alleged perpetrator is lined up on the correct side of the aisle, the left side, as is his faux-feminist wife.
Further, Hillary's role in Bill's sexual scandals was a point the ladies at The View conveniently left out. The former secretary of state has publicly smeared her husband's alleged victims and reportedly threatened them, most notably Ms. Broaddrick.
The loud-mouthed host has previously echoed the same vile sentiment, stating that she'd rather vote for a rapist or a man who watches women drown than a conservative. Of course, this is all contingent on being pro-baby-killing, the sacrament of modern feminism.
Aren't feminists the best?This Giancarlo Stanton grounder is the hardest-hit ball ever recorded by Statcast
The following is a 4-6-3 double play, turned by the Twins during their 10-3 loss to the Marlins on Thursday night:
Just a routine ground ball, the kind hit and fielded by Major Leaguers every single day. Except, well, the man who happened to hit that ground ball was none other than real-life X-Man Giancarlo Stanton. And, as you might expect from a guy whose dingers can clear tall buildings in a single bound, even his outs are extraordinary. Because, you see, the above grounder wasn't just any grounder -- it was the hardest-hit ball that Statcast has ever recorded, with an exit velocity of 123.9 mph.
The previous record-holder? Why, Giancarlo Stanton, of course: His single on May 12 of last season was tracked at 120.3 mph. Here's that one, for reference:
Really, we're just lucky his bat hasn't managed to actually dig a hole to China yet. |
Play and the DualShock's speaker and lightbar obviously isn't in the Xbox One version, it does have support for the Xbox One's haptic triggers, which subtly vibrate when you fire a weapon, or hammer the accelerator in a vehicle. - MW, 11/19/2014, 09:00 PST
I have just spent a half-hour planning the perfect heist. I'm going in smart, knocking out the guards and the staff behind the delicate jewellery counters of the store with a carefully placed smoke bomb, and smashing into each cabinet with the butt of a semi-automatic rifle before making my escape on a nearby getaway bike. I'm reducing my cut so I can hire the best hacker to disable the security system, and a skilled gunman to handle crowd control. And yet, despite my best efforts, with one poorly-taken corner on my bike, it all goes wrong. I should be driving down a dank sewer tunnel, sneaking my way under the city to freedom. Instead, I'm here, mowing down wave after wave of police on the city streets, and for the first time while playing a Grand Theft Auto game, I feel immensely guilty about it.
This isn't because of some grand moral awakening on my part, but an interesting side effect of what is the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One version of GTA V's most compelling new feature: first-person mode. Even when GTA games were top-down shooters, there was always something of a disconnect between the sometimes shockingly violent scenes on-screen, and the mentality of the player. You could imagine that, despite directly controlling a character, it was this virtual caricature of a criminal committing the crimes--you merely played witness to them. First-person mode fundamentally changes how you view GTA V's world. It has the power to make you stop and think about your actions, and to deeply question a character's motivations. And in a series that has long been criticized for glorifying a life of crime, rather than questioning it, this is no bad thing.
Yes, there are plenty of violent first-person shooters around in which issues of morality can be raised, but few are paired with the stunning Hollywood production values of GTA V. The city of Los Santos is one of the most beautiful and convincing open-world environments to have ever graced a video game, and in its new higher-resolution guise, it's even more spectacular. Compared to the last-gen versions, the new GTA V is noticeably sharper, largely thanks to improved antialiasing. Textures resolutions have been bumped, surfaces are, well, bumpier (thanks enhanced tessellation), and there are all manner of new particle, light, and lens effects. You can cruise down Vespucci Beach and pick out little details in its trinket stores and skateboard shops that weren't there before. You can drive around in the rain, marvelling at the beautifully rendered raindrops and puddles on the ground. And when you stop admiring the scenery to cause some anarchy, explosions from a hastily thrown grenade pop in a dazzling display of fire and light.
To admire this all in first-person is a delight. The wide, cinematic field of view is very different to that of your typical shooter, as is the slower pace with which you walk; think P.T. and you're on the right track. Where the camera once easily tilted up above and around the city, at ground level everything looks bigger and more imposing. I found myself walking along the city streets, watching as the many weird and wonderful citizens of Los Santos went about their business. I wandered into shops, even those where I couldn't buy anything, just to admire the astonishing level of detail at eye level, with nifty depth of field effects helping to sell the immersion. It's all very lifelike, the gentle head bobs and animations as you leap over walls and tumble out of cars drawing you into the game in a way that third-person mode never could.
This is especially true when the action heats up, and where the grizzly reality of GTA V comes into sharp focus. With most missions revolving around some form of gunplay, the bloody splatter of a drug dealer laid to waste on the sidewalk, or the groans of an injured cop writing on the hood of his car have far more of an effect than before. Of course, not everyone will be as affected by this as I was, but there are some practical points to ponder too. Shooting and throwing explosives is easier in first-person, even with GTA's assisted aim disabled--provided you turn down the obscene levels of controller sensitivity before you start--but the cover system isn't quite there, and there were times when I wasn't able to peek around a corner properly and got shot as a result.
Then there's the driving, which, no matter how hard I tried, I found far too difficult to master in first-person. The fully working and wonderfully detailed vehicle interiors might be impressive, but the twitchy controls that work so well in third-person for pulling off outrageous driving stunts are just far too sensitive to easily keep cars on the road during a frantic police chase. There are also vehicle missions that simply weren't designed with first-person in mind either. Trying to catch Michael's son as he dangles off a boat on the highway, or performing a speeding drive by on the highway is very difficult. It's arguably more realistic, but I found myself switching back to third-person in order to get them done. Thankfully, it's not an either or situation when it comes to your viewpoint. You can drive in third-person and have the game automatically switch to first-person when on-foot if you like, or even pan out to third-person when you take cover.
But even if you choose to ignore first-person mode completely, GTA V has lost little of its lustre since release. Even now, after the years of progress in the industry and all the wonderful games that I've played, I'm surprised how few have managed to replicate the Hollywood feel and effortless, natural dialogue of a GTA. This is a series that has consistently been the most convincing and the most cinematic in games, and GTA V continues that tradition with aplomb. Even something as basic as credible characters are a rarity, and yet GTA V manages to create a whole city full of them, as well as three authentic leads with which to journey through it. That's not to say these leads are likeable characters, but perhaps that's the point. There may be a few times you sympathise with retired gangster Michael as his family life crumbles around him, or when you believe that wannabe gangster Franklin might be a nice guy just because he says he's always trying to do the right thing.
But these are narcissistic, psychopathic killers who don't blink an eyelid at killing hundreds of perfectly innocent people when it serves their own means. This is particularly true of Trevor, who remains far and away the most interesting and well-written character of the lot, a terrifyingly insane yet remarkably intelligent criminal who constantly seems on the edge of some kind of mental breakdown. Scary doesn't even begin to describe it. These characters are not without fault, though--there are moments when a character will contradict his own motivations, seemingly just to fit the structure of a mission--but the fact that these characters can be so convincingly terrifying, and so sharp and snappy in their interactions with one another is a testament to just how fantastic the writing in GTA is.
This is a series that has consistently been the most convincing and the most cinematic in games, and GTA V continues that tradition with aplomb.
That extends to the world at large too: the sprawling, gorgeously detailed metropolis of Los Santos deftly satirizes its real-world inspiration of Los Angeles, and of America as whole. Highlights include the self-proclaimed god of social media, Lifeinvader CEO Jay Norris, And his company's beanbag-filled offices; the constant barrage of adverts for celebrity magazines, prescription drugs, and plastic surgeries that are savaged on the radio; and the corrupt government agencies like the FiB that often act worse than the criminals they're trying to put away. Sure, GTA V is sometimes heavy-handed with its satire, but there are few games that dare go as far as GTA does with its nihilistic commentary, and fewer still that do it with such conviction.
Running through it all are bombastic missions that play out like Hollywood blockbusters, and the finest of gangster films. Heists remain the highlight, and the whole process of planning them out, hiring members of the team, gathering equipment, and then hoping that the fuzz doesn't interfere on the big day is utterly engrossing. Bombs are exploded, helicopters are smashed into the side of skyscrapers, and entire squads of police give chase as you make a futile attempt escape down the highway; the sheer thrill of a four or five star chase as what seems like the entire state's quota of law enforcement descends upon you cannot be understated. And yet, GTA V remains stuck in the past in some ways. There are chase missions where losing sight of your target thanks to a poorly taken turn on the highway means making a frustrating restart, and assassination missions where, if you jump the gun and kill your target before the game expects you to, you have to start over again.
But the sheer spectacle of it all drags you back in for more. GTA has never really been subtle, and the game steamrolls its way through its less exciting moments, filling them with crafty pop culture-filled conversations and breathtaking landscapes for you to ogle. There are extra missions to play too, including the random creeps of Los Santos who ask you to do things as mundane as tow trucks for them, or to smoke weed and mow down aliens in an hallucinogenic rampage through the city. There are the multiple leisure activities you can indulge in, or the real estate you can buy, and the stocks you invest in along with the markets you can manipulate. Or you can just slack it all off completely and use Los Santos as your own wonderful digital playground, setting up sticky bomb-filled booby traps in the middle of traffic, or stealing jumbo jets from the airport and trying to fly them under bridges. Indeed, it's the adventures you create yourself that often prove to be the most fun.
And then there's GTA Online. It's safe to say GTA Online didn't get off to a good start, with server issues and all manner of balance problems. With GTA V, online gets a few boosts, including an enhanced character creator, as well as support for up to 30 simultaneous players (with two additional spectators), and the inclusion of all 11 of GTA Online's existing updates. And yes, you can play in first-person too. These are nice additions, but Online still suffers from a lack of direction. Although you can easily import your old character, I opted to create a new one, after which I was dumped onto a sidewalk in Los Santos armed only with a map full of confusing icons and little idea about what I should do next.
Once you're over the hump and you've figured out the process of finding jobs to do like stealing packages from characters, or taking part in street races--and people to do them with via your trusty mobile phone--things get more interesting. Once you've built up a suitable pile of cash (which does take some time if you're starting from scratch), you can buy a nice apartment to stay in, and fancy cars to put in its garage. To what end, I'm still not sure. Much has been said about how GTA online is too open, and how sessions often turn into mass deathmatches, which is even more of an issue with 30 chaotic players around--but for me that's always been part of its draw. Trolling someone who's taken themselves far too seriously in a street race by creating an epic roadblock, or simply roaming the streets robbing convenience stores and then performing a smooth getaway still manages to raise a smile.
That these activities raise a smile here (even when played in first-person), and yet throw up a moral dilemma in single-player is as much to do with the lack of a narrative structure online as it is to do with my own personal feelings towards most other internet users. It raises an interesting conundrum too: is it better to play in first-person and be moved by GTA V's events in a more profound way, or should you play in the third-person, distancing yourself from the game's more controversial moments?
The fact that I'm even thinking about this at all in a video game that's as popular and as, well, mainstream as GTA V is a testament to its quality. Over a year later, GTA V remains one of the most consistently entertaining video games I've ever played. Even without the spectacular new visuals, first-person mode, the epic new rail gun, the new murder mystery missions for Michael, the new, even furrier animals, remote play support on PS4, a mountain of new songs on the radio (including my personal favourite, I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys on the pop station), and the return of vehicles like the classic Dodo seaplane, GTA V would be still be worth playing.
Aside from a few mild frame rate issues that sometimes take the edge off its more dramatic moments, this is the definitive version of GTA V, and the bar by which all other open-world games, or indeed any game that aims for a cinematic feel, should be judged. It is beautiful, and thought-provoking, and thrilling throughout. Even if you've played through GTA V once already, it's worth going back just to be reminded of what an outstanding achievement it is.
At its core, Grand Theft Auto V on PC is the same game that it is on other platforms, and while it’s never looked as good as it does on a strong PC, anyone who’s played GTA V elsewhere may not benefit from buying it for a second or third time unless they’re desperate for better graphics. If you fall into that camp, you can easily transfer your progress over to the PC version via the Rockstar Social Club to continue where you left off, diving headlong into the revamped Los Santos with minimal fuss.
It looked great on PS4 and Xbox One, but GTA V shines on PC thanks to 4K-grade textures, the availability of additional post-processing effects, and an unlocked frame rate. Previous versions of the game played just fine at 30 frames per second, but you quickly appreciate the added fluidity of playing at 60 FPS (if not more) on PC. If you can give it enough juice (read: afford top-end gaming hardware), then you can marvel at the added flourishes in 4K, even, but even three Nvidia GTX 980's in SLI couldn't push the highest settings at 4K without dipping to around 30 frames per second. Whether in 4K, or at 1080p, the new high-res textures pop with detail, and new lighting effects lead to plenty of awe inspiring moments. GTA V can paint stunning pictures, with the right mix of scenery, subject, and daylight, that highlight the natural beauty of its geography and the grime that pulses through its concrete veins. GTA V has always looked good, but a great gaming PC is the only way to witness the full extent of Rockstar’s admirable handiwork.
Keep in mind that GTA V retains evidence of its last-gen roots, even on PC, with simple geometry abound. You notice low-poly models on occasion as they contrast with the great texture work and lighting on hand, as simplicity and complexity mix before your eyes. GTA V is impressive at times, but you never forget that you’re playing a game that’s foundation was built with outdated constraints in mind.
You get a unique tool in the PC version that allows you to show off all of the game's flare, as well as your creativity: the Rockstar Editor. This tool allows you to record footage during missions or while free-roaming around Los Santos, either by manually recording gameplay or by sourcing the last few minutes of cached actions. More than simply allowing you to cut together clips, you have full control over the camera while going through your gameplay. You can set your angles manually, choose from a list of preset angles, and apply camera shakiness, redefining the look and perspective of a moment in time. Little touches such as blending make it easy to transition from one clip and camera angle to the next, without having to put much thought into it.
In Director mode, you have even more control of the events at hand. You can choose actors, human or animal, to control, rather than being limited to the three main characters. You also have control over time of day, your location on the map, and whether or not cheats are enabled, allowing you to sample from a wide palette of possibilities to craft the scene of your dreams. There's a learning curve to the editor, but Rockstar offers a range of tutorials that should help experienced and inexperienced editors alike.
Playing GTA V on PC means that you can now use a mouse and keyboard, which is a huge benefit during shootouts where precision is key. Whether you play it in first- or third-person mode, it clearly makes targeting easier. However, don't think that you should put down the controller for good. Keyboard and mice lack analog buttons, which are key during driving sequences. Being able to control your throttle with a sensitive trigger is something you get used to and manage naturally, often without giving it a second thought. The binary, on or off nature of a keyboard or mouse button gets in the way of your instincts and takes away the nuanced control afforded by analog triggers. For the best experience, keep a controller plugged in and switch between it and a mouse and keyboard for the moment at hand. Chalk it up to hardware standards, rather than Rockstar’s. - Peter Brown, 4/15/2015, 02:00 PM PDTMitt Romney, former Republican presidential nominee, is under “active consideration” for secretary of state, Vice President-elect Mike Pence said in an appearance on Fox News Sunday.
Romney, who met with Donald Trump on Saturday at the President-elect’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., told reporters later that he and Trump had a “far-reaching conversation.”
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“They had a good meeting,” Pence said. “It was a warm and a substantive exchange and I know he is under active consideration to be Secretary of State … along with some other distinguished Americans.”
The friendly meeting between Trump and Romney is in direct contrast to their relationship during the election year. Romney, a harsh critic of Trump, called him a “con man” and a “fake,” while Trump referred to him as a “choke artist” for losing the 2012 election to President Obama.
Write to Mahita Gajanan at mahita.gajanan@time.com.Yesterday, Michiganders were illegally blocked from entering the State Capitol as their legislature passed controversial bills. Hundreds of people came to the Capitol to have their voices heard, but they were kept out of the political process by the very folks whose job it is to represent them.
Not only did they pass the so-called “right to work” legislation, but with the public locked outside, these politicians also advanced bills that will interfere with a woman’s ability to make her own reproductive health decisions. Politicians pushed a bill designed to shut down women’s health clinics in the state that provide abortion care. They passed a measure that would prohibit insurance plans from offering comprehensive health care coverage that includes abortion. And, a little more than a month after news broke that woman died in a hospital in Ireland because doctors refused to provide a life-saving abortion, the state senate passed a bill that could allow hospitals to use religion to discriminate in providing health care services, even in the case of an emergency.
Well, you have to hand it to them. At least after women’s show of power in the election, the Michigan politicians were smart enough not to try to meddle in women’s private lives in plain view. They knew how politically costly attempts to restrict a woman and her family reproductive decisions can be. So, they tried to do it in secret. Shhhh. Don’t tell.
But that is not what democracy is about. The State Capitol belongs to us. It is our house, not the politicians’ house. Legislators are sent to the capitol to represent our views, not quash them. We cannot let them get away with ignoring our voices while they restrict a woman’s ability to make personal health care decisions.
It’s not too late to stop the bills from becoming law. Urge the governor to veto bills that threaten women’s reproductive health care. Share this blog with your friends and spread the word.
Learn more about the war on women: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.The Clinton Saga Continues
The Clinton’s years of association with big cash donors aside, many now being outed as sexual predators, pedophiles and rapists, the Clinton’s actual collusion with the Russians, as compared to what they claim Trump did, is becoming a point of fact, not a phony $6 million dossier filled with rumors, lies and innuendos.
Uranium ore now becomes center to our Clinton story with implications that have revealed Obama’s government to be despotic and its citizens targets. The implications extend far beyond the money grubbing underway by greedy politicians from special interests, it is the unbridled and unconstitutional power of government to seize private property and kill to do it.
I am referring to the standoff last year between the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Oregon State Police and local law enforcement, pitted against the Hammond family ranch at Burns, Oregon that involved other concerned citizens as protesters occupying the Malheur Game Refuge. The government’s siege of the park gave the story legitimacy while the back story was ignored. It’s a dark story indeed.
Recall that the BLM lost public’s approval when they were forced to stand down in their attempt to seize the property of the Bundy Ranch in Nevada on piddling allegations that Bundy’s cattle were illegally grazing on open range, government (BLM) land. Oh, woe! It was reported then that Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (D-Nv) wanted the land to resell to a solar power company, supposedly to advance Obama’s green energy scheme and to help defray the cost of his retirement. Maybe!
Apart from the fact that some armed Bundy Ranch supporters went to Burns, Ore. to assist the Hammond’s in what appears to be another trumped-up case to allow the BLM to seize the their ranch, what is the connection? It’s uranium, and is a scandal that could take down the Clintons once and for all.
The Hill broke the story as far back as 2009. Clinton, as Secretary of State, approved the sale of 20% of American uranium to Russia through a Canadian businessman, a big donor to the Clinton Foundation. He was representing a Russian front Canadian mining business called Uranium one. The FBI was investigating the proposed deal and successfully inserted an undercover agent who has subsequently been gagged from even talking to Congress about it.
The Obama administration and the Clintons (Bill Clinton received a half million dollars for delivering a speech in Moscow) defended their actions insisting there was no evidence that any Russians or donors engaged in wrongdoing and there was no national security reason for any member of congress to oppose the Uranium One deal. The deal was clear and above board said Clinton’s State Department. But was it?
The Hill reported that documents from the FBI, the Department of Energy and a Federal Court shows the FBI in fact had gathered substantial evidence that Russian businessman Vadim Mikerin was engaged in wrongdoing starting in 2009, well before the committee’s decision and, was, in fact, overseeing Putin’s nuclear expansion inside the United States.
Where is this uranium? It’s in Burns, Oregon. To quote the source: “The central part of the Malheur Refuge Protest was the Hammond family, and their ranch outside of Burns, Oregon. Dwight and Steven Hammond were ordered to return to prison by the Federal government over a small range backfire. They had previously served out the sentence reluctantly imposed on them by Judge Hogan.” “During the court preceding the Hammond’s were forced to grant the BLM first right of refusal. If the Hammond’s ever sold their ranch they would have to sell it to the BLM.” “It was during this turbulent time that the political implications of Uranium One were shouted out over the internet.“ (not the main stream media, note.)
Source: INTELLIHUB: “Clinton Foundation took massive payoffs, promised Hammond Ranch and other publicly owned lands to Russians along with one-fifth of our uranium ore.” ”The Hammond’s ranch and other ranch lands surrounding the refuge sit atop a vast swath of precious metals, minerals, and uranium that’s heavily desired by not only the federal government but foreign entities as well.”
“Oregon Energy, L.L.C. (formally Uranium One) is interested in developing a 17-Claim parcel of land known as the Aurora Project through an open pit mining method. Besides the mine, there would be a processing mill. The claim area occupies about 450 acres and is also referred to as the “New U” uranium claims.”
Source: News-Target also reported: “Massive Cover-up. BLM leases Hammond ranch land to Russia through donors to the Clinton Foundation for its uranium. Evidence has surfaced that the BLM has been taking land with plans to lease it to Clinton Foundation donors.”
“Russia gradually gained control of Uranium One, a major Russian mining company, in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State. Canadian records reveal that the company’s chairman used his own family foundation to make four donations to the Clinton Foundation during that time, resulting in a sum contribution of $2.35 million. Secretary Clinton approved the deal for Russia soon after her family’s slush fund received the donations. Now, Vladimir Putin controls 20 percent of all uranium production capacity in the U.S.”
The previous data was as indicated, copied from open sources. The Burns, Oregon refuge siege incident, that included the murder of one protester at a police checkpoint, was another blatant example of a corrupt (Marxist leaning) government running rough-shod over its citizens, for the financial benefit of one of its “elites” (the Clintons).
Americans are wising up and are getting sick and tired of it. The Federal government, with a One World Government attitude in the hands of corrupt politicians lining their pockets with taxpayer dollars, must come to an end. Throw in the Clinton’s cozy connections with Hollywood’s “A- List” of pedophilia admirers and the corruption and criminality of our political leaders in the Obama administration becomes clearer.
It’s time for term limits to be seriously considered as a corrective to career politicians whose entire reason to exist is to gain personal wealth off the unsuspecting American taxpayer, American security and sovereignty be damned. Trump is their main danger.
Remember, freedom is the goal, the Constitution is the way. Now, go get ‘em! (27Oct2017)There may be no escape from the internet. If you can get Wi-Fi on Mount Everest, then you can probably get it anywhere on Earth. And yes, now you can get Wi-Fi in the mountains of Nepal, including on Everest.
But the story of how a company got the internet to Everest is just as interesting. In this cold region of the world, communication can mean life. More than 1,600 climbers have had internet access while on Everest. In the region, Everest Link provides more than 200 Wi-Fi hot spots in more than 40 villages. The company connects 34,000 locals and more than 40,000 tourists each year.
Tsering G. Sherpa, CEO of Everest Link, said in a blog post that his only means of communicating in Nepal before the year 2000 was the written letter, sometimes delivered by helicopter. That year, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. He had to fly her to the nearest city and then to India for treatment. His sisters lived in Nepal, and they had to shut down their business to join their mother in India. While caring for their mother, they lost a year’s worth of business because of inadequate communication. Sherpa said their mother has since passed away.
He took this difficult experience as a call to action and started a network in Nepal with 128 kilobits per second of bandwidth. The goal was to connect remote villages that lacked communication. It was going well, but then the country went through a period of political unrest.
“We had to abstain from providing service, going on hiatus for eight years due to threats from extremists,” Sherpa wrote.
Image Credit: Cambium Networks
Sherpa brought Everest Link back in 2014 with a fresh, broader mission: to set standards for ecological, economical, and reliable modes of direct communication in the Himalayas, where you sometimes have to walk three days to get a pack of cigarettes. Because the air is so thin at high altitude, it can take six hours to travel a kilometer.
“It took us a couple of attempts to get established, beginning with low-cost Wi-Fi equipment, and then progressing from 802.11b to g,” he said.
Then the company turned to Cambium Networks‘ cnPilot equipment. Cambium is based in Rolling Meadows, Il., and it has created “frictionless Wi-Fi,” which can support many different access points through a single wireless network.
Finding the technical people to set up the equipment was hard, since the technicians had to learn wilderness survival skills. Getting power to the equipment was also difficult, as the only option is renewable energy.
All the solar panels and devices had to be carried by either people or pack animals to get to a particular site. That meant that the more compact the device was, the less power it required.
The PTP 650 wireless backhaul provided throughput and reliability for the network infrastructure. Now Everest Link offers between 100 megabits a second and 200 megabits a second over links of 80 to 90 kilometers. The PTP 650 backhaul link stays up all of the time.
“At the moment, we’re connected to the Everest base camp. There, at 5,320 meters altitude, we have a solar-powered cnPilot E500 outdoor Wi-Fi hotspot,” Sherpa said.
Everest Link is also starting a distance-learning program in some schools, since few teachers are available in the remote Himalayas. High-speed connectivity links those schools, as well as every hotel in the region.
“To reconnect the stories of my family and my company — once my sisters left Nepal to go to the city during our mother’s illness, they never returned,” Sherpa said. “Instead, they migrated to the United States and are raising their families there. Yet our connectivity has kept us close as a family, which inspired me to extend that to our entire community in Nepal.”
You can’t get a connection on top of Everest yet. But maybe someday.You never write a story about player stats after only three games.
Unless the guy whom you thought had a chance to, oh, be the best player in franchise history since Kareem is putting up numbers which are, well, maybe, the best in franchise history since Kareem.
The Bucks face the Pelicans in Game 4 tonight, which is a good reminder (and warning) that you need a full team to orbit in symphony with a star. Through three games, Anthony Davis is averaging 37.7 points, 12.7 rebounds, 3.0 steals, 3.0 blocks… and the Pelicans are 0-3. Meanwhile, the Bucks are 1-2.
Two seasons ago, Giannis (29 points) and Davis (43 points) took star turns in their Milwaukee matchup. Now they are both merely six points off from averaging that many, respectively. Tonight, we will probably dream about how they would look on the same team, and as humans, they just might dream that, too...
23.0 / 9.3 / 5.3
Giannis has not been flawless. The point of this story is not to make it seem so. But that is just the thing: The best part about Giannis averaging 23.0 points, 9.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists over his first three games is how very normal it looks. Rather than a hot streak, this feels like a representative three-game approximation of who he is now, which is to say, a star.
2.7
Prior to this season, the most passes Giannis received from a single player in any season was 7.8 per game from Michael Carter-Williams last year. So far this season, he is receiving 24.7 passes per game from Matthew Dellavedova. Yes: Dellavedova and others have often functioned as the bring-the-ball-up-the-floor point guard, while Giannis, at least to the eye, has not played as much true point on offense as he did for large swaths of the second half of last season. His assists per game (5.3) are up from last season, but down from the second half of last season. Yet he ranks second in the NBA (tied with Draymond Green) with 2.7 secondary assists (or, hockey assists) per game, which testifies nicely in support of his useful ball movement. Last season, Steph Curry led the league with 2.5 per game.
25.6
Giannis has a PER of 25.6. No player in franchise history since Kareem has posted a PER of 25.6. Current announcer (and a very good one, at that) and former player (and a very good one, at that) Marques Johnson notched the best non-Kareem season per this stat, a 23.9 PER in 1978-79.
84.6 percent
This is (again) where a small sample size can get you in trouble, but starting the season 11-for-13 (.846) from the free throw line is better than not starting the season 11-for-13 (.846) from the line. Free throw attempts per game are down some (from 5.1 per game last season to 4.3 per game this season), but he is making just as many, thanks to the increased accuracy. If he can hover in the low 80s, and pick up the attempts, that should help Giannis get to 20 or 25 just about every night.
2.3
Not that it is inherently the worst thing in the world to do, but Giannis led the entire league in personal fouls last season. After going foul-less in 35 minutes in Detroit, he is down to 2.3 per game.
2.3
Also 2.3, turnovers per game. This is down from 2.6 per game last season.
2.0
In addition to leading the Bucks in points and rebounding (and nearly in assists), Giannis leads the team with 2.0 blocks per game.
2.0
Also 2.0, 3-pointers attempted per game. If you look at where Giannis is shooting the ball from, the only real difference from last season is that he has shifted roughly five percent of his shot attempts from the dreaded long twos range into 3-pointers. Three cheers for that.
2.0
And another one. Another 2.0. Heed the small sample size disclaimers well here, but Giannis is showing up in enough of these hustle stats (he ranks in the top-20 in shots contested per game, too) to at least keep an eye on them. Here, his 2.0 loose balls recovered per game ties him for third-most in the league. Names like Avery Bradley, Joakim Noah, Ricky Rubio, Kawhi Leonard and Steven Adams already dot the top-10.
103.8
The Bucks have an offensive rating of 103.8 with Giannis on the court. They have an offensive rating of 87.6 without Giannis on the court. He helps.
(Hat-tips to stats.nba.com, basketball-reference, and nbawowy.com for the numbers goodness.)Iran’s nuclear chief said the country reserves judgment on new US President Donald Trump but if he does, as he's vowed, "tear up" the international deal reached on Tehran’s nuclear program, it could quickly ramp that program back up.
In an interview with CBC News, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Ali Akbar Salehi, who is also a vice president, said that Iran will "act appropriately" if Trump tears up the deal.
"We did once before … that deal didn't work and Iran was able to go back to its nuclear activities with high speed," Salehi, who was a key architect of the deal, said on Sunday.
"We can very easily snap back and go back … not only to where we were, but a much higher position technologically speaking."
"I don't want to see that day. I don't want to make a decision in that course, but we are prepared."
Salehi said he watched Trump’s inauguration with the expectation that he would mention Iran or its nuclear deal. But he did not raise either.
He viewed the absence of a mention of Iran in Trump's Friday inaugural speech as "positive".
Iran has watched warily as Trump repeatedly cast doubt on the nuclear deal, under which sanctions were lifted a year ago.
The unprecedented agreement in 2015 brought together Iran with the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany in a rare show of international consensus.
In the dying days of his presidency, Barack Obama insisted the deal brought "significant, concrete results".
Trump has called the deal the worst ever made and, during his campaign, he promised to tear it up.
Last week, he was more vague about his plans, but insisted the deal was still "one of the dumbest" he'd ever seen.
In response to Trump, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Washington cannot unilaterally decide to abrogate the deal as it is an “international agreement,” and not a bilateral one between Iran and the US.
Zarif, however, said Tehran’s response would “surprise” Trump should the new US president “tear up” the JCPOA.
Earlier in the month and on the anniversary of the deal’s implementation, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said if Trump went ahead with acting on the threat, Iran would burn the agreement, echoing remarks by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
Trump’s harsh rhetoric against the nuclear agreement comes as Washington’s partners in the P5+1 have thrown their weight behind the Iran deal.
In comments marking the first anniversary of the nuclear deal’s implementation, the EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini praised the accord and urged all signatories to abide by it. The top EU diplomat called the accord a diplomatic milestone, which worked to benefit all sides.
‘Against all rationality’
Salehi dismissed the new US administration's intention to develop a "state-of-the-art" missile defense system to stave off attacks from North Korea and Iran.
That intention was announced Friday on the White House website, within minutes of Trump's inauguration.
"The United States — it's more than 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) away from Iran, and we have never intended to manufacture missiles that would go that far," he said.
It is a "politicized |
making them invisible to civilian aircraft and raising the risk of midair crashes.
“The fighter aircraft are almost always armed to the teeth,” Jacob said. “Six kinds of missiles. They could carry up to 10.”
Members of the German Air Force detachment eat in the mess room between operations at the Amari Air Base. They are deployed on four-month rotations. (Peter Kollanyi/Bloomberg News)
As the United States prepares to vote, the Kremlin may be preparing in a different way, knowing that President Obama is unlikely to match Russia’s escalation so shortly before handing power to his successor, defense officials say. Recent Russian actions in Syria seem calculated to make major battlefield advances as quickly as possible. Baltic officials have seen a recent spike in cyberattacks. U.S. intelligence agencies say that Russian state-sponsored hackers are behind the leaks of emails of Democratic officials, which have been an embarrassing trickle seemingly calculated to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election. On Russian state-run television, one prominent anchor repeated a warning that Russia could turn the United States into radioactive ash.
“One of the very important dates is the 8th of November. They’re trying to create a better negotiating position in Syria, in Ukraine, perhaps somewhere else,” said Marko Mihkelson, the chairman of the Estonian parliament’s National Defense Committee. “It’s a lame duck. And they’ll immediately test the new U.S. president with a very difficult position.”
[In tense confrontation with Russia, a battle over history suggests Cold War never ended]
Putin has acknowledged that he is looking past Obama and toward the next occupant of the White House.
“There are many issues it has become difficult to discuss with the current administration, because practically no obligations are met and no agreements are respected, including those on Syria,” Putin said late last month. “We are ready, in any case, to talk with the new president and look for solutions to any, even the most difficult, issues.”
But there is a risk of the Kremlin’s strategy backfiring, analysts say.
The demands attached to Putin’s suspension of the plutonium-disposition agreement were “clearly meant to be flipping the bird, in diplomatic terms,” said Alexander Vershbow, a veteran U.S. diplomat who until last month was the deputy secretary-general of NATO. “They’ve got to be careful not to get onto an even worse footing with the new U.S. administration.”
Vershbow said that the situation is as unstable as he had seen since he began his career in the late 1970s. During the late years of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin held to predictable rules of behavior, but now it does not, he said.
German Lt. Col. Swen Jacob leads a team of fighter pilots deployed to Estonia that seeks to ensure that Russian military planes stay clear of NATO airspace. (Michael Birnbaum/The Washington Post)
Defense officials say the flights in the Baltics are ultimately more annoying than menacing and that the Russian planes do not appear to be readying an attack on NATO nations. But they say that the behavior raises the risk of in-air accidents, which could escalate the already tense relations between Russia and the West. One senior Western defense official said that if an armed Russian fighter jet were to lock its targeting radar onto a NATO plane, that could be grounds to shoot it down. NATO jets have scrambled to intercept planes about 600 times this year, the majority of them in international airspace.
[Russia offers plan to improve air safety over Baltics]
NATO plans to raise its concerns regarding the situation over the Baltic Sea with Russia in a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, said Dylan P. White, an acting spokesman for the alliance. The council, which has met rarely in the years since the Crimea annexation of 2014, will convene soon, White said.
Baltic defense officials say the Russian incursions could be far worse without NATO’s presence in the region.
“We see them attempting to challenge and test our systems constantly,” said Estonian Defense Minister Hannes Hanso, whose nation has no weapons-ready fighter jets. On a recent chilly morning at the country’s only air base, advanced German Eurowings fighter jets were taking off as an ancient Estonian Air Force An-2 biplane’s single propeller was thrumming loudly in the wind. The base once belonged to the Soviet Union, and the red star of the Soviet Air Force is still displayed prominently on the gravestones in a cemetery visible from the road leading onto the base.
Soviet-era plane tails serve as grave markers just outside the entrance to Estonia’s Amari Air Base, a reminder of the area’s complicated history. (Michael Birnbaum/The Washington Post)
Because of the Baltic nations’ weak air capabilities, NATO has operated a small air-policing mission based in Lithuania since the countries joined the alliance in 2004. After Russia annexed Crimea, the effort was expanded, given the new demands.
Estonian leaders say that despite the attention paid to Russia’s attempts to subvert political processes in other countries via new routes such as hacking and media influence, the conventional threat remains the most concerning.
[The Baltics’ tangled geography that has both sides feeling surrounded ]
When it comes to military power, “we cannot handle ourselves,” said Juri Luik, a former Estonian diplomat and politician who is the head of the Tallinn-based International Center for Defense and Security. “We need help from our allies. The Russians want to signal in a thousand different ways that they are the top dog, this is their area.”
Jacob, the commander of the German detachment in Estonia, said that the NATO protocols are clear. If the Russian planes are flying in international airspace, as they nearly always do, there is no need to do anything more than monitor them and perhaps take pictures with the digital cameras the pilots keep strapped to their right shoulders.
But if a Russian plane violates NATO airspace — which has happened five times in Estonia this year — the situation could quickly escalate. The alliance’s rules of engagement are to try to communicate via radio. If that produces no response, pilots fly their plane on their sides to show off their weaponry, and then they try to push the aircraft out of NATO territory. A pilot also could fire a warning flare — but any decision to actually fire on the plane would be left to higher-ups at NATO, Jacob said.
There are moments that break the tension, such as when a Russian pilot got on the radio to wish his German counterpart “Merry Christmas” at the end of 2014, Jacob said. But pilots take their task seriously, he said.
“They know what could happen if they do something wrong, something idiotic or crazy, and I think the Russians do, too,” he said.
Read more
Amid fears of Trump, Europe tries to make its security less dependent on the U.S.
Did Trump flip-flop on NATO during the debate?
Near Russia’s border with the Baltics, soldiers on both sides are practicing for war
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign newsMany investors and companies are focused on capitalizing on Canada’s recreational cannabis market and we understand why…recreational marijuana is big money.
If you look at the amount of revenue generated from recreational marijuana in states like Colorado, Nevada and Washington, it is easy to understand why so many people are focused on this upcoming opportunity.
Although Canadian licensed marijuana producers have been in focus after Constellation Brands (STZ) invested $245 million into Canopy Growth Corp (WEED.TO) (TWMJF), we are keeping an eye on opportunities levered to this market.
One company that we have been watching is Isodiol International (ISOL.CN) (ISOLF), which has a partnership with Canopy Growth.
Expands its Reach into Active U.S. Cannabis Markets
Today, Isodiol reported a significant development and expanded its reach and committed distribution licenses for its Pot-O-Coffee brands in Oregon, Washington, Illinois and Colorado.
Isodiol entered an agreement with Nutritional High (EAT.CN) (SPLIF) to distribute the Pot-O-Coffee, Pot-O-Tea, and Pot-O-Coco product lines. As a part of this agreement, Nutritional High will complete the final stage of manufacturing by infusing its cannabis into the product and will provide a royalty to Isodiol.
Isodiol CEO Marcos Agramont said, “This strategic alliance with Nutritional High will offer our customers greater access to Pot-O-Coffee products via a reputable manufacturer and distributor. With the recent transaction involving our Canadian licensing partner (see news release announced July 20, 2017) Canopy Growth Corporation and Constellation Brands, we feel the infused beverage industry will make significant strides in the near future.”
Isodiol Makes Strategic Acquisition
In addition to the licensing agreement, Isodiol announced that it has acquired Culinary Coffee Roasters, LLC, a leading roaster and purveyor of fine coffee, tea and blended formulations, based in Stuart, Florida. Culinary has been in the coffee beverage business for over fifteen years.
This acquisition was not too expensive and Isodiol will pay $50,000 in cash over three months and $450,000 worth of equity, subject to a maximum escrow period. We are favorable on this move since Isodiol will be poised to launch specialty blends that will be roasted in their own facility and will be available to the retail outlets that are currently being served by Culinary.
This move is in-line with Isodiol’s focus on investing in high-growth markets and acting on consumer trends. This acquisition is significant as it will better position Isoldiol within the recreational beverage market.
In the first quarter of 2018, Isodiol will launch its own line of handcrafted Ready to Drink (RTD) beverages. These products will include an RTD cold brew Pot-O-Coffee line as well as a cold brew Pot-O-Coffee line, all enriched with BioActive Phytoceuticals. Other offerings will include infused coffee and tea shots.
A Long-Term Opportunity
Isodiol bounced higher yesterday but the shares have come well of its monthly highs. We are favorable on the recent pullback as it has created a great opportunity for new investors.
We are favorable on Isodiol due to its strong revenue numbers, strategic acquisitions and partnerships, its management team’s vision and execution, and the significantly stronger balance sheet.
We expect to see the market respond favorably to this development and recommend that investors keep Isodiol on their radar.I attended an MIT alumni gathering last week. There was a slight selection bias in that all those present were people whom an on-campus group was hoping to get donations from. Inadvertently it turned out to be an interesting look into what typical career paths look like once people are 50-60 (though remember that those who’d been complete financial failures had been screened out).
The medical doctor was at the peak of his career and in no danger of being fired. The university professor had the security of tenure and was looking forward to a defined benefit pension starting six years from now. The corporate attorney was finishing up a prosperous career. The engineers who’d chosen to work in industry, however, were a varied lot. A woman who’d taken a job at a defense contractor was still there, 30 years later. The super-wizard Lisp Machine programmer was now in a senior technical, but non-supervisory role, at a multi-billion dollar dotcom (not necessarily getting paid more than a competent 30-year-old, however). About half of the engineers, however, talked about being pushed into a financially uncomfortable early retirement and/or not being able to find work. Aside from the government-related work, the world of these alums does seem be consistent with Dave Winer’s recent “I would have hired Doug Engelbart” posting (summary: age discrimination is surmountable if you happen to have been one of the most successful engineers of all time (see The Demo from 1968, featuring everything that you’re using right now, except maybe for Patchmania)).
Lesson: Unless you are confident that your skills are very far above average, don’t take a career path that subjects you to the employment market once you’re over 50 (and/or make sure that by age 50 you’ve saved enough for a retirement that begins at age 50 or 55 and during which you won’t have employer-provided health insurance for up to a 15-year gap between age 50 and Medicare age).Why do people keep drawing Sans as some crybaby?
Personally, I think Sans is the type who’ll get consumed with anger. I mean, sure, the sadist in me enjoyed seeing Sans crying but c’mon guys, its out of character an-
…
… Did I just answered my own question?
EDIT: Lemme explain myself for a bit. Perhaps the word “crybaby” was a bit harsh. But truthfully, Sans didn’t struck me as a character who will cry easily, no matter how much shit he’s been through. I know he’s been to hell and back, but once the player resets the game, he only had an inkling of what’s happened. Although it’s enough for him to not care about anything anymore, unless of course if the player decides to go on a murder spree. Hence, seeing all those fan comics with Sans in tears is a little… Weird? I guess? There is no evidence that he can remember every single timeline. So this is like an AU where Sans remembered all of them.Tiny Metal Needs To Sell About 150,000 Units In Order To Resurrect Project Phoenix
By Sato. December 11, 2017. 1:00pm
Hiroaki Yura previously worked on titles such as Valkyria Chronicles and Diablo III before starting an ambitious project called Project Phoenix. The project was quickly funded on Kickstarter, but not much has been heard about it since December 2015 when the indie JRPG was delayed to 2018. Speaking at PlayStation Experience 2017, Siliconera got a chance to catch up with the Yura-san, the CEO of Creative Intelligence Arts, who updated us on Project Phoenix.
First, to give you a little background info on Project Phoenix, it raised $1,014,600 from 15,802 backers in its Kickstarter campaign, but unfortunately didn’t make its Mid-2015 deadline for the game’s release. Since then, Yura-san has been busy on another project, Tiny Metal, that is being developed under his other studio Area 35 and published by Sony’s new game label Unties.
What has been the biggest obstacle for Project Phoenix?
Hiroyuki Yura, Director/Producer: We could actually deliver with a bit more programming, but the fact is, if you read my updates, we aren’t happy with what Airborne Studios (an art outsourcing company used by CIA) delivered. We aren’t happy at all, it looks too cheaply made.
Tiny Metal is about to launch. What was its biggest obstacle during development?
Hiroyuki Yura: We wanted to have multiplayer on release in Tiny Metal, but we couldn’t so we’re going to put it in a free patch a few months afterwards. To me a game is done, when we have multiplayer. This is a situation I don’t like.
If Tiny Metal doesn’t live up to your standards why are you releasing it now?
Hiroyuki Yura: Well, we have a relationship with our publisher, Sony, and we have our promises with our investors. That’s why we need to put it out.
How do you feel about the relationship to the Project Phoenix backers? Aren’t the backers similar to investors, to some extent?
Hiroyuki Yura: Not really, they are not investing. Another thing, what is not acceptable is we have not delivered what the artists wanted. They are lending me their name and their strength and I need to make sure I deliver on the part they want it to be portrayed.
I used to be a violinist. And if someone is selling a CD of my performance, I expect it to be properly mixed, properly recorded, I have proper arrangements, and I have music. If these criteria are not met, I will be very angry and say this is horrible you haven’t prepared anything. It’s the same thing with this. We felt, although we did our best with Airborne, it’s not their fault. In terms of the pipeline, it’s nobody’s fault. It’s my fault because I did not prepare enough money for that failure. I did not prepare enough time for that failure. I accept that. I would never blame the artists or the pipeline.
Look what happened to Inafune-san, he’s a friend by the way. We have lunch every few months. We talk about his experience with Mighty No. 9 and I talk about mine with Project Phoenix. He is regretting what happened because he got it done with the budget he had and a lot of people are disappointed. He didn’t deliver what he wanted to and is full of regret.
How many units of Tiny Metal need to sell to resurrect Project Phoenix?
Hiroyuki Yura: 150,000 units, worldwide on all consoles.
How reasonable is that goal?
Hiroyuki Yura: I think it is a lot of units.
What do you think is a reasonable amount of units for Tiny Metal to sell?
Hiroyuki Yura: Probably 50,000.
How many units do you think Tiny Metal will sell?
Hiroyuki Yura: Probably 100,000.
If you think you will be short 50,000 units, what do you plan to do next as a company?
Hiroyuki Yura: We don’t need to discuss our internal business decisions. There are a lot of things I can’t tell you about. What I can tell you, in general, is this is not the only thing we do. We have other jobs that will basically feed us. That 50,000 [units] would be nice to concentrate on this, but if we can’t do that we can do recordings. We can do other work. We can do programming work for other companies. If we make the right game we hope, it will sell. If we don’t, it won’t sell. Then it will be another challenge to get Project Phoenix’s budget.
Project Phoenix is being made for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, PC, iPhone, and Android. Tiny Metal releases on December 21, 2017 for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.The Lower Allen Township Police Department is investigating a burglary at the Yamaha of Camp Hill.
It happened around 3:30 a.m. Friday at the business at 3809 Hartzdale Drive.
"Alarms are not enough because of response time and especially when criminals case your building and know exactly what they want," general manager Duane Summers said. "Their plan is made and they can execute it so fast."
Police say the suspects arrived in a white sedan, possibly a Nissan Altima, with tinted windows, along with a dark-colored Dodge Ram pickup truck. The pickup had a tool box in its bed and was pulling a black trailer. Both displayed Maryland license plates. The vehicles were last seen traveling on Interstate 83 South in the area of Reesers Summit.
The suspects forced their way into the business and stole nine dirt bikes consisting of Yamaha's and KTM's from inside, according to police. A total of four suspects were involved in the theft.
The bikes are valued at $67,000, according to Yamaha of Camp Hill. The business says the burglars got away with the dirt bikes in under two minutes.
Summers said the business had a similar break in back in 2011.
Anyone with information regarding this incident, or similar incidents, is asked to contact the Lower Allen Township Police Department at 717-975-7575.If you look at the average American family’s spending, food spending is one of the most common budget busters. In fact, many Americans literally eat through their income, knowingly spending more than they can afford on dining out or even groceries. One of the best ways to rein in this easily bloated budget category is to cook at home – and there are a ton of tasty, easy, and cheap meals you can make at home with very few ingredients and not much time.
A while back, I asked The Simple Dollar’s Facebook fans what their favorite dirt-cheap meal was. Here are some of the best recipes people shared, along with a few more ideas of our own to help you and your family eat well for next to nothing. Swapping a lunch or dinner out with one of these cheap meals just once or twice per week is an easy way to lower your food expenses.
A note on prices: As cheap as these meals are, in reality, they’re probably even cheaper than what you see here. I averaged prices found online wherever possible (on sites such as Amazon Pantry and Walmart.com), which are likely higher than what you’ll pay at your local grocery store; they’re certainly higher than if you buy generic, buy non-perishables in bulk, grow produce in your garden, or use your grocery store flyer to plan your meals.
26 Favorite Dirt-Cheap Meals
1. Sticky rice, vegetables, and soy sauce
This meal, shared by Leslie, is pretty simple and similar to something I used to cook up during my college years with an unhealthy amount of soy sauce. Using the ingredients below, you can whip up a delicious dish in minutes.
All you have to do is steam some rice, dump a can of vegetables (or a bag of frozen veggies) in a microwave-safe bowl and heat them up, then mix the vegetables and rice together with just the right amount of soy sauce. These three ingredients may not make a flashy meal, but the concoction is fairly healthy, cheap, and easy. (Next time you order take-out, save any extra soy sauce packets to make this dish even cheaper.)
Ingredients:
2 cups of uncooked rice: $1
Canned or frozen vegetables: $1.19
Soy sauce: $1.99
Total: $4.17 (makes six servings)
Price per serving: 70 cents
2. Black beans and rice
Black beans and rice, suggested by Angela and others, is one of those easy, cheap meals almost everyone loves, and a staple dish of many cultures. This recipe only requires a handful of inexpensive ingredients, yet is full of flavor.
Start by heating your oil in a stockpot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute for 4 minutes, then add the rice and saute for another 2 minutes. Next, add in the vegetable broth, bring to a boil, lower the heat and cook for 20 minutes. The spices and black beans should be added right before you’re ready to serve.
Ingredients:
1 Tbsp. of olive oil: 25 cents
1 large onion, chopped: 99 cents
2 cloves garlic, minced: 50 cents
3/4 cup uncooked rice: 50 cents
1-1/2 cups vegetable broth: 50 cents
1 tsp. ground cumin and 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper: 25 cents
3-1/2 cups canned black beans, drained: $1.98
Total: $4.79 (makes 6 servings)
Cost per serving: 80 cents
3. Egg and black bean burritos
If you’re looking for a cheap, nutritious breakfast you can eat on the go, look no further than this recipe for egg and black bean burritos.
The idea is simple: Start by heating some tortillas on the griddle. While they heat, scramble a dozen eggs and heat a can of black beans on the stovetop.
Once your eggs are scrambled, assemble your breakfast burritos and add any extras you might want. Toppings like shredded cheese, sour cream, and salsa or hot sauce all work rather well. (You can also make these in bulk and freeze them so they’re ready to heat up on a hectic weekday morning.)
Ingredients:
Can of black beans: 99 cents
8 pack of tortillas: $1.88
Carton of eggs: $1.99
Total: $4.86 plus toppings (makes eight servings)
Price per serving: 61 cents
4. Grilled cheese and tomato soup
Grilled cheese and tomato soup, shared by Colleen, is one of the most nutritious cheap-and-easy meals out there. We often make it around here for lunches, and our oldest son particularly likes this meal — sometimes requesting it out of the blue.
Making grilled cheese is easy: Butter four slices of bread, and lay them flat on a hot griddle or frying pan. Add a slice of cheese to each, and top with another slice of buttered bread (or add some extras, like tomato slices or bacon.) Heat on both sides until each sandwich is golden brown and the cheese looks melted.
The soup part is easy, too, and can be as cheap as you want it to be — from a $1 can of Campbell’s to a $4 box of organic tomato bisque. Even making homemade tomato soup is simple with this quick, creamy tomato soup recipe from the Food Network.
Ingredients (using boxed soup):
Loaf of bread: $1.99
Sliced cheese: 50 cents
Box of creamy tomato soup: $2.99
Total: $5.48 (makes four servings)
Price per serving: $1.37
Ingredients (with homemade soup):
Loaf of bread: $1.99
Sliced cheese: 50 cents
2 15-oz. cans of chicken or vegetable stock: $1.99
1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes: 99 cents
1 cup heavy cream: 99 cents
Fresh basil leaves for garnish: $1.99 (free if you grow your own herbs)
Total: $8.45 (makes four servings)
Price per serving: $2.11
5. Spaghetti with homemade marinara
Making your own marinara sauce is easy, says Fran, the woman who shared this recipe. All you have to do is saute a large can of tomatoes, half an onion (chopped), and a pinch of garlic together for 10-20 minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste. Pour this flavorful, colorful sauce over a package of cooked spaghetti or other pasta, and you’re good to go.
Adding a few pieces of garlic-buttered toast is a great way to round out this absolutely delicious meal — which can fill up a family of four for about $2 if the garden is producing.
Ingredients:
1 large can of tomatoes: $1.49
1/2 medium onion, chopped: 50 cents
Pinch of garlic: 25 cents
Loaf of bread: $1.99
12-oz. package of spaghetti: $1.19
Total: $5.42 (makes four servings)
Price per serving: $1.36
6. Ham, white beans, and cornbread
This meal, shared by Amy, reminds me deeply of growing up. Each New Year’s Day, my parents would make an enormous pot of ham and white beans and then invite lots of friends and family to eat with us. My mom would make a huge pan of cornbread and the mixture of the aromas would just fill the house. This recipe will help you whip up a pot of ham-and-beans that won’t be forgotten.
Ingredients:
1 lb. dry great northern beans: $1.99
1/2 lb. cooked ham, diced: $2.99
1 small onion, diced: 89 cents
1/2 cup brown sugar: 25 cents
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper: 25 cents
1 Tbsp dried parsley: 25 cents
Box of Jiffy cornbread mix: 89 cents
Total: $7.51 (makes six servings)
Price per serving: $1.25
7. Homemade stovetop mac n’ cheese
If your kids love mac n’ cheese, throw away the boxed stuff and try this instead. Just boil a box of pasta and, in a separate pot, whisk together the milk and flour, adding about a teaspoon of salt and a bit of sugar and pepper to taste.
Stir constantly until just boiling, then lower the heat and continue stirring for a few moments as it thickens. Next, add the shredded cheese and mix until melted, and then pour the cheese mixture over the pasta.
At this point, it’s ready to serve — or if you want, you can add some “extras” to make a more tasty grown-up version, like peas, bacon crumbles, cubed ham, tuna, tomatoes, or scallions. If you have time to go all out, you can dump it all into a casserole dish, top with buttery breadcrumbs, and bake it for 20-25 minutes.
Ingredients:
12-oz. box of shells, elbows, or other pasta: $1.19
3 cups whole milk: $1.09
3 Tbsp flour, sugar and salt to taste: 25 cents
3 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese (about 6 oz.): $2.24
Total: $4.77 (makes six servings)
Price per person: 80 cents
8. Oatmeal and banana
Oatmeal is extremely nutritious and easy to make. Around here, we like to cook up a bowl of steel-cut oats and add any fruit we have on hand, or some cinnamon and raisins. This healthy meal doesn’t take much time to make, but packs a ton of energy to help us get through the day.
Ingredients:
24 oz. steel-cut oats: $2.99
Sliced fruit: $2
Total: $4.99 (makes six servings)
Cost per serving: 83 cents
9. Chickpeas and pasta
If you’re participating in Meatless Mondays or trying to eat vegetarian more often, here’s a recipe you can try.
Heat one package of pasta on your stovetop until it’s al dente. After draining your pasta, add one jar of Ragu pasta sauce (or homemade marinara), a can of chickpeas, and a small diced onion. Mix it all together and simmer on low heat until your onion is cooked and the dish is piping hot.
Ingredients:
1 can of chickpeas: 99 cents
1 small onion, diced: 89 cents
1 jar of Ragu or other pasta sauce: $2.29
12-oz. box of pasta: $1.19
Total: $5.27 (makes six servings)
Price per serving: 88 cents
10. Lentil stew
Here’s a recipe that reader Maria shared on our Facebook page: “Take 2 cups of lentils, 1 big can of diced tomatoes, 3/4 of a stick of butter, 1 chopped onion, 1 clove garlic (minced), and 1 Tbsp dried dill. Put it all in a big pot, add some water and then bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover, and let it simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring to make sure the lentils aren’t too dry. Add salt and pepper to taste at the end.”
We make a stew similar to this in our family crock pot all the time. The house smells incredibly good by the end of the day.
Ingredients:
2 cups lentils: $2
1 large can diced tomatoes: $1.49
1 medium onion: 99 cents
Garlic and dill: 50 cents
Stick of butter: 49 cents
Total: $5.47 (makes six servings)
Price per serving: 91 cents
11. Chili
Chili is one of those great stew-type dishes that you can make a hundred different ways, all of them cheap, and all of them delicious. Here’s a good, basic recipe you can tinker with.
Start by browning some ground beef in a large pot, and draining the fat. Then dump in a base of tomato sauce (or paste or juice), add one whole chopped onion, one large can of diced tomatoes, a chopped bell pepper, a minced clove of garlic, and some salt and pepper.
Add water and a package of chili seasoning (or make your own spice packets) and bring it to a boil. Next, add two cans of black beans or kidney beans. (Of course, you can add sausage, celery, corn, or just about anything else you like, too.) Continue to simmer for 1-3 hours or until you’re ready to eat, then serve over rice, pasta, or tortilla chips.
To make an even cheaper vegetarian chili, omit the ground beef and add an extra can of beans, 2 cups of frozen corn, or a package of soy crumbles.
Ingredients:
1 lb. of ground beef: $4.99
2 cans beans: $1.98
Large can diced tomatoes: $1.49
1 onion: 99 cents
1 bell pepper: $1.49
Pasta or rice: $1.19
Tomato sauce: $1.50
Total: $13.63 (makes 10 servings)
Price per serving: $1.36
12. Hummus and cucumber crostinis
This recipe from RealSimple.com takes three basic ingredients and turns them into an upscale appetizer or fun snack. You could serve these at a party or simply munch on them while you watch television.
Ingredients:
Package of bagel chips: $1.99
Medium container of hummus: $3
1 English cucumber, thinly sliced: $1
Total: $5.99 (makes 10 servings)
Price per serving: 59 cents
13. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
When it comes to cheap meals, there is none more iconic than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, shared by Kendell. It’s something I have for lunch twice a week, at least. You can make your PB&J as fancy or simple as you like — I use 12-grain bread, peanut butter, and some homemade jelly slathered on the top. Either way, it’s sure to please at any age.
Ingredients:
Loaf of bread: $1.99
Peanut butter: $1.99
Jelly: $1.99
Total: $5.97 (makes 10 servings)
Price per serving: 58 cents
14. Pot roast with vegetables
This meal is perfect for fall, winter, or any time you are due for some meat and potatoes. To get started, place a small rump roast in your crock pot and cover it with water. Cook on high for three hours then add some chopped-up potatoes and peeled carrots, plus a bit of salt and pepper. Cook for another three or four hours and serve.
Ingredients:
Rump roast: $10
6 potatoes: $2
Small bag carrots: $2
Total: $14 (makes 10 servings)
Price per serving: $1.40
15. Bean burritos
This recipe is both cheap and healthy. Start by chopping up your vegetables and toppings – some lettuce, a tomato, a small onion, and some cilantro. Heat a can of black beans on the stove. If you want, you can also heat your flour tortillas on a griddle or your stove top or just microwave each one for 10-15 seconds. Lay each tortilla flat and spread a few spoonfuls of beans through the center. Add optional toppings –such as cheese, rice, or salsa — wrap them up, and you’re done!
Ingredients:
8 flour tortillas: $1.88
Can of black beans: 99 cents
Head of lettuce: 99 cents
Tomato: 60 cents
Small onion: 79 cents
Cup of shredded cheese: $1
Cilantro: $1
Total: $7.24 (makes eight servings)
Price per serving: 91 cents
16. Ratatouille
Inge shared this classic meal which, in her description, is made of onions, eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, basil, and oregano with rice. We made a slightly different ratatouille one summer — when our garden and local farmer’s market provided almost all of the vegetables — and loved it.
An “easy” way to make ratatouille is to just stir fry your vegetables in olive oil, making sure to add them in the right order — starting with the ones that need the most cooking time. Just put a quarter of a cup of olive oil in a heavy pot over medium heat. Then, cube or dice the vegetables and add them in the order they appear below.
Add each vegetable before you cut up the next one and stir regularly. Then, turn down the heat, cover the pot, and let it simmer for about 40 minutes. Serve it with rice or homemade bread.
Ingredients:
2 onions: $2
3 bell peppers: $4
2 eggplants: $3
2 zucchini: $1.50
4 cloves of garlic, minced: 50 cents
2 lb. tomatoes, blanched, peeled, and chopped: $4.98
1 Tbsp. fresh thyme and 2 Tbsp. fresh basil: $1
4 cups of rice: $1
Total: $17.98 (makes 10 servings)
Price per serving: $1.80
17. Scrambled eggs and toast
Breakfast for dinner is a popular Midwestern meal for families on a budget. All you need to do to whip up this cheap and easy meal is scramble a dozen eggs and toast some bread. To make it fun for the kids, let them slather their toast with their favorite jelly, jam, or Nutella.
Ingredients:
Dozen eggs: $1.99
Loaf of bread: $1.99
Toppings: $1
Total: $4.98 (makes six servings)
Price per serving: 83 cents
18. Grilled chicken and sweet potato fries
In any kind of weather, grilled chicken and sweet potato fries are sure to please the palate. Start by washing four sweet potatoes then cutting them into half-inch thick circles. Put them in a bowl, drizzle them with olive oil until they’re covered all over, then lay them flat on a baking sheet. Sprinkle the potatoes with your favorite cajun seasoning then bake them at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. In the meantime, fire up the grill and cook six chicken breasts until they’re no longer pink in the middle. Serve both with barbecue sauce.
Ingredients:
6 chicken breasts: $8
4 sweet potatoes: $2
Barbecue sauce: $1
Total: $11 (makes six servings)
Price per serving: $1.83
19. Zucchini pizzas
If you’ve been looking for a low-carb way to enjoy pizza, try this: Take four large zucchinis, wash them, and cut them lengthwise into 3/4-inch slices. Drizzle them with olive oil and lay them flat on baking sheets. Heat them at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then take them out of the oven. Cover each zucchini surface with pizza sauce and a sprinkle of your favorite shredded cheese. Bake for another 10 minutes.
Ingredients:
4 large zucchinis: $3
Jar of pizza sauce: $1.50
2 cups of cheese: $ |
the group Freedom to Marry.
That's terrain that has traditionally favored defenders of traditional marriage. Twenty-nine states now have voter-approved constitutional bans on gay marriage (since California's was overturned in June); one state, Minnesota, defeated a proposed ban; and three states -- Maine, Maryland and Washington -- legalized same-sex weddings through a statewide vote.
National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown said that even Illinois and Hawaii -- which have large Democratic majorities in their legislatures -- have been difficult lifts for the other side. "Now, if they want to redefine marriage, they’re going to be on turf that's much more difficult."
Fred Sainz, vice president for communications and marketing at the Human Rights Campaign, agrees. "We are quickly running out of states where this is an easy lift," he said.
The two biggest battles next year are likely to be Oregon, where gay marriage proponents hope to overturn the state's ban, and Indiana, where traditional marriage advocates hope to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage for the second time in a row. A public education campaign supporting same-sex marriage is already underway in Arizona, and while some local activists have been pressing for a ballot initiative there in 2014, it is more likely that national groups will throw their weight behind a 2016 push.
Three years from now, several states could see ballot initiatives to legalize gay weddings, including Colorado, Ohio and Michigan.
In the meantime, there are nearly 40 challenges percolating through the court system, in states such as Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Texas.
"The marriage movement has never put its eggs in one basket," Sainz said, adding that some of these cases will inevitably make it to the nation's highest court. "No one is under any illusions that marriage is going to come to all 50 states through any other venue than the United States Supreme Court."
Brown said he was worried about this very prospect, since gay marriage advocates have often found judges receptive to their argument.
"What they’re really hoping for is they can avoid the ballot initiatives as much as possible. That’s really the end game," he said. "Are we concerned about the use of the courts to legislate and reinterpret the law? Of course we are."
In the meantime, however, groups such as HRC and Freedom to Marry are trying to ensure that a majority of Americans live in states where same-sex marriage is legal by the time the Supreme Court considers this question once more.
What does the math look like, based on 2010 Census data? Once Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) signs the recently passed bill, 37.2 percent of Americans will be living in such states; if Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) does the same, it will be 37.7 percent. If it becomes legal in New Mexico, the number inches up to 38.4 percent; Oregon would bring it to 38.6 percent. If Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio and Nevada all approved of same-sex marriage, 51.5 percent of all Americans would be living in states where gay and lesbian residents could marry.
In other words, the fight continues. And it will for at least a few more years.As Injeyan mentions, Armenia is a developing country. People have better job opportunities and life opportunities in Armenia than ever before. Now is the best time to take advantage of that and create the life you want to have in a country that is advancing by the minute. “One of my favorites is that everything is still so new and being built,” concludes Injeyan.
For those of you who have paid rent or mortgage in America, take a look at the cost of living in Armenia. You can pay rent with an apartment and utilities included with the same amount you pay for only your utilities in America. Of course, the cost of living can fluctuate depending on the area. For Patil Aslanian, living in Goris, Armenia, her living expenses are even less than those living in the city.
At one point or another, we’ve all looked into flights from LAX to Rome and have quickly been disappointed with the cost of the flights. Traveling from Armenia to Europe, or even Asia, is equivalent to us traveling from LA to New York or even the Mid West! Thankfully, vacation time in Armenia is a bit more generous than here in the States, so traveling to Paris is only a hop, skip and jump away and much lighter on our pockets!
And there you have it! Although our lists can go on forever, here are a few reasons why Armenian Youth Federation members/alumni have realized that living in Armenia will give their life more meaning than it already has. As Serouj Aprahamian concludes, "I think the biggest difference about being in Armenia compared to the U.S. is that I feel like what I do has more meaning. I haven't felt this fulfilled in my everyday life ever before."
Nora Injeyan, originally from Orange County, California.
"I wanted to move to Armenia because I realized that I am part of a very lucky generation that actually has an independent Armenia to move to. The idea of being a part of all of the exciting and amazing developments taking place right now was just too tempting to pass up. I work for the Armenian Volunteer Corps that works to bring non-Armenians and professional Armenians to volunteer here. People usually come with preconceived notions about what they think Armenia is. I love seeing all of their stereotypes break down day by day as they realize that this place is completely different than what they thought. There are a lot of people out there with opinions about Armenia and what's right or wrong about it but I found that being here is the best way to know the country. I can't help but feel optimistic for the future of Armenia because I see progress every day. This country, right now, is for the youth, for the people with unwavering faith and who don't give up easily. I didn't give up anything being here and I didn't make any sacrifices. Armenia is changing every day and I'm just happy and lucky to be able to witness it first hand."
Shant Meguerditchian, originally from Orange County, California
"My move to Armenia wasn't a planned one. I decided to go to Armenia as a volunteer with Birthright Armenia in Fall 2013. My reason for doing this was to familiarize myself with a country that I have always been looking to help, be it through my involvement in the AYF or through my professional career. After 8 months of volunteering, I was offered the position of Alumni Program Coordinator for Birthright Armenia and have been working there for the past 9 months. I have no plans of leaving this wonderful country that is full of adventure; I see a bright future for myself here. I feel as if I took the road less traveled, which scares most people; but in fact, I've opened the doors to more opportunities and broadened my horizons. Those who have thought about living in Armenia should come and see for themselves. You will never know unless you try; but I strongly believe that you'll be surprised at what Armenia has to offer you. I, personally, found my purpose and what I believe to be true happiness."
Patil Aslanian, originally from the San Fernando Valley, California
"I could provide generic reasonings as to why I moved to Armenia to help make you understand how much I love Armenia, but the true reason is that I've never felt happier and more comfortable in my skin than living here. I currently live in Goris, Armenia, and work as a Quality Assurance Manager for an Armenian company. My friends and family thought I was crazy for moving to an area of Armenia that wasn't the capital, but to truly experience Armenia one must immerse themselves in the cities outside the capital for the locals to realize that other Armenians are passionate about Armenia - all of Armenia, not just the capital - which was one of the most difficult things to explain to the friends I've made. Explaining that the Diaspora truly cares about Armenia, Armenian history and traditions, and the current state of the country was a new concept to them. The transition to living in a small town from a large city was seamless. You befriend the shopkeepers, the butchers, the local teachers, and you become a member of the community. One cannot expect our neighbors to come build our homeland. Come here, start a business, work here and become a part of the change that our young republic needs, but at the same time live the life you should be living."
Serob Abrahamian, originally from the San Fernando Valley, California
I moved to Armenia because I felt happier and more at home that I did in the Diaspora. I love Los Angeles with all my heart but this is the place I need to be for the time being. I foresee that I will be back in the future but I'll be in Armenia for the majority of my lifetime. I work as a Project Manager for Instigate Mobile. I'm also working on some personal projects, as well as getting a better idea of locals and their way of thinking about a variety of issues in order to better understand them so that the bridge to the diaspora is built sturdier. My inspiration here is me waking up every morning and interacting with people in Armenia. I can't really explain it but the history we learned in Armenian school for twelve years can be found on the street corners and in the hidden villages. My message for the youth is you're young. Come while you can, there is no better time to build a bridge and understand Armenia. Be one with Armenia, there is no good reason not to."
Vrej Haroutounian, originally from Los Angeles, California
So why did I come to Armenia? Essentially, I live in the city of Yerevan, a city with great architecture.From the oval park that wraps around the city, to the different buildings that line the streets, from the Stalin-era tuff buildings, to the pre-fabricated structures constructed in the late Soviet era, to the parks that are constantly being fought over by activists and business ventures. The numerous statues and museums that litter the city center are constant motivations to excel. The scale of Yerevan adds to its convenience. Being less than 2km across, the city center provides a very pedestrian-friendly atmosphere. These two kilometers are host to a multilayered experience of culture. Yerevan, even with its problems of traffic congestion, café littered parks, and unorganized sidewalks Yerevan still proves to be a great and walk-able city. This is a place of constant cultural movements, hosting academic conferences, internationally renowned musicians, art exhibitions, film-making, and the flow of visitors. In a meter by meter comparison Yerevan offers a living experience that contests with some of the best in the world. Outside of Yerevan is a country filled with all types of beauty: from the lush forests of Dilijian to the majestic mountains surrounding the Datev monastery. I am living in an ecologically-rich environment; this small country has seven eco-systems that are constantly in quarrel, as a people try to make the best use of their resources. As a landscape architect surveying my surrounding, I see opportunity, a chance for everyone to become a part of Armenia. I see the possibility of people joining together, living here in unison, and designing sustainable homes, parks, cities, and forest reserves. I realize the opportunity for us to make collective decisions, to resolve our common issues, whether we should utilize mines or develop ecological tourism instead.
Source: http://hetq.am/eng/news/24085/its-not-black-and-white-a-diasporan-living-in-armenia.html
Serouj Aprahamian, originally from Orange County, California
"I think the biggest difference about being in Armenia compared to the U.S. is that I feel like what I do has more meaning. I haven't felt this fulfilled in my everyday life ever before.I haven't had a desire to go back to the U.S. yet, even to visit. Of course, I will visit, but the desire to do so is very small. I have not faced many difficulties here. Anything that has been difficult has been so unimportant and easy to overcome that it's not even really worth mentioning. Of course, there are differences in attitudes here, but as far as things I need in my life like friends and family, I have all of that here too. If I had to pick something difficult, I would just say certain people's attitudes and dealing with apathy that is sometimes present here. Also when people are in tough situations, it is difficult to see that and decide what your place or role is in that other person's situation. Overall my experience has been good. Once locals know that you're living here, rather than just visiting, they actually reach out more and roll the red carpet out because they respect your decision and, in some cases, they can't believe that someone from the Diaspora moved here permanently."
Source: http://repatarmenia.org/eng/serouj-aprahamian/Last night I was reading through the TPM email box when I saw this note from TPM Reader JG. As has happened so many times over the years I thought it was a game try but it simply couldn’t be right. And yet …
Well, let’s look at the email.
I think that almost all of the coverage is overlooking the most important element of the Trump-Comey story. And you are yourself my guide here, with Trump’s Razor. Does all this have something to do with the Russia investigation? Sure. But this is REALLY about the “mildly nauseous” comment. You and I know that Comey meant that the idea that he might have influenced an election made him feel sick. Trump heard that as “you make me sick,” as a personal attack. So, fuck you, he had to go. It’s the dumbest explanation that fits all the available information. Trump can’t think strategically enough to have done this to impede the Russia investigation, or as a Candide-like execution to scare off others (I think the analogy came from Slate).
I mean, please, right? I appreciate the reference to Trump’s Razor. But this can’t have been it. JG sent in his note at 6:49 PM eastern, I think significantly in advance of any of the reporting which, mind-bogglingly, appears to confirm JG’s analysis (relying on the heuristic of Trump’s Razor, let’s be clear).
From CNN …
Several people familiar with the decision say the President grew increasingly frustrated at Comey after his congressional hearing last Wednesday when he testified that he was “mildly nauseous” over the idea that he helped sway the election. Even the health care victory in the House one day later couldn’t take his mind off Comey, two people close to Trump said. “He wouldn’t hear it (that he should be encouraged),” the friend said. “It’s Russia. Russia. Trump and Russia.” The President complained, with expletives, about Comey’s “mildly nauseous” answer and said his answer when pressed on leaks convinced the President he was far less concerned about the leaks than Trump thought he should be.
And Politico …
People close to the White House say Pence knew the president was thinking about firing Comey before he met with Rosenstein on Monday. Trump, these people said, was frustrated with Comey’s testimony and the growing Russia investigation scrutiny into his campaign. He also disliked Comey’s testimony last week on Capitol Hill, particularly the FBI director’s use of the word “nauseous” to describe his reaction to the idea that he may have influenced the election.
I really have nothing to add. I wouldn’t have anticipated it. I couldn’t quite believe it when JG suggested it. And yet, Trump’s Razor is simply never wrong. So there it is.When Black Lives Matter protestors stormed a room at a meeting in Phoenix and demanded that the 2016 presidential candidates say the names of black people killed by the police, the response was swift: Bernie Sanders did it the next day.
“I wish that in the year 2015, I could tell you we have eliminated racism in this country, but you all know that is not true,” said Sanders, to a crowd of more than 11,000 in Houston on Sunday, and then listed the names: “Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray and many, many others.”
It’s a testament to the influence Black Lives Matter activists are already having on the 2016 presidential race. Since the raucous protest of a few dozen mostly African-American activists brought the biggest meeting of progressives in the country to a screeching halt, Hillary Clinton repeated her calls for body cameras and improved early childhood education, and wrote “Black lives matter” in a Facebook post. Martin O’Malley promised to roll out a comprehensive plan to reform the criminal justice system, and Sanders has repeatedly brought up race on the campaign trail.
Now, Black Lives Matter leaders are preparing an agenda of policy demands and requirements designed to push Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley to embrace broad reforms to address systemic racism head-on. Activists foresee a series of demonstrations to call attention to racial injustice in the United States.
“What does the Democratic camp have to say about our society? We are in a crisis,” said Opal Tometi, cofounder of the Black Lives Matter movement. “If they want our vote, they’re going to have to speak to the death of black people at the hands of law enforcement, and create a racial justice agenda that cuts across all major issues.”
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Black Lives Matter activists meeting in Cleveland this weekend will formulate a long list of policy demands for candidates, Tometi said, intended to shape the 2016 presidential race and help form the basis for candidates’ talking points.
Some of the agenda will likely include anti-bias police hiring, the demilitarization of police forces and external reviews of police practices, activists told TIME. But leaders are also calling for more sweeping reforms that include a package of progressive packages intended to help poor blacks, including lifting the minimum wage, aggressive education reform, housing protections, protecting access to the ballot box and ending mass incarceration.
A number of racial justice groups including the Black Youth Project, Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, the Dream Defenders and others are expected to be in Cleveland.
“Body cameras and dash cameras are clearly not enough, because Sandra Bland still ended up dead,” said Alicia Garza, a second cofounder of the Black Lives Matter movement, referring to a civil rights activist who was found dead in a jail cell in Texas, in what authorities have called a suicide. Many observers have called her arrest violent and excessive.
“I want to see from all these candidates is program for how they’re going to aggressively work to ensure that black lives matter,” Garza continued. “Not just in relation to policing: we have to dive into questions of economics and democracy.”
Black Lives Matter grew out of the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and the violence last year in Ferguson, when Michael Brown, an unarmed black man was killed by the police. Over the past year, the organizationally diffuse movement has mounted large protests against police violence and incarceration policies. The movement is fueled by a widespread anger over police violence against black citizens.
Of the Democratic candidates, Clinton has perhaps addressed race in the most detail since launching her campaign. She has called for automatic voter registration and protecting the rights of black Americans at the ballot box, body cameras on police officers, early childhood education directed at low-income families and overhauling the criminal justice system. She has called for greater gun control and raising the minimum wage, and spoken specifically to the persistence of racism.
“Our problem is not all kooks and Klansman,” Clinton said in a speech in June. “It’s also in the cruel joke that goes unchallenged. It’s in the off-hand comments about not wanting ‘those people’ in the neighborhood.”
Sanders led anti-segregation efforts in Chicago in the 1960s and participated in the Million Man March, but does not frequently talk about racism on the campaign trail. He has become increasingly vocal about racism, particularly since Saturday, calling for more accountability among police and larger steps to address prison reform. O’Malley has called for better funding of independent external review boards and reducing penalties for nonviolent criminals.
The spectacle on Saturday at the Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix, Arizona began during former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s presidential town hall question-and-answer session, when several dozen Black Lives Matter protestors marched into the conference room, chanting, “What side are you on black people, what side are you on!” and chanted “Say her name! O’Malley was silenced for some ten minutes before finally addressing the protestors and calling for broader criminal justice reforms. Sanders nearly left the stage in frustration as the chanting continued.
Read more: Sanders and O’Malley Stumble During Black Lives Matter Protest
“Folks who are tired of what’s happening in communities of color are ready to see real change,” said Tia Oso, a Black Lives Matter activist who mounted the stage at Netroots and took a microphone to directly address the audience in the middle of O’Malley’s session. “This type of direct confrontation is a strategy that we must employ.”
Immediately following the protest on Saturday, O’Malley tweeted the hashtag #blacklivesmatter, and Sanders tweeted the names of black people killed by the police.
Clinton, too named Sandra Bland in the days after the protest, saying in a statement, “My heart breaks at seeing another young African American life lost too soon. Sandra Bland had a bright future ahead of her and it is particularly tragic that she lost her life just as she was to start her new career.”
There’s an electoral realism that all the candidates will have to grapple with, too: Black voters are a crucial voting bloc, particularly black women. They have turned out in higher numbers than any other demographic in the past two presidential elections, and galvanizing them will be key for the Democratic nominee. They are among the most prominent leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Activists say they’ll be listening closely to what the candidates say in the coming months.
“They’re the community Democrats need to win the election, black women in particular,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change. “And that’s who was taking over the stage.”
Clinton was not at the convention in Phoenix, but she was quickly drawn in to addressing the protestors. In a Facebook question and answer session on Monday, a journalist asked Clinton how she would have responded to the protestors at Netroots Nation. “Black lives matter,” Clinton wrote back. “Everyone in this country should stand firmly behind that…. Black people across America still experience racism every day.” The campaign posted her response on Twitter on Wednesday.
During a stop in Detroit on Tuesday, Clinton again told a local activist that “black lives matter” and repeated her call for overhauling the criminal justice system.
None of the Democrats, however, have so far satisfied the activists, who say the protests will continue.
“They should be ready for anything,” said Oso.
Contact us at editors@time.com.Get the latest news and videos for this game daily, no spam, no fuss.
Blizzard's PC MOBA Heroes of the Storm is adding its first character from the developer's upcoming multiplayer shooter Overwatch. The character Tracer is coming to Heroes of the Storm on April 19 for people who pre-purchase a digital copy of the $60 Overwatch: Origins Edition for PC.
Tracer will be available to buy for everyone else a week later, starting April 26. In a statement, Blizzard said Tracer is the first Overwatch character for Heroes of the Storm, suggesting more may follow.
Her introduction into Heroes of the Storm is also noteworthy because when Tracer arrives on April 19, Overwatch won't even be out yet--nor will the open beta even have started.
She's also interesting because she can move while attacking, which is a first for any Heroes of the Storm character, Blizzard said. Her Heroic ability can be upgraded in a number of ways. Check out the video above to learn more about Tracer's look and abilities in Heroes of the Storm.
As for Overwatch, the game's open beta begins in early May, while the full game arrives across PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on May 24.
Tracer has not been without controversy. Recently, some players said they were unhappy with her "butt pose," and in wake of this feedback, Blizzard will remove and replace this with something new.Sony's new HMZ-T1 head-mounted display provides one of the most natural, realistic 3D experiences on the market, it but doesn't track head motion for gaming. However, the TrackIR 5 does — and if you put the two together, like one enterprising gamer has, you've got a virtual 3D gaming world that responds to your head and body movements. Setup simply involved clipping the TrackIR 5's sensors onto the HMZ-T1, calibrating the motion sensors as if they were being used in a standard PC gaming setup, and sending the video output to the head-mounted display. While a YouTube video can't show us how playable this setup actually is, the mirrored video output shows some solid motion tracking — assuming that's what the user sees on the HMZ-T1, this is a pretty clever way to hack together some virtual reality.Recently, low-level laser (light) therapy (LLLT) has been used to improve muscle performance. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of near-infrared light-emitting diode therapy (LEDT) and its mechanisms of action to improve muscle performance in an elite athlete. The kinetics of oxygen uptake (VO2), blood and urine markers of muscle damage (creatine kinase--CK and alanine), and fatigue (lactate) were analyzed. Additionally, some metabolic parameters were assessed in urine using proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H NMR). A LED cluster with 50 LEDs (λ = 850 nm; 50 mW 15 s; 37.5 J) was applied on legs, arms and trunk muscles of a single runner athlete 5 min before a high-intense constant workload running exercise on treadmill. The athlete received either Placebo-1-LEDT; Placebo-2-LEDT; or Effective-LEDT in a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial with washout period of 7 d between each test. LEDT improved the speed of the muscular VO2 adaptation (∼-9 s), decreased O2 deficit (∼-10 L), increased the VO2 from the slow component phase (∼+348 ml min(-1)), and increased the time limit of exercise (∼+589 s). LEDT decreased blood and urine markers of muscle damage and fatigue (CK, alanine and lactate levels). The results suggest that a muscular pre-conditioning regimen using LEDT before intense exercises could modulate metabolic and renal function to achieve better performance.
TRIAL REGISTRATION:
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01770977.Dehumanizing people only works one way for leftists.
Michael Ian Black’s new children’s book, A Child’s First Book of Trump, explains the “wild” “beasties,” called the Trumps, to our “youngest citizens,” according to its satirical description. USA Today notes that while the book is supposedly for the youngest citizens, “Older citizens might need a primer too.”
The book’s cover features a nude Dr. Seuss-esque Trump creature. Don’t worry, parents; none of his private parts are showing. The book includes jokes about his “underdeveloped” hands. If your kids don’t get the humor, just point them to the cover illustration.
To say the least, based on his Twitter feed, Black doesn’t seem to be the best author to write a book for children. In one instance, he retweets a joke he made about accidentally masturbating to a 13-year-old boy. He also retweeted a tweet about his appearance on the Gaffigan Show, saying, “I know it’s a family show, but f********ck yoooooooooou.”
The USA Today review is nothing but apologetic. The author Maria Puente calls the book “clever and gently amusing — far gentler than anything Trump has said about … just about everybody.” Translation: At least this book isn’t as vulgar or derogatory as Trump.
Since when did Trump become the moral standard for appropriate children’s books?
Puente also points out that Trump isn’t alone being the subject of new children’s books. Hillary has her own books by Jonah Winter and Michelle Markel.
Is there a children’s book about “crooked Hillary” which indoctrinates children with Trump’s talking points and depicts a nude Hillary on the cover?
No! Of course not.
Jonah Winter’s book likens Hillary to Queen Elizabeth I (minus the mass murder of Catholics part), Joan of Ark, and Rosie the Riveter.
Michelle Markel’s book is called, Hillary Rodham Clinton: Some Girls are Born to Lead.
That’s okay because dehumanizing people only works one way for leftists. Cher can advertise Black’s book on Twitter, saying, “WHEN U KNOW THERES A HORRIBLE,UGLY (sic) MONSTER OUT THERE,BUT (sic) U NEED A BOOK.. 2HELP U,“NOT” SCARE THE kiddies.”
No one will blame Cher or Black for the violence of anti-Trump protestors. The victims of the protest were asking for it.Share this article via flipboard
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Rosy Maple Moth (Dryocampa rubicunda) (Picture: Alamy)
If you like your bugs to look like Battenberg cakes, then this little guy is the one for you.
Let us introduce you to the Rosy Maple Moth.
With bright yellow and pink coloured wings and body, the moth looks a lot like he’s been designed by Mr Kipling.
You know, the guy who makes those exceedingly good cakes.
Well, sort of (Picture: Alamy)
Or perhaps it’s an ever so slightly more elegant distant relative to Mr Blobby, who knows?
The Rosy Maple Moth, or Dryocampa rubicunda, is native to North america.
The females are slightly larger, with a wingspan of up to 50mm.
The Rosy Maple Moth is native to North America (Picture: Alamy)
And LOOK how cute they are…
The Rosy Maple moth is the prettiest moth in all the land. pic.twitter.com/N7e8coVrUZ — SciencePorn (@SciencePorn) February 25, 2016
Rosy Maple moth is fabulous and knows it… pic.twitter.com/XRFVH0nkOT — Els (@PinkPrimate) March 2, 2016
Its pretty fluffy (Picture: Alamy)
MORE: Man murdered wife after row over Elvis Presley tribute act tickets
MORE: Didcot Power Station: Three missing men identified as search continuesThis is just an incredibly disturbing video.
A Columbia, Missouri SWAT team breaks into the house of Jonathan Whitworth, shoots and kills a dog in the presence of a small child and the man’s wife, shoots and wounds a second dog, all over a grinder, a pipe and a small amount of marijuana.
And then they haul the guy off in handcuffs and charge him with child endangerment.
Killing dogs is a pattern in drug raids, but it’s rarely caught on video. One of the most disturbing was the handiwork of Joe Arpaio’s squad:
In 2004 one of Arpaio’s SWAT teams conducted a bumbling raid in a Phoenix suburb. Among other weapons, it used tear gas and an armored personnel carrier that later rolled down the street and smashed into a car. The operation ended with the targeted home in flames and exactly one suspect in custody–for outstanding traffic violations.
But for all that, the image that sticks in your head, as described by John Dougherty in the alternative weekly Phoenix New Times, is that of a puppy trying to escape the fire and a SWAT officer chasing him back into the burning building with puffs from a fire extinguisher. The dog burned to death.
Radley Balko at Reason has been documenting for years. Fremont police raided the home of medical marijuana patient Roberg Filgo and shot his Akita nine times but never charged him. A Maryland SWAT team raided the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo during a marijuana bust and killed his two black labs.
I’ll spare everyone my own personal rant about the dog shootings, which are pretty much what you’d imagine (I had Jon Walker watch the video first to make sure I wouldn’t be upset for the rest of the day). But count me with Scott Morgan: “You have to see it with you own eyes to fully absorb the brutal callousness of the people who carry out these violent attacks on peaceful families. Even knowing as I do how often events like this take place, I still shuddered while witnessing the suspect’s grief at discovering his dogs had been shot.”
As Peter Guither says, “the really disturbing things are what happened before the video — the truly warped thinking that created the laws and the procedures that made people think this was a good idea.”
Welcome to the war on drugs. According to FBI testimony before the U.S. Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control this week, marijuana continues to drive it:
[M]arijuana is the top revenue generator for Mexican DTOs—a cash crop that finances corruption and the carnage of violence year after year. The profits derived from marijuana trafficking—an industry with minimal overhead costs, controlled entirely by the traffickers—are used not only to finance other drug enterprises by Mexico’s poly-drug cartels, but also to pay recurring “business” expenses, purchase weapons, and bribe corrupt officials.
Making marijuana illegal drives up the price and the profits. Those profits get channeled through criminal networks, financing the purchase of weapons and escalating violence that endanger the lives of law enforcement personnel. Law enforcement responds in kind, and everyone across the Mexican border gets caught in the crossfire. Illegal immigrants are blamed for a drug shooting and Arizona reacts by passing a crazy law. The impact ripples out to some guy in Missouri who has storm troopers descend on his house and threaten to take his kid away because he’s got some weed. And on and on.
The wish-list for the border in the new immigration bill includes: sport utility vehicles, helicopters, power boats, river boats, portable computers to track illegal immigrants and drug smugglers while inside of a border patrol vehicle, night vision equipment, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), Remote Video Surveillance Systems (RVSS), scope trucks, and Mobile Surveillance Systems (MSS). But with marijuana one of the largest cash crops in the United States, it’s an endless game of whack-a-mole.
As horrific as the video from Missouri is, it’s at the low end of the violence meter in the drug war. Is this really a wise deployment of national resources right now?
(h/t Steve Fox of MPP, who have more on this story)
Cast your vote in FDL’s Name Our Pot Campaign ContestLooks like CM Punk made some waves with his appearance on Colt Cabana’s podcast, eh? Seven columns here at 411 about it lead me to only one conclusion: 411 hates WWE.
It’s just a joke, guys. Hopefully this can settle the debate that’s been going on since we here jumped all over the Spike/TNA story- if a story is big enough to enough people, then a lot of people will write about it. Simple.
I said my piece about Punk months ago, and nothing’s really changed, so I’m willing to leave it at that. For me, what really got my goat this week was Vince (“Mister” to his friends) McMahon’s appearance on Steve Austin’s podcast, which was broadcast on the WWE Network immediately after Raw went off the air. There were a few things the Boss said that I didn’t fully agree with, but there were two ideas in particular that just made me cringe.
After Austin said something to the effect of the locker room today not appearing as hungry as when he was wrestling, Vince basically called out the entire roster, saying that this generation of millennials just doesn’t want it as much as the guys in Austin’s time. They’re too afraid to rock the boat, too afraid to speak up, and just generally do what is asked of them without any fight. He compared that to Austin, who was never afraid to say that he didn’t like the plans, even in instances where he had no backup idea, either. He even said that there are very few guys even willing to try to “grab the brass ring,” naming guys like Bray Wyatt, Seth Rollins, and Dean Ambrose as being among the few to actually try.
This, of course, was all being said while Vince would return to the point that in WWE, they listen to their audience. The audience decides who the star is, not them. If you’re hungry enough, you’ll get an opportunity, and if you can win the audience over, you’ll become a star.
The first thing to come to mind when I heard this was, as many may assume, Zack Ryder. Zack Ryder did everything that the modern day corporate WWE speak says one must do in order to become a star. He took charge of his character, he made himself accessible via social media when most of the roster still hadn’t figured that out yet, and he managed to create a fan base while he was still jobbing on ECW and Raw. Eventually, he got to the point where nearly every segment would be trampled over with “We want Ryder!” chants, or even a more simple “Woo woo woo!” chant.
WWE tried their best to not listen to the fans. Then they tried to placate the loud fan base by moving Ryder out of his jobber role and into more of a jobber to the stars role. When the fans still wouldn’t quiet down, they made him the United States champion with a win over Dolph Ziggler at TLC 2011. The fans were ecstatic. “Their” guy had managed to dream the impossible dream, and got over all thanks to his own hard work.
And then December came to a close, and January 2012 was where WWE decided that they’d had enough of listening to us. Ryder quickly lost the US Title. John Cena took his girl, Eve. Eve verbally eviscerated him, and then Kane pushed him off the stage while he was in a wheelchair, unable to help himself. Also, no one ever came to his aid, because no one likes him. In the span of a couple weeks, WWE decided to tell us “Zack Ryder is not worth your affection. He’s not worth your cheers. He’s a loser. He’s a wimp. The ladies don’t like him. Even John Cena treats him like garbage. This guy sucks.” Ryder has yet to recover from this dreadful period of booking, though an injury has kept him off screen recently. Which is too bad, because who else can lose to Rusev in three minute squashes?
Those who want to dilute the point will mention how Ryder was never a guy that could be taken seriously as a world champ, but really, I feel like those of us who stayed |
-growing facilities during routine inspections this year and reported it to health officials.
The state is amid rulemaking that would strictly limit the pesticides that can be used on marijuana only to those whose labels allow for unspecified crops; that can be used in greenhouses; and that are not prohibited from human consumption. Pesticides allowed in tobacco cultivation also would be approved.
David Migoya: 303-954-1506, dmigoya@denverpost.com or @davidmigoyaA Northern Ireland holidaymaker attacked by a cat at a Tunisian hotel has lost her High Court battle for compensation.
Bronagh Kerr sued over being scratched and bitten in the grounds of her four-star accommodation in the resort of Yasmine Hammamet.
The 32-year-old sustained deep cuts to her leg during the attack in June 2010.
She was also said to have suffered from an anxiety state for six months and been left with a phobic reaction to cats.
Ms Kerr brought an action against Thomas Cook Tour Operators, seeking up to £12,500 in damages for breach of contract, breach of statutory duty and negligence.
She claimed there had been a failure to take reasonable care to keep her safe by removing “feral” cats roaming around the hotel.
But a judge ruled on Thursday that her case must be dismissed “with reluctance” because no evidence was given to establish the standards of care which apply in Tunisia.
Mr Justice Maguire also held that the attack could not have been foreseen.
Ms Kerr and her partner had booked a one-week package holiday through Thomas Cook in Belfast to stay at the Chich Khan Hotel.
The hotel was described in the brochure as part of the tour operator’s Style Collection.
But four days into the holiday a cat jumped out of bushes to launch an attack on the holidaymaker’s bare legs.
She told the court how she had previously noticed large numbers of cats apparently roaming freely in the hotel grounds.
TripAdvisor comments from other guests remarking on the animals’ presence also featured in the case.
None of the reports, however, mentioned any separate attacks.
Defending the alleged failure to safeguard Ms Kerr, lawyers for Thomas Cook argued that it depended on what reasonable standards of care applied in Tunisia.
With personal injury in the case valued at £12,500, Mr Justice Maguire indicated management was under some obligation to control large numbers of stray cats if they were roaming around the hotel.
But because nothing had been presented on the standard of care he could not conclude any breach of obligations had occurred.
The judge also identified no evidence of any propensity by cats at the hotel to attack.
“There is also no proof that the cats are properly described as feral in the sense of having aggressive or dangerous characteristics,” he said.
Although he accepted Ms Kerr’s holiday was ruined, Mr Justice Maguire ruled that the damage she sustained was not caused by any breach of contract, breach of statutory duty or negligence.
He added: “Even if it could be said that there had been a failure in general terms to control the cats, the plaintiff’s injuries were caused by an event which, on the basis of the evidence before the court, was out of the ordinary and could not have been anticipated.”Apple, Facebook, and Google have soaked up a huge percentage of humanity’s wealth. Why aren’t they enriching our lives more?
Since I’m a Gmail user, let’s take Google as an example. Google knew that I was going to Moscow (itinerary emailed to my Gmail address). Google knew my schedule (Calendar). Google should know my various interests by now, from reading my Gmail messages and Docs content. Due to me being of such an advanced age that I still use email rather than text, Google definitely knows my real social network (the people with whom I correspond via email).
Why didn’t Google suggest to me a whole bunch of cultural events? People to meet? Groups to join? The stuff that Google tries to help with is stuff that was already pretty easy to do in the pre-Internet days, e.g., book a hotel or airline ticket. Even in those areas, Google is simply following the mid-1990s leaders such as Expedia.
I don’t think that one can argue that enriching lives is unprofitable and therefore these profit-seeking companies aren’t interested. Selling tickets to events should lead to commissions. Connecting people to meet in public places, such as restaurants or bars, should also lead to commissions. These could be a lot more lucrative than what Google gets from selling mouse clicks.
Readers: if we assume that human boredom leads to a lot of purchases, e.g., of movies and games, why aren’t companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Google chasing this market through actual social connections?The public express a high level of concern about poverty but seem happy to cut benefits for the group in the severest need, writes Peter Taylor-Gooby. The British Social Attitudes survey shows that, while the vast majority of respondents believe welfare spending should be either maintained or increased, most people view the welfare state for those of working age with suspicion. This despite the fact that workless households are the group most harshly affected by poverty.
The good news (for those who like the welfare state) is that almost nobody wants more cuts. Ninety per cent of those interviewed in the most recent survey in the authoritative British Social Attitudes series want spending on health, education and welfare maintained or increased. The highest spending services, pensions and the NHS followed by education, are the top priorities. In addition, 85 per cent think child poverty matters and should be cut back. Party differences between Labour and Conservative supporters on these issues are relatively minor.
The bad news is that most people view the welfare state for those of working age with suspicion. It’s in this area that the biggest party differences lie. The proportion thinking government should spend more on ‘welfare benefits’ has fallen from 60 per cent in the late 1980s to 30 per cent now. In 1989 two-thirds of those expressing a view thought unemployment benefits were too low and a third that they were too high. Now these proportions are almost exactly reversed. In 2014 over five times as many Conservative voters thought unemployment benefits too high compared with the number who though them too low. Among Liberal Democrats just over one and half times as many think it’s too high as think it’s too low. Labour voters are no more than evenly split. Unemployed people have few friends.
The same pattern of grudging support even among Labour voters applies to other aspects of welfare for those of working age. Perhaps unsurprisingly, only eight percent of Conservative voters put benefits for unemployed people as their top priority. Labour voters do give higher support, but that’s only 16 per cent, with Liberal Democrats at 13 per cent. The even worse news (for the poor) is that big majorities among all main parties support the benefits cap: 85 per cent of Conservative and UKIP supporters, 75 per cent of Liberal democrats, 70 per cent of Labour voters and just over half of Greens.
People are also unwilling to extend welfare state support to immigrants. Less than one in ten of all those interviewed think immigrants should have an automatic right to claim benefits. More than 50 per cent of voters for any party, except the Greens (and the Liberal Democrats for EU migrants), think migrants’ benefit rights should be restricted to a maximum of six months or less, whether the migrants come from EU countries or elsewhere.
The overall pattern of attitudes is, from an academic perspective, surprising. As Ruth Lupton, John Hills and others show, spending on the NHS and schools has been (at least in the relative sense used by the Treasury), ring-fenced, so that cuts here have been less severe than in other areas. Working age welfare has been hit hardest, from the harsh treatment of Sure Start through to the below inflation uprating of all benefits for this group, the cuts in child benefit, tax credits and housing benefit and the benefits cap.
The big success stories of recent welfare have been the decline in pensioner poverty (down from 2.1 million in 1991 to less than half that now) and in child poverty (down from 4 million in 1992 to a third of that by 2004 but now creeping upwards). By comparison, poverty among those of working age is a much larger issue, up from under 4 million in 1990 to just under 6 million now, and still rising. Even more striking, workless households are the group most harshly affected by poverty. Over 70 per cent of them fall below the poverty line according to official DWP figures. The public express a high level of concern about poverty but seem happy to cut benefits for the group in the severest need. Even Labour voters are in two minds about whether the benefits unemployed people get should be cut further.
Where does this take us?
1. From a welfare state perspective, Ed is right to focus on the NHS. NHS spending is a top priority for most people, and there is no mileage in help for the poor of working age, despite their deteriorating position.
2. Most people are profoundly ignorant of basic facts about the level of need among different groups in their own society – but maybe we knew that anyway.
3. Any programme to tackle poverty and advance social equality must be based on universal benefits and programmes: child benefits, school meals for all, rent control, decent wages and stronger employment rights. Means-tested benefits directed specifically at the poor stand little chance of gaining high public support.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the British Politics and Policy blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting.
About the Author
Peter Taylor-Gooby is Research Professor of Social Policy at the University of Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. He chaired the British Academy New Paradigms in Public Policy Programme (2010/2011) and is Chair of the REF Social Work and Social Policy and Administration panel 2011-15, a Fellow of the British Academy, a Founding Academician at the Academy of Social Sciences and, previously, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sociology and Social Policy Section.If you’re a liberal in America, you’ve seen your fair share of conservative spin. But you’ve probably never known the name of arguably the most influential right-wing propagandist of our time: Dinesh D’Souza.
Of the top 10 most lucrative documentaries of all time, three are his, outselling Academy Award-winning films like Bowling for Columbine and An Inconvenient Truth. He’s written over a dozen books and made countless TV and radio appearances, not to mention a Christmas tree commercial and a romantic relationship with Ann Coulter. (Not to mention a felony indictment for campaign finance fraud.)
Most importantly, he generates ideas and talking points that conservative pundits and politicians circulate for years to come.
And his next project, a film based on his best-selling book The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left, is ripped straight from the headlines. It’s called The Big Lie, and if you’ve ever heard someone at a rally or on social media fire back that “antifa and the Democrats are the real fascists,” you’ve already encountered the book’s influence, which is sure to grow exponentially when the movie is released.
D’Souza’s central claim in the book is that liberals, Democrats and the left are the true Nazis and fascists in modern America. To exonerate President Donald Trump from any accusation of fascism, D’Souza lifts a handful of out-of-context facts, quotes and dictionary definitions to construct a revisionist history. What is fascism to D’Souza, really? Taxes, government programs, the Affordable Care Act and any attempt to rein in big business.
It is a book of fantastic monsters all conspiring in plain sight over the past half-century, evoked by D’Souza to frighten conservatives into believing that any threat to the free market is a world-historic plot to destroy America.
It’s not a work of history or scholarship so much as an explicit tool in a culture war. D’Souza admits freely that the book was written to equip conservatives with a rhetorical defense.
“[The left] had the race card and now they have the Nazi card, but they have no other cards left,” he writes. “If they lose this one, they lose their moral capital and are exposed for what they are — the bigoted, thuggish, self-aggrandizing thieves of our lives and liberties.”
Perhaps critiquing the book at all is a fool’s errand. D’Souza opens his argument by insisting that any denial of his uncomfortable truth, and any accusation of right-wing fascism, is just the Freudian process of psychological “transference,” projecting blame onto the real victims: conservatives.
“Blaming the victim is a lie, but a lie of a special type,” he writes in his introduction. “Normally lying is a distortion of truth. This applies to transference in the general sense of the term: The qualities of the patient are shifted to the therapist.”
In other words, if you find fault with D’Souza’s stunning revelations, it’s because you’re sick in the mind and stuck in denial. D’Souza is the doctor, and you’re petulantly rejecting his medicine.
Nevertheless, here we go.
To support the idea that fascism is a leftist ideology, D’Souza provides a few key items of evidence, most of which rest on taking early-20th-century fascists at their literal word. Nazis called themselves “national socialists”; therefore Hitler was a socialist. Mussolini railed against landowners and capitalists, therefore, Mussolini was anti-capitalist.
D’Souza flourishes in his characterization of fascism, in part, because fascism is difficult to define. Its greatest historians provide their own definitions, but one of the most highly cited and canonical descriptions comes from Robert Paxton, who wrote The Anatomy of Fascism and first exposed the collaboration of the Nazis with Vichy France, standing on trial against the regime as an expert witness.
Paxton’s single-sentence definition is a doozy, but it’s worth reading, mainly because of its elaborate description of fascism’s characteristics not as a philosophy of the left or right, but as a political behavior that intentionally transcends those boundaries:
A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
Paxton told me in his home on Wednesday that fascists like Mussolini and Hitler certainly co-opted leftist rhetoric, but they did so in service to elite interests. Landowners and elites couldn’t remain unchallenged by populism after the first World War, and communism was on the rise. Fascism was a movement that could protect elite interests, but still use the populist energy of the era. (Sound familiar?)
“Fascism is the longed-for antidote to the left, and they’ve created this antidote partly by accepting mass society,” Paxton said.
Fascism was a movement that could protect elite interests, but still use the populist energy of the era. Tweet
In other words, populist change was coming to Europe. Fascism was a system that capitalists could embrace in order to put that zeitgeist to use for themselves. Sure, titanic companies like IG Farben had to bring their factories home and produce for the country’s domestic needs. But the alternative at the time was communism.
“Fascism comes along as a way of mobilizing a mass movement, which is anti-socialist or anti-communist,” Paxton said. “Socialism is a label, and they do some things for the workers; fascism was the barrier to communism.”
Paxton doesn’t endorse D’Souza’s simple accusation that fascism is simply an anti-capitalist regime and a “sister ideology” to communism. And so, D’Souza says, Paxton is just another partisan hack, using his “scholarly bona fides” to push the Big Lie along with Hollywood and the rest of academia. (Paxton says D’Souza never contacted him for comment for the book, even though Paxton is perhaps the most cited scholar in The Big Lie.)
Instead, D’Souza prefers the interpretations offered by conservative thinkers like Freidrick Hayek and Jonah Goldberg, who co-opted the charge of fascism to criticize welfare programs. D’Souza throws out authoritarianism, nationalism, and militarism one by one as defining features of fascism. Instead, he arrives at his own definition of fascism resting on three ideas: statism, collectivism and socialism.
This gets to D’Souza’s ultimate goal in The Big Lie, a goal reflected in the meta-narrative across D’Souza’s books, articles and films: that the Democrats are a civilizational threat to capitalism. D’Souza summons every available conservative boogeyman and historical demon — slave masters, the Nazis, the Klu Klux Klan, feminists, Hollywood elites and student radicals — and puts them in close collusion with the Democrats in order to usher in a socialist state.
Fascists like Adolf Hitler co-opted the language of the working class to wage a socialist revolution in name only. AFP/Getty Images
Central to D’Souza’s grand unifying theory is the racist history of the old Democratic party, a favorite subject of D’Souza’s that he thoroughly explores in his blockbuster documentary Hillary’s America. The majority of this film is dedicated to reminding viewers that prior to the mid-20th century, Democrats were the party of slavery, segregation and the Ku Klux Klan.
D’Souza says that if this doesn’t come up often, it’s not because it’s irrelevant to modern politics, but because of an alleged liberal coverup.
If you didn’t know, for example, that Andrew Jackson founded the Democratic Party — a fact that Google will surface automatically by searching the words “Democratic Party” — it’s because Democrats have tried to hide it from you, he argues.
No matter that the Democrats’ early history on these issues is barely relevant today. The two parties slowly traded places on racial politics throughout the 20th century, a well-documented historical phenomenon D’Souza considers totally bogus. D’Souza tortures the data to claim simply that this switch never happened.
This kind of poorly supported and illogical revisionism is everywhere in D’Souza’s work. He becomes the teller of all truths, giving the impression that he is imparting sacred knowledge upon intrepid thinkers, flattering their egos for not knowing basic facts about American history.
D’Souza’s comparison of modern Democrats to the Third Reich strains credulity even further. To him, the fascism of modern Democrats has less to do with the expansion of our deportation force and more to do with Saturday Night Live, Kathy Griffin, the cast of the broadway show Hamilton and the fact that ABC canceled Tim Allen’s sitcom.
D’Souza ends the book with a vision of apocalypse: a totalitarian left dedicated to “breaking our spirits,” who will soon “begin the familiar fascist process of ‘re-educating’ us.” D’Souza outlines a program of “De-Nazification” that conveniently boils down to the relatively boring, well-worn platform of mainstream Republicanism: repealing Obamacare, lowering the corporate tax rate and stacking the Supreme Court with more Republicans.
And then, in order to fight fascism, D’Souza argues that we need an extensive expansion of the police state and a military crackdown on leftist protest.
He imagines sending the National Guard to escort Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter to their heavily protested campus speeches, comparing them to the Little Rock Nine, and he says that colleges that don’t sufficiently accommodate these provocateurs should have their federal funding stripped.
Hot in the running for D’Souza’s most astounding claim is the idea that “broken windows” policing is key to Republicans winning back the black vote, which will allegedly appeal to African-Americans by making communities safer.
His final thoughts include a fantasy about putting former President Barack Obama in jail and issuing broad federal orders of retaliation against the left. D’Souza says that Republicans should find a “new willingness to use lawful force” and recommends Trump supporters tear up anti-fascist signs and posters. For the protesters rounded up by police on Inauguration Day, along with the journalists arrested while covering the riots, he suggests felony rioting charges with the strictest penalties.
“Once judges and juries start handing out five- and 10-year prison sentences, all this nonsense will quickly subside,” he writes in the final chapter.
These suggestions certainly seem to resemble the pursuit of redemptive violence to achieve internal cleansing. Didn’t that famous Martin Niemöller poem begin with, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, for I was not a socialist”?
But maybe that’s just Paxton’s secret liberal bias inching its way into my head. Maybe I’m part of the Big Lie now, too.
Or maybe I’m just projecting.photo by: Mike Yoder
Anyone carrying a concealed handgun into a building at the University of Kansas must have the firearm in a holster with the safety on, according to a draft weapons policy KU submitted this week to the Kansas Board of Regents.
Among other safety rules in the policy: People carrying concealed handguns elsewhere on campus must keep them on their person at all times — including always wearing or holding purses or backpacks with guns inside.
Under the Kansas Personal and Family Protection Act, state universities must allow lawful concealed carry of handguns on their campuses beginning in July 2017. The law allows universities to prohibit guns in buildings or areas with adequate security measures at public entrances to ensure no guns get in, such as metal detectors and guards.
The Regents adopted a statewide policy to account for the new law, and individual universities are now preparing their own respective policies — if only slightly more detailed than the Regents’ policy.
The Regents are scheduled to discuss KU’s draft policy in committee in November, according to a campus message from KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little. She said once the Regents approve KU’s policy the university community will get more information and training as July 2017 approaches.
“Our goal was to create a university-wide policy that emphasizes the safety of our campuses, creates a setting conducive to learning, teaching and research, and is consistent with state law,” Gray-Little said in the message. “…I believe we’ve created the best possible policy for KU.”
KU committees charged with developing implementation procedures tailored specifically for different campuses are still at work, Gray-Little said.
photo by: Mike Yoder
So far KU has not released a list of which, if any, buildings, areas or events where it plans to install adequate security measures to prohibit guns.
Other key points in KU’s draft policy:
• Holsters must completely cover the gun’s trigger area and have sufficient tension to keep the gun in the holster “even when subjected to unexpected jostling.”
• Semiautomatic guns must be carried without a chambered round of ammunition, and revolvers must be carried with the hammer resting on an empty cylinder.
• No one “shall use the fact of possibility that he or she is carrying a concealed weapon with the intent to intimidate another person except in defense of self or others.”
• Regents policy applies to everyone on campus, including requirements that guns stored in cars must be hidden from view and that guns in residence halls must be contained in secure storage devices when not on the person of the carrier.
• Statewide gun laws also apply to everyone on campus, including statutes requiring concealed carriers to be at least 21 and not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
• Open carry of any firearm is still prohibited on campus.
KU’s draft policy also discusses a more obscure part of the Kansas Personal and Family Protection Act that allows universities to prohibit some people from carrying guns into “restricted access” areas.
KU’s policy defines those as areas accessible only to authorized personnel by key, key-card or code.
Non-employees who don’t have the key or code would have to be pre-screened to enter restricted access areas, according to KU’s draft policy. The process would require a notarized statement with the person’s acknowledgement that weapons are prohibited in restricted access areas, as well as a photo ID card showing they’ve been authorized entry.
It’s unclear what areas of campus would fall under that category.
KU’s office of general counsel referred questions to the office of public affairs, which did not respond Tuesday afternoon.Stephen Fry standup at Mumbai queer open-mic night
MJ writes, "I'm part of a group called Gaysi Family. Every couple of months we host an open-mic event called Dirty Talk for the queer community in Mumbai (India). Funds raised from the event is donated to one or the two Queer support group in the city.
This year in March we were contacted by BBC team, as they wanted to film one of our events. The clipping would then be featured in one of their queer documentaries hosted by none other than well-known gay celebrity Stephen Fry. "
But what totally blew us mind was Stephen getting on the Dirty Talk stage, and performing an impromptu stand up gig. Needless to say, the audience was in awe coupled with laughter riot. PS - Homosexuality was decriminalized in India only in 2009. However we are still fighting a legal battle in the Supreme Court of India. Final judgement is expected end of this year. *fingers crossed*.
(Thanks, MJ!)The so-far untitled 25th James Bond movie will premiere in the USA in exactly two years on 8 November 2018.
Producers for the upcoming movie have named the long lead date for the title and announced that it will be slightly sooner in the UK and Europe.
#Bond25 is being co-written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade who have been with every production since 1999’s ‘The World Is Not Enough’.
The last Bond movie ‘Spectre’ debuted in the USA on 6 November 2016 and 26 October 2016 in the UK.
It's exactly 2 YEARS until #Bond25 opens in theatres in North America (UK & Europe will come sooner). Are you counting down? — James Bond (@jamesbondlive) November 8, 2017
In other Bond news, 1967 Bond girl Karin Dor has died at the age of 79. Dor played Helga Brandt up against Sean Connery’s Bond in the movie. ‘You Only Live Twice’ was Connery’s 5th and second last Bond movie. He skipped the next one ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ but was talked back for the following one ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ after new Bond Australian Goulburn boy George Lazenby was so difficult to work with.
Dor was a veteran of over 70 films. She also starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Topaz’ (1969) and alongside Christopher Lee in ‘The Invisible Dr Mabuse’ (1962).
RIP Karin Dor pic.twitter.com/cl75KUvFqm — James Bond (@jamesbondlive) November 8, 2017
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Oct. 12, 2016, 3:43 PM GMT / Updated Oct. 12, 2016, 3:44 PM GMT By Alexey Eremenko
MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin has denied Russia was behind recent hacking attacks in the U.S., calling the “hysteria” around the incidents an attempt to divert attention from the leaks themselves.
“Everyone’s talking about who’s done it. Does it really matter that much? What matters is what’s inside this information,” Putin said at an economic forum in Moscow Wednesday.
“There’s nothing there benefiting Russia,” he told the Russia Calling conference. “The hysteria is simply to distract the American people from the contents of what the hackers have posted.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Russia Calling forum in Moscow, Russia, on Wednesday. Ivan Sekretarev / AP
On Friday, the U.S. for the first time squarely blamed Putin's government for a wave of hacking attacks and email leaks, saying the goal was "to interfere with the U.S. election process."
The statement put out by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence marked the first explicit public accusation from Washington.
The U.S. linked the Kremlin to disclosures by DCLeaks.com, WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, which have leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, among others.
It also confirmed that recent scanning and probing of state election systems originated on servers operated by a Russian company, though the intelligence community is "not now in a position" to attribute that activity to the Russian government.
The Kremlin and Putin himself have denied the allegations in the past.
He also said there was “basically no dialogue” between the U.S. and Russia, adding that the Obama administration "decides what it wants and insists on getting it."Metal Gear Survive single-player gameplay walkthrough, beta set for January 18 to 21
Participate in the beta to receive rewards in the full release.
Konami will host a Metal Gear Survive beta for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One from January 18 to 21, 2018, the company announced.
The beta will allow players to jump into co-op mode to build, defend, and fight alongside friends online. Users who participate in the beta will receive an in-game bonus including a Fox Hound” name plate, Metal Gear REX accessory, and bandanna accessory when the full game releases.
Additionally, Konami has released a new gameplay video featuring producer commentary that provides a first look inside the single-player campaign. The story of Metal Gear Survive picks up from the ending of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Players are pulled through a wormhole and find themselves in a dangerous world filled with biological threats and hostile environments where they must survive and find their way home. Not only will they fight off deadly creatures, but also explore and forage the environment for food, water and other resources to stay alive.
Metal Gear Survive is due out for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam on February 20 in the Americas and February 22 in Europe.
Watch the gameplay video below.Spokesman says decision makes sense because other barriers to military service being removed
The Obama administration is announcing its support for requiring women to register for the military draft. The administration has been deliberating for roughly a year about whether to back such a change to the Selective Service. White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price says that because previous barriers to military service are being removed, it makes logical sense for women to be required to register for the draft. But Price says the Obama administration remains committed to an all-volunteer military. Under current law, women can volunteer to serve in the military but aren't required to register for the draft. All adult men must register. It would take an act of Congress to add women to the Selective Service. The change in position was first reported by USA Today.
The Obama administration is announcing its support for requiring women to register for the military draft.
The administration has been deliberating for roughly a year about whether to back such a change to the Selective Service. White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price says that because previous barriers to military service are being removed, it makes logical sense for women to be required to register for the draft.
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But Price says the Obama administration remains committed to an all-volunteer military.
Under current law, women can volunteer to serve in the military but aren't required to register for the draft. All adult men must register.
It would take an act of Congress to add women to the Selective Service.
The change in position was first reported by USA Today.
AlertMeOriginally Posted by DanAmrich Go to original post Originally Posted by
Hey gang, we are sending out a title update for PS4 and Xbox One, which we have affectionately named Title Update 2. We expect this to start appearing as early as today, but hopefully all PS4 and Xbox One gamers will have it by the end of the week. Your game should automatically download the latest information when it's available in your territory (obviously, this will vary based on which platform and where you live, and when our partners send the data out).
Here's what's new:
PS4
- Improved note detection (should be on par with previous consoles)
- Songs now suggest whether a bass part should be played with a pick or played with fingers.
XBOX ONE
- Improved note detection (should be on par with previous consoles)
- Songs bought as packs should now show up as owned in the Songs list in the in-game Shop.
- Import pack should now be selectable via in-game Shop (but only to users who are also verified owners of the original 2011 Rocksmith).
- Cleaned up a few things in the Shops song titles.
We have heard the various feedback about dodgy note detection, so the team investigated and we think we've made a major improvement in this area. So for those of you who have been experiencing this issue, please let us know what it's like for you post-patch. Thanks.Thousands of militants have given up their weapons under an amnesty
Nigeria's main militant group in the oil-producing Niger delta has described peace talks with President Umaru Yar'Adua as promising.
A spokesman for the Mend group said the meeting signalled the beginning of "serious, meaningful dialogue". The government said it was "fruitful".
Attacks by the militant group in the Delta region cost Nigeria around $1bn (£598m) a month in lost revenue.
A ceasefire was declared three weeks ago to allow talks to go ahead.
President Yar'Adua's spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi said the discussions on Saturday were "frank and fruitful".
Nobel-prize winning Nigerian writer and political activist, Wole Soyinka, also took part in the talks.
Thousands of militants have given up their weapons in an amnesty deal offered by Mr Yar'Adua in June.
In return they have been promised education and jobs.
A three-month respite from the violence has brought back some oil and gas production, but sceptics fear the former fighters could resume violence if they do not quickly find work.
According to Reuters, security experts say some former militants have reverted to their old ways by tapping into oil pipelines and selling it on the international market.Skip to comments.
Trump to Receive First Classified Briefing Tomorrow
ABC News ^ | 8/16 | John Santucci
Posted on by TangledUpInBlue
Trump is planning to take with him New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a former Defense Intelligence Agency director who has become an outspoken supporter of Trump, a senior campaign official said.
Career staffers from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the nation's top intelligence office, will be leading the briefing, which is expected to cover major threats and emerging concerns around the world.
Trump's session comes two days after he laid out a series of foreign policy proposals, including plans for subjecting immigrants to "extreme vetting" and temporarily blocking immigration from "the most dangerous and volatile regions of the world."
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com...
TOPICS:
News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
christie
dni
flynn
trump
Are Christie etal allowed to hear this stuff?
To: TangledUpInBlue
How long has Herself already been receiving the briefings?
by 2 posted onby treetopsandroofs (Had FDR been GOP, there would have been no World Wars, just "The Great War" and "Roosevelt's Wars".)
To: TangledUpInBlue
All depends on their security clearance level. If you are read into a program or a level of secrecy, you’re in.
by 3 posted onby LS ("Castles Made of Sand, Fall in the Sea... Eventually" (Hendrix))
To: TangledUpInBlue
Governors probably have some level of security clearance, as do top campaign advisors - based on “need to know” Ditto with Flynn - who should make sure Trump is not being played by the intel community - which, sadly, has been tarnished by partisanship
by 4 posted onby silverleaf (Age takes a toll: Please have exact change)
To: TangledUpInBlue
Trump will be more likely to attend and pay attention than Hussein ever did.
by 5 posted onby Paladin2 (auto spelchk? BWAhaha2haaa.....I aint't likely fixin' nuttin'. Blame it on the Bossa Nova...)
To: silverleaf
Exactly. Make sure he isn’t being given wrong info, and I wouldn’t put it past this administration to do just that.
To: TangledUpInBlue
Will they teach him how to point out who is holding the nuclear codes?
To: treetopsandroofs
Ask Sidney Blumenthal, her personal national intelligence advisor
by 8 posted onby silverleaf (Age takes a toll: Please have exact change)
To: Paladin2
This is going to be an eye opener for Trump I hope he doesn’t start looking 10 years older as he realizes what he’s getting into
by 9 posted onby silverleaf (Age takes a toll: Please have exact change)
To: TangledUpInBlue
YES.
Read the article.
Avoid the idiot comments.
by 10 posted onby onyx (YOU'RE POSTING HERE, SO DONATE MONTHLY! NOT NICE TO FREEPLOAD!)
To: TangledUpInBlue
I’ve been waiting for this. It will be interesting to see if Trump changes his tune any (i.e. on National Security). He’s been on the money with damn near everything that has been going on without these briefs (I would assume he has his own intel wing) so I will be curious to see how he reacts with what surely must be juicy information we out here in commoner land never hear about. Will he lift the skirt a bit (so to speak) or will he clam up because of some serious friggen intel?
by 11 posted onby Ghost of SVR4 (So many are so hopelessly dependent on the government that they will fight to protect it.)
To: silverleaf
That was my thought as well. Will he come out of the briefing looking hollow-eyed and rattled or even more confident and self-assured?
To: onyx
Read the article.
Avoid the idiot comments. Spoil Sport
To: Oratam
looks like a big clue to a couple of cabinet member nominations.
To: TangledUpInBlue
Look for the false accusations and “news” reports about how Trump revealed classified information tomorrow as well. They all ready started this when the usual subjects thought Trump had all ready received the classified briefing. A few weeks ago they put out these false reports that |
is,” we’ll never change anything. We need to know that even if things are bad in the here and now, we can make positive progress if we put our minds to it. We need to believe that the struggle ahead will be worth it—if not for us, then for whoever picks up the torch. So often, fictional heroes tell us they are fighting for the chance of a better future. I’m biased here, given my own work, but I say actually showing that better future is every bit as important as showing the fight itself. Otherwise, where are you supposed to point your compass? How do you know what you’re fighting for? How do you pick yourself up when you fall down?
Don’t mistake this for ignoring reality, or being willfully ignorant of the challenges at hand. A hopeful story provides the best fuel when the gravity of the real world is well understood. That’s why the need for optimism in fiction extends not only to the big picture, but the small scale, as well. There is value—infinite value—in providing a person who can’t move forward with some active encouragement, or the relief of a pure escape. Optimism is important not just for the future as a whole, but for the individuals heading toward it. Again, a duality comes into play: Acting in the interest of individual need without considering the greater good breeds carelessness and greed. Acting in the interest of the greater good without considering individual need invites tragedy and injustice. You have to work with both considerations in mind. So it matters little whether an optimistic story is intended for the purpose of grand, ambitious change or simply to make a person feel better than they did before they sat down to read (or watch, or play). Those are two sides of the same coin.
History tells us that art is—and has always been—a mirror. It shows us who we are, where we’re at, what’s at stake. But art does more than repackage reality with a fun-house twist. There’s nothing passive about a reflection. If you aim it right, it shines light back. In the times we’re in, there are few things we need more.
Becky Chambers is the author of the award-nominated science fiction novel The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and its stand-alone sequel, A Closed & Common Orbit. She also writes nonfiction essays and short stories, which can be found in various places around the internet. In addition to writing, Becky has a background in performing arts, and grew up in a family heavily involved in space science. Having lived in Scotland and Iceland, she is currently back in her home state of California. She can be found online at otherscribbles.com and @beckysaysrawr.
Collecting original short fiction, essays, reviews, and reprints from diverse and powerful voices in speculative fiction, THE BOOK SMUGGLERS’ QUARTERLY ALMANAC is essential for any SFF fan.
IN THIS VOLUME (JANUARY 2017): BECKY CHAMBERS, SHERRI L. SMITH, A.E. ASH, KATHERINE MACLEAN, NIGEL QUINLAN, ZETTA ELLIOTT, ALLIAH/VIC, KATE C. HALL, NICOLE BRINKLEY, ANA GRILO AND THEA JAMES
How To Procure Your Copy of The Almanac
The Almanac is available now as an ebook and as a Print On Demand paperback! Get your copy by using the links below.
Buy the Book:
Smashwords ¦ Amazon US ¦ Amazon UK
Also! If you want the Almanac sooner rather than later, you can now also subscribe to the Almanac and get each new issue directly to your inbox: Yearly Subscription.
Add the book on Goodreads.The Canadian Press
OTTAWA -- Transport Minister Marc Garneau says he has mixed feelings about Bombardier Inc.'s announcement of 7,000 job cuts, along with a deal to sell planes to Air Canada.
The minister sang the praises of the Bombardier's new aircraft, but he did not immediately commit to helping the troubled company out of its financial difficulties.
Rather, he said the federal government wants Canada to maintain its competitive position in the global aerospace market.
Bombardier announced Wednesday it will cut 7,000 people from its global workforce, including 2,830 in Canada.
But at the same time, the aerospace manufacturer said it had a big new order from Air Canada to buy 45 CSeries 300 planes, with an option to buy up to 30 more.
Garneau said the federal government did not pressure Air Canada to buy the planes.
The federal government has been reviewing a request from Bombardier for financial aid to deal with the CSeries, the company's new generation of commercial aircraft.
Bombardier repeated its request for federal aid on Wednesday.
Garneau said the government continues to ponder the request from Bombardier and that any federal investment would need to be made for solid reasons.
The Quebec government has already announced a $1-billion injection, but has made it clear that it expects Ottawa to match its investment.
The federal government is widely expected to show its intentions in its first budget in late March.Matthew Riese, a 26-year-old grad student, is hand-building what every kid in 1985 desperately wanted — a hovering DeLorean just like in the movie Back to the Future. Now he needs your help.
Riese started building the hovercraft in his spare time two years ago, following the same childhood dream pretty much anyone in their late twenties has, to be just like Doc Brown an drive a flying DeLorean. Well, DeLorean's aren't shaped in a way to develop significant aerodynamic lift and we haven't developed anti-gravity flight yet, an the only flying car out there, the Terrafugia, looks dorky at best, so a hovercraft DeLorean will have to do. Riese has finished what he calls a "rough draft" and is now looking to refine and finish the car. Unfortunately he's out of money and he's looking for some help.
Some of the thing he's selling include goofy stuff like pictures of the car and drawings he's done, but others are really cool. Local band music from his friends, magnetically reactive fluid and rides in the DeLorean when it's finished. He's set a donation deadline of July 20th, which is coming up faster than we'd like, so if you want to see this crazy dreamer build something we've all dreamed of since the 80's (no matter how hokey the interpretation) head over to his Delorean's Kickstarter Donation Page donation page and chip in. We did. Oh, and tell him Jalopnik sent you!
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(Hat tip to Joe!)Stats & Bots have made a full comprehensive list of business software apps that provide easy access to Stripe analytics.
Baremetrics
Baremetrics pricing starts at $50/mo depending on your MRR amount.
A free trial is available.
Baremetrics tracks Stripe metrics such as monthly recurring revenue, average revenue per user, growth rate, lifetime value, churn rate, net revenues, annual run rate, failed charges, refunds, and more.
Baremetrics also offers forecasts into the future based on your current metrics, cohort analysis, MRR movement tracking, and allows you to compare customers’ plans.
Explore more.
ChartMogul
ChartMogul pricing starts at $99/mo depending on the number of paying customers.
A free trial is available.
This Stripe analytics software shows metrics like MRR, Churn Rate, LTV, ARPA, and Cohort Analysis. Geo mapping feature allows viewing global heat maps of countries with most customers, most revenue generation, lowest churn rates, and highest incidences of fraud.
You can filter and save custom user segments to answer questions like “What’s the LTV per marketing channel?” or “How much MRR is each sales rep contributing?”
Explore more.
Statsbot
Statsbot pricing starts at $49/mo depending on a number of users.
A free trial is available.
Statsbot sends your key financial metrics such as MRR, ARR, active customers, revenue right into your existing Slack channels. You can get these metrics through their web application or the advanced Slack integration.
If you create #analytics channel in Slack, everyone in the team can then see Statsbot’s reports regarding your company’s goals.
Users can request a summary of these metrics and then save it to Statsbot’s Dashboard in order to keep an eye on revenue. They can also set up a goal for Stripe metrics and get smart predictions to stay on track with cash flow.
Explore more.
First Officer
First Officer pricing starts at $29/mo depending on a number of customers.
A free trial is available.
First Officer shows all key SaaS metrics, like MRR, ARPU, Churn Rates, CLTV, Cohort Retention. You can also compare performance between plans or time periods.
This analytics software provides cohort retention charts to see if your customer onboarding is improving. Users also can get weekly reports on their most important metrics.
Explore more.
Control
Control pricing starts at $19/mo depending on a number of API calls to the platform.
A free trial is available.
Control gives information about MRR, new customers, churn users, ARPU, LTV and other important Stripe metrics as long as previous business software. It also sends real-time transaction alerts in the mobile app.
You can compare your growth over time and identify cohorts, sort and filter customers by different values, and use geo mapping feature. Control also supports PayPal and Square, offering a true omni-channel experience. In addition, Control offers two unique dashboards — Commerce and SaaS — so users can focus on the metrics that matter most to their business.
Explore more.
GetMetrics
GetMetrics pricing starts at $25/mo.
A free trial is available.
GetMetrics provides financial metrics like net revenue, refunds, fees, new customers and subscription metrics like MRR, ARR, new and lost subscribers, etc.
GetMetrics also sends out email notifications for Stripe events such as payments, failed payments, subscriptions, and others.
Explore more.
NextMetrics
NextMetrics pricing starts at $20/mo depending on a number of customers.
A free trial is available.
NextMetrics tracks your most critical Stripe metrics and sends notifications of key business activities, as well as daily, weekly or monthly reports (if you wish, of course).
NextMetrics can compare your current values to data from weeks, months, even years ago. With Next Metrics you can predict your future data using regression calculations or other forecasting methods.
Explore more.
Treasure Data
For Treasure Data pricing, you will need to request a custom quote for your business.
Treasure Data brings in Stripe data to calculate Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) trends, average revenue per user (ARPU), churn trends and more metrics.
With this Stripe analytics tool, you can compare customer plans to find out which plan has the highest rate of growth and the least churn. Get full SQL query access to your raw data, as well as support for a variety of visualization tools. You can also combine your Stripe data with Facebook Ads and CRM data.
Explore more.
Neatly
Neatly is free for everyone. It was built by the development agency to help their clients use their data.
Stripe metrics which are available with Neatly: balance available, balance pending, total new customers, total new subscriptions, total fees, total charges, total refunds, and total invoices.
You can export or schedule your Stripe reports by PDF and get reports delivered to your inbox on a weekly or monthly basis. This tool allows you to manage multiple companies and invite team members from each to access the Stripe account they need.
Explore more.
Woopra
Woopra pricing starts at $79/mo depending on a number of actions per month, such as page views, downloads, and any other custom events you configure.
A free trial is available.
Woopra tracks your Stripe events in real time and notifies on important customer activity. You can schedule any kind of analytical report, including retention and funnel reports.
Woopra fills customer profiles and can automatically send the list of customers who fit certain criteria.
Explore more.
MRR.io
MRR.io pricing starts at $0/mo for a limited version.
A free trial for Pro plan is available.
MRR.io supports all Stripe metrics which business usually tracks, including cohort analysis. It also forecasts the behavior of data and allows to integrate multiple data sources.
Explore more.
ProfitWell
ProfitWell is a free tool.
ProfitWell shows MRR, LTV, customers, ARPU, revenue retention, MRR churn, and delinquent churn. Cohort reports help to visualize how revenue and customers stay over time.
With ProfitWell, you get a snapshot of monthly and annual subscription breakdowns, and detailed tabular data.
Explore more.
HookFeed
HookFeed pricing starts at $49/mo depending on a number of paying customers.
A free trial is available.
Now HookFeed tracks a limited number of Stripe metrics: MRR, ARR, LTV, net revenue, churn cohort analysis, and trial conversion cohorts.
This business software filters & sorts customers based on different data points. It also automatically moves customers through your funnel in real-time based on changes in Stripe.
Explore more.
Quintu
Quintu costs $39 in a one-time purchase; it’s not priced as a subscription.
With Quintu, you can view your Stripe sales data and Stripe subscription metrics. It also offers event notifications when something important happens.
Quintu is a desktop application, which runs in your Windows system tray and in your Mac menu bar, allowing you to see as much information as you want.
Explore more.
DataHero
DataHero pricing starts at $0/mo for a limited version.
A free trial for Premium plan is available.
DataHero supports importing these reports: charges, invoices, customers, balance history, customers and charges, customers and subscriptions, and customers and invoices. These reports include the most critical SaaS metrics.
You can start with a suggested chart or create your own with drag-and-drop chart creation.
Among other visualizations, you can:
1. Segment and analyze your revenue by subscription plan, against discounts, or another metric
2. Graph your customer growth over time
3. Build a cohort analysis.
Explore more.I spend too much of my waking life staring at screens. If you're reading this, you probably do, too. So instead of putting things on or in front of our imperfect eyeballs to correct and protect them, how about rethinking the screens we're staring at? Researchers at Berkeley, MIT, and Microsoft have developed a prototype that could one day make glasses or contacts obsolete—at least when you're looking at your phone or computer.
In essence, the idea is to anticipate how your glasses-dependent eyeballs will distort light, applying the reverse distortion before it actually reaches your eyes. The setup has two parts. The first is an algorithm that warps the image customized to your specific prescription. The screen is then overlaid with a clear, plastic filter pierced with thousands of tiny holes, which controls the light to create a crisper image.
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That's how it works in theory. The researchers, who will present their research at the computer graphics conference SIGGRAPH in August, made a prototype using an iPod Touch and a screen cover made of acrylic. As Rachel Metz at MIT Technology Review points out, there are still some kinks to work out, like how you have to keep your head a fixed distance away to see clearly.
But as someone with terrible eyesight who does the absurd thing of checking email with my phone three inches from my face every morning in bed, the idea of corrective screens is tantalizing. The technology is also good for less absurd uses, such as correcting vision defects like spherical aberration that traditional glasses can't fix well. Here's to a future with less squinting. [MIT Tech Review]In the past, Linux was not overly blessed with decent budgeting software, and installing GnuCash was regarded by many as the epitome of a descent into dependency hell.
Thankfully, things have since changed, and anyone using a modern distribution could now have the software ready to go in just a few minutes.
This kind of software is all about the data; getting it in, getting it out and doing useful things with it. In terms of getting data into the package, there are three things we need. We want software that makes it easy to add items to the spending side because you'll be less likely to update your ledger if doing so proves annoyingly difficult.
We want filters that will import transaction data downloaded from our bank account and allow easy reconciliation between local and remote records. Finally, we want to be able to set up periodic transactions that can be added to the ledger at certain points each month to deal with things such as mortgage payments.
Remember that, while the price of shares and property can go down as well as up, the cost of most of these packages will always be £0.
1. GnuCash
GnuCash is the rich great uncle of the other software on test here, having been around almost as long as Linux itself. In the early days, installing GnuCash was painful, and the final application looked like it was designed for accountants. Fortunately things have evolved since then and the application now has a user-friendly sheen. The old friend is still there under the hood, but there have been numerous additions that make running a basic accounting system a more pleasant experience.
One thing about GnuCash that used to put us off was the arcane double-entry system that gave the software much of its power. This has been augmented with a selection of more basic account types, which are offered on the first run of the software. However, for the most simple system – based on our downloaded data – we found it easy to begin with a blank slate and then create a single account based on the Bank or Cash option and use this to house our data. Using this method, we were up and running within a few minutes of installing the software.
Importing the OFX data from the bank worked well, with the automated druid (a wizard by any other name) giving us the option of viewing the data before it was imported. This would be more useful if we could enable or disable individual entries, but this screen is not dynamic. The Register window itself is very tidy, with a range of icons across the top and transactions arranged chronologically.
You can add new transactions by clicking in the empty space at the bottom of the register. Today's date is added automatically, and you can tab between sections, adding detail. Reconciling downloaded transactions with your own records is equally simple; just find the transaction in question and hit the reconciliation column entry for it. As you move to the next transaction, you'll be prompted to record the change. This can get a little tedious, so the dialog box has a pair of options to either not display the request again, or just remove it for the current session. This was a useful addition because it provides a visual cue that you're changing data (and is especially important when you realise there's no Undo option).
Volume reconciliation is also available. This is where, after entering a large number of transactions manually (ie adding entries over a week) or using scheduled transactions, you can check them against a downloaded statement for the same period and mark off matching entries. Bulk reconciliation is a great way to pick up on anomalous transactions. Automated reconciliation can be useful, but it could mean mistakes or nefarious activity go unnoticed for longer than necessary.CHICAGO, IL - AUGUST 29: Jay Cutler of the Chicago Bears of the Cleveland Browns at Soldier Field on August 29, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. The Browns defeated the Bears 18-16. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) Jay Cutler. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
By Adam Hoge-
HALAS HALL (CBS) — Jay Cutler practiced Thursday and will be the Bears’ starting quarterback for Sunday’s game against the Browns, head coach Marc Trestman confirmed.
During individual drills, which were open to the media, Cutler took the first quarterback reps and showed no signs of being limited by his left ankle injury. He was fluid in his drops, moved around with ease and had no trouble putting weight on his left leg when following through. Last week, when Cutler was practicing on a limited basis, Josh McCown took the first quarterback reps during individual drills.
Thursday was Cutler’s first full practice since suffering the high ankle sprain Nov. 10 against the Lions.
Cutler went through a full-speed workout Wednesday at Halas Hall, passing his final test to take back his starting job from Josh McCown, who was named NFC Offensive Player Of The Week after throwing for 348 yards and accounting for five touchdowns against the Cowboys Monday night.
Thursday was the Bears’ first practice since beating Dallas and Trestman wanted his starter taking all the reps with the No. 1 unit. Cutler was cleared just in time to go full-speed in practice and take those reps.
Meanwhile, Bears linebacker Lance Briggs wore a helmet and participated in individual drills for the first time since fracturing his shoulder Oct. 20 against the Redskins. He was limited in practice and Trestman is not optimistic the linebacker will be able to play Sunday.
Adam Hoge covers the Bears for CBSChicago.com and is a frequent contributor to 670 The Score. Follow him on Twitter at @AdamHoge.Many hours have been lost this winter writing (and deliberately not writing) about who deserves to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and why everyone else is wrong about that. One contentious point: Shouldn't amphetamines—or "greenies"—which were widely used in the majors for decades before modern steroids became prevalent, be classified as "performance-enhancing drugs"? If so, shouldn't we penalize players that came to prominence during the pre-steroids era? When should the guilt-by-association end?
Never! The era of performance-enhancing drugs dates back to 1889 at least, when James "Pud" Galvin got on the magical elixir train ("I know I'm going to get rich with this scheme! And quick!") by mixing his drinks with dried monkey testosterone, distilled from, where else, monkey testicles. Galvin pitched for 15 years in the major leagues (2.85 ERA) and averaged 400 innings pitched per season: At 32, he needed a little juice to keep it going. That's where, as Dan Lewis points out, Charles Edward Brown-Sequard's monkey testicle potion comes in. From an 1889 New York Times article on the phenomenon, then sweeping the nation:
Dr. Loomis calls his report "an experimental study of the Brown-Sequard theory." He says that the elixir has found good supporters in approved schools of medicine. His conclusions from experiments are that the fluid is potent to increase the strength of the human organism, presumably in old men, not by structural change, but by nutritive modification; that the alterations in muscular structure not essentially allied to old age may disappear, and a consequent recovery of former power by the tissues may supervene, and that finally the subject is worthy of further investigations.
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Further investigations were undertaken; Dr. Loomis was wrong that the Brown-Sequard elixir had any positive effect. Nevertheless, Galvin was a known and admitted juicer, introuducing foreign hormones into his body in the hope of reducing his recovery time and extending his career—the Washington Post even cited his performance as evidence of the power of Brown-Sequard's monkey nut powder.
Galvin was elected into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Commttee in 1965, forever tainting that august hall and ruining the mystique of baseball. Next time you visit Cooperstown, find Pud Galvin's plaque and spit on it, for us.
h/t Same Sad Echo, pic via
Monkey Business [Now I Know]THE world is gradually moving away from capital punishment. At the end of 2014, 98 countries had abolished the death penalty, compared with 59 countries in 1995. The number of countries carrying out executions has halved. Last year at least 607 people were executed in 22 countries, 22% fewer than in 2013, according to Amnesty International, a human-rights organisation. In America, one of only two rich countries alongside Japan to practice the death penalty, fewer executions were carried out in 2014 than in recent years. Yet the true global picture is unknown because thousands of people are believed to be executed in China each year, where official figures are considered a state secret. International law requires that capital punishment be reserved for the "most serious" crimes, such as murder. This is routinely ignored. In China alone there are 55 capital crimes, including economic crimes such as corruption (which account for 15% of executions, reckons Amnesty) and drug offences (8%). The war on drugs is enthusiastically waged in many countries. Half of all executions in Iran and Saudi Arabia are for such crimes. Indonesia has reinstated the death penalty for a raft of drug crimes, declaring a “national emergency”. It had not executed anyone in 2014; six people were put to death in January this year.
The prosecution of terrorism is also expanding. In Iraq, nearly all executions were for terrorism. In addition to Cameroon and the United Arab Emirates, which extended capital punishment to terrorist-related offences, Pakistan reversed a moratorium on the death penalty for civilians in December of 2014, following the Peshawar school massacre. Though initially applied solely to terrorist charges, the sentence was expanded to include all charges and 8,200 death row prisoners, or half the global total, on March 10th. Since the moratorium was lifted, 64 people have been executed in Pakistan—more than in Iraq during the whole of 2014.For those in the know about human biodiversity, it comes as no surprise that multi-racial states lead to societal decay. As Robert Putnam has demonstrated, the more racially diverse a neighborhood or organization is, the lower the social trust. (For a more expanded reading list on this theme, see here.)
Add blacks into the equation (who have low average IQs and low impulse control), the situation becomes even worse. Blacks have been told their entire lives that all their failures are due to some mysterious white magic called white racism, so now they angrily attribute all their failings to this magic. The #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) movement illustrates this truth.
People on Twitter have been taking screen shots of various BLM activists, which run the usual litany of anti-white hatred. Here they are:
(The above tweet is allegedly from BLM organizer at Howard University)
And it’s not just blacks in the USA. Here are some other Tweets.
Here’s one from a Hindu Indian woman in the UK:
Here’s one from an Asian:
From an African in France:
From an Arab at Arizona State:
Updates:
Here is a collage that someone on Twitter made from the above tweets:President Donald Trump takes the oath of office as his wife Melania Trump holds the Bible and Barron Trump watches on Jan. 20. Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
On his eighth day as president of the United States, Donald Trump invited FBI Director James Comey to have dinner at the White House. After some small talk about the size of the crowd at his inauguration (huge, he insisted), Trump demanded a personal pledge of loyalty. As Comey later testified, “the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.”
In keeping with his constitutional duties, Comey demurred. Less than four months later, the president fired him.
Trump’s demand of loyalty, and Comey’s refusal to grant it, calls attention to a delicate balancing act on which the survival of democracy has always depended. Elected leaders need to be able to impose the will of their constituents on the military and the civil service. If generals refuse to obey civilian commands that run counter to their interests, or if unelected public employees refuse to carry out policies with which they happen to disagree, elections become meaningless. The people may be free to vote for their preferred candidate every few years but are unable to make their preferences count.
But it is just as dangerous for soldiers and civil servants to obey their elected masters blindly. If a president can command the military and the civil service to break the law, there’s nothing to stop him from arresting his critics or falsifying an election. Even a president who has been democratically elected would then be in danger of overriding the will of the people once he falls out of favor.
This is precisely why the Founding Fathers insisted that the primary duty of American citizens should be to a set of ideas and institutions, not to a particular person. And so any immigrant who wishes to become a U.S. citizen, any soldier who wishes to enlist in the military and any civil servant or political appointee who wishes to take up office must, to this day, swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” It is this fundamental tradition that Trump—acting more like an Old World monarch who is used to demanding fealty from his subjects—was attacking when he asked Comey to pledge his personal loyalty.
As Ian Bassin, a former White House lawyer and the founding director of Protect Democracy, told me, “The understanding in our society is that certain institutions are expected to be independent of any administration’s partisan or personal preferences. And we’re at a moment right now where this independence is being challenged—not just in individual cases like the Comey firing, but as a concept. So maintaining that we in America believe in the importance of that independence is one of the key challenges we face right now.”
To that end, Bassin’s group, a nonprofit that has been playing an increasingly important role in the fight to defend basic democratic norms over the past year, has recently launched a project that is as simple as it is powerful: #UpholdTheOath invites more than 2 million public servants in the United States to take and share a simple video of themselves reciting their oath of office—thereby reaffirming that, as intended by the Founding Fathers, their overriding loyalty is to the Constitution and not to any one political leader.
Over the past months, reporting on low morale at federal agencies including the State Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have shown just how desolate the situation has become since the start of the year. So part of the project’s purpose is simply to build community and boost morale. At a time when the general public rarely acknowledges the importance of their work and the president regularly denigrates their integrity, many public servants are cherishing the opportunity to express pride in their work. As Steve Lenkart, CEO of Government Executives International, one of more than a half-dozen nonprofits and federal-employee unions and associations supporting the project, told me, “This is a great, spontaneous way for federal employees to celebrate what they’re doing to serve their country.”
And yet, it is clear that the project will be perceived as a little more pointed than that. One of its early backers, for example, is Khizr Khan, the lawyer who spoke so movingly about his son and his own commitment to the Constitution at last year’s Democratic National Convention. “Twice in my life, I have lived under martial law,” Khan, an immigrant from Pakistan, told me. “Now, it’s clear that the rule of law is under attack here in the United States. Anybody who benefits from constitutional values must stand up and do their part.”
Public servants, as Khan sees it, are an important and frequently neglected actor in that fight, “Bureaucrats are an essential part of a functioning democracy. … This oath can be a reminder to themselves, and to others, that they stand in defense of the constitutional values they have sworn to serve.”
Khan sees the danger to the American republic as acute. And yet he ultimately believes that the American people will be able to fend off the current attack on the rule of law: “A majority of Americans are in favor of democracy, rule of law, and basic fairness. This is what the public servants taking this oath are recommitting themselves to.”
It is unfortunate that, as Khan’s comments make clear, any attempt to stand up for the neutrality of state institutions will by highly contentious at a time when the president is regularly attacking civil servants as disloyal or traitorous. But that makes it all the more important for defenders of the Constitution to insist that a contentious act need not be a partisan one.
A partisan act would be for civil servants, in their official capacity, to oppose policies of the Trump administration of which they happen to disapprove. Even liberals should be horrified by such behavior: For once civil servants feel emboldened to act on their partisan preferences, no elected politician would be able to enact his or her political program. One need only recall the case of Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue licenses for same-sex marriages in 2015, to realize that democracy could be seriously impaired if civil servants were empowered to override decisions taken by courts and parliaments.
By contrast, civil servants who recommit themselves to basic democratic principles in the face of concerted attacks on their independence are taking a bold public stance in the best sense. Even conservatives should applaud the courage to do so: For once civil servants become willing to do the president’s bidding even when his commands violate the Constitution, any elected politician would gain the power to turn himself into a tyrant. This, too, would seriously endanger democracy.
This is why Bassin, the organizer of this initiative, is right to insist that the initiative can make an important contribution without violating the neutrality to which public servants rightly commit themselves. Faced with a president who is prone to demanding personal loyalty from them, Bassin explains, “It’s all the more important for civil servants to show that their ultimate loyalty is to the Constitution. When they are put in a difficult position, it helps to know that there are thousands of colleagues standing shoulder to shoulder with them. Celebrating people for reaffirming this oath is not a partisan act—it’s a patriotic act.”This is from an excellent article from Bloomberg:
A chronically depressed economy, rising unemployment and an aversion to free-market reforms. Sound like a familiar European tale?
But it’s not Greece, Spain or Portugal. It’s Finland.
As the indebted and ailing countries in the euro region’s southern rim struggle out of their six-year crisis, some with more success than others, Finland is succumbing to its own.
Its economy, which has contracted every year since 2012, was the worst performer in the common-currency area in the first three quarters of 2015, according to Eurostat data. Its deficit is relatively higher than Italy’s, despite being ranked fourth in the European Union in terms of how much taxes and social charges it demands from its citizens, and its unemployment rate exceeds those of its Nordic neighbors. The latest data published Wednesday by Statistics Finland showed the jobless rate rising to 9.2 percent in December, the highest level since June 2015.
I have written a lot about Finland (see for example here, here, here and here). It is really a textbook example of how to drag out a recession – no currency flexibility and too tight monetary policy (euro membership), extremely rigid nominal wages (collective bargaining and overly generous welfare benefits) and quite a bit of bad luck (Russian recession and negative terms-of-trade shocks – primarily in the pulp and paper industry). And of course the demise of Nokia…Moments after Hortencia Peterson heard from a Brooklyn jury that the killer of her nephew, Akai Gurley, had been found guilty of second-degree manslaughter and official misconduct, she felt that something miraculous had happened: a cop had been convicted in New York City for the killing of an unarmed black man.
For weeks, she believed that justice had been served, and that Peter Liang, the rookie cop who had accidentally fired the shot that ricocheted off a public housing stairwell wall and tore though Gurley’s heart, would be facing up to 15 years at his sentencing, scheduled for April 14th.
“I was feeling very happy that we were going to have a sentencing,” Peterson told Gothamist. “I thought we had come so far, gone through the trial, and actually found justice on the other side.”
But on March 22nd, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, which had expended significant resources as well as political capital in pursuing a guilty conviction for Liang, announced that they would not be seeking any prison time at Liang’s sentencing on April 14th.
Instead, as DA Ken Thompson’s letter recommended to Judge Danny Chun, they would be satisfied with probation and six months of home confinement. For Peterson, as well as Gurley’s mother, this was devastating.
“It was a slap in the face, and since then, my sister hasn’t been able to sleep,” Peterson said. “They’re saying that it’s okay to murder someone because they’re a police officer.”
In New York City, it’s highly unlikely for a judge to deviate from a prosecutor’s recommendation, according to Steve Zeidman, Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at CUNY Law School.
“If the prosecutor is not seeking jail or prison time then it is very rare for a judge to sentence someone to jail or prison,” Zeidman told Gothamist. “This case is very different given the context of a police officer killing an unarmed black man and the attendant media attention, but the question is whether that is sufficient reason for the judge to go down the seldom used path of overriding the prosecutor's sentence recommendation.”
When District Attorney Ken Thompson was running for office in 2013, he told Gothamist that “the most important thing I’m going to do as District Attorney, is have one standard of justice for everyone in Brooklyn.”
The previous District Attorney, Joe Hynes, had often failed to bring charges against police officers who had engaged in misconduct. A similar incident in 2004, where a police officer had shot a man on a public housing rooftop, resulted in no criminal charges. From the days immediately following the Gurley shooting however, Thompson vigorously pursued a guilty verdict against Liang.
“I believe it was a political calculation by Thompson to get the verdict he wanted and then make a recommendation for no jail time,” says Robert Gangi of the Police Reform Organizing Project. “District Attorney, by its very nature, is a political office.”
Thompson's sentencing recommendation comes in the midst of a movement (backed by Governor Cuomo) for independent prosecutors when dealing with police shootings.
In his recommendation for Liang, Thompson admits to the special privileges that are bestowed on police officers, writing, “The People recognize that there are mitigating circumstances in this case. The defendant chose to become a police officer, and to put his own life on the line, because he wanted to protect the public.”
To organizations committed to the prosecution of police misconduct, this certainly seemed like a double standard, where a police officer was being given consideration another defendant wouldn’t be.
“The DA’s decision sends the message across the country that officers can continue to kill without being held accountable,” said Cathy Deng, the Executive Director of CAAAV, an organization that has supported the Gurley family throughout the trial. “I know this case is uniquely different from a lot of |
digs deep, seeing flashes of Charlie’s drowning, Penny and baby Charlie.Freaked out, he flees, looking for Charlie – and some damned answers. Just then, Charlie runs out in a hospital gown, looking for an exit. He blows by Dr. Jack Shephard, interrupting his nicety-laden reunion with Desmond. Desmond chases him down and asks to see his hands, before demanding to know who Penny is. At that point, Charlie knows, Desmond has “crossed over.” He “felt it,” and Charlie can finally explain to Desmond what he’s been trying to tell him all along, that, “This doesn’t matter, none of this matters. All that matters is that we felt it…if I were you, I’d stop worrying about me, and start looking for Penny.” Translation: stop worrying about pleasing your boss, or making money. Go find love.Desmond goes to break the Driveshaft news to Widmore’s wife, explaining that the rock gods won’t be able to attend her son’s Super Sweet Thirty-Three Party. There’s something off about that whole first meeting. Eloise seems to be playing along, but even drops the winking line, “It’s a travesty we haven’t met before. It’s about time.”It’s not until Desmond hears the name “Penny” being read off a guest list that Eloise is forced to snap into action. She pulls Desmond aside, and breaks out of her Miss Manners demeanor. And for just a second, she stopped pretending she didn’t know more than she did. “I want you to stop. Someone has clearly affected the way you see things. This is a serious problem. It is, in fact, a violation. So whatever you’re doing, whatever it is you think you’re looking for, you need to stop looking for it.”Whew. If you thought Eloise knew more than she was letting on at first, that line proved it. How did she know how Desmond “sees things,” and that he was being “affected.” She just met him! And what in the hell was his new way of thinking a “violation” of?I’m not sure, but I do know that Eloise lost her cool. She is fully aware of what people like Charlie are “feeling,” and apparently sees Desmond's realization of that feeling as dangerous. He asks to see the list again, to which she coldly replies that he’s “not ready yet,” and walks away.So what is Eloise Widmore protecting, or hiding? Why doesn’t she want Desmond to keep looking for meaning in his life? Why is she insistent on his being content with his shallow life? I’m not sure. Maggie theorized that she’s trying to keep that timeline in tact, because in it, her son is still alive. Maybe. I hope we’ll find out. I love Eloise’s cold, informed, controlling demeanor. She’s the anti-Jacob, using intimidation, fear and direct contact to lead people down fate’s path. Hey, maybe she’s working for the Man in Black! Or not.Before Desmond can flee that very awkward scene, he’s interrupted by ivory-tickling prodigy, Daniel Faraday, err, Widmore. In this reality, Daniel was allowed by his mother to pursue his passion for music.. And wear stupid hats.Daniel abruptly asks Desmond if he believes in love at first sight, then recounts a moment a few weeks earlier where he saw a red-headed woman at a museum who, “As soon as I saw her, right in that moment, it was like I already loved her. And that’s when things got weird.” Obviously, Daniel is talking about Charlotte. But what’s more interesting – okay, anything’s more interesting than Charlotte – is what happened later that night, when Faraday sleepily scrawled a complex physics equation in his moleskin notebook, one that could only be written by someone who had studied the field their entire life.And it’s here we learn that musician Daniel is just as bright as physicist Daniel. He’s been putting two and two together, and he realizes that the only way he could channel a lifetime of physics knowledge is to havea lifetime of physics knowledge. The more his mind wades in that pool, the more he starts recalling, including some little tidbit about a hydrogen bomb. And as he so brilliantly crystallizes it for Desmond, “What if all this wasn’t supposed to be our life? What if we had some other life, and for some reason, we changed things. I don’t want to set off a nuclear bomb, Mr. Hume. I think I already did.”This was the scene of the night for me. It’s the first time the alternate realities have been elevated to a level of real importance, and it even drew on the lessons of “changing things,” vs. “whatever happened, happened,” that were explored in the time travel episodes. It would seem that time travel was, in a way, just a device being used to make our characters think about what they would change about their lives if they could. That’s the quandary that was posed to Desmond last night – that maybe there was a version of himself that had found true happiness with some woman named Penny. And that the choices he had made in his life – or that someone else had made in theirs regarding the use of hydrogen bombs – had altered that life path, and sent him down a non-ideal course.Suddenly, Desmond was faced with the notion that his best life was out there, waiting to be lived. The notion was simultaneously uplifting and unsettling. But ultimately, Desmond knew that if there was a better life out there for him, it started with Penny. And luckily for him, the guy sitting next to him knew just where to find her. “She’s my half-sister,” Daniel conveniently revealed. And it was off to the (stair) races.Desmond finds Penny running the same stairs where he met Jack, and he stops her to introduce himself. I’m pretty sure if I met Sonya Walger, I’d faint. And whaddya know, so did Desmond.Desmond wakes back up in the electromagnetic mystery box, feeling happy, healthy and surprisingly compliant. “You told me you brought me here to the Island to do something very important. When do we start?” He starts with Zoe, trekking back to the Hydra Station, before being interrupted by Sayid, who knocks out his entourage and tells Desmond he needs to come with him and get away from these “dangerous” people. Desmond, still super-compliant, tells Sayid to lead the way.If alternate-reality Desmond needed to faint in order to wake up his on-Island counterpart, he didn’t need tounconscious. While on-Island Desmond happily, inexplicably followed Widmore, then Zoe, then Sayid wherever they were going, alternate-Desmond woke up. Both Desmonds, operating simultaneously. How does that happen? I’d argue that on-Island Desmond was something of an empty vessel. He seemed to be floating through the whole turn of events, from waking up to following Sayid. Perhaps it was because the events of his alternate reality storyline demanded the full attention of his consciousness.Desmond awoke in the stadium, with Penny hovering over him. Again, this man. I want to be this man. He regains his cool, and being the cheeky bastard he is, asks her out for coffee. She obliges, and they agree to meet up in an hour.New, happy, lovestruck Desmond ambles back to the limo, full of new, strange feelings and something resembling a purpose. And it appeared he was carrying something else – his first real, genuine understanding of his multiple existences. Like Charlie before him, Desmond wanted to spread the word. So he asked Minkowski to get him a manifest of the passengers on 815. Why? “I just need to show them something.”And scene. So what the hell just happened?I think what just happened is Desmond learned what the hell is going on in LOST.I think he pieced together the ramblings of Charlie and Daniel with his own flashes, and he’s finally seeing the picture on the front of the puzzle box, as he once called it.Desmond gleaned from Daniel that there were possible alternate versions of ourselves that could be explored. And he learned from Charlie that those alternate selves were potentially enormous improvements on our current selves. And so, he’s off to find the Oceanic 815ers and free their minds – and the rest will follow. By the way, that doesn't necessarily mean that our characters have to "jump in" to an ideal version of himself. That's not what Desmond did - he's finding Penny in an entirely different way than he did originally, and eight years later, too. On the contrary, I think Desmond's message will be one of continual self-improvement, of always being on the lookout for opportunities for betterment, of not being content with shallow fulfillment.But what does that mean for Widmore, Flocke, Jacob and the Man in Black? Yeah, did you forget about them during last night’s episode? I did. It was almost an entirely different show. How does Desmond’s quest to give all his Oceanic 815 mates their own “happily ever after” impact the “war,” the “release of evil,” and the age-old battle of free will vs. predestination being waged by Jacob and his nemesis?Last night’s brief Island scene at the end didn’t do much to answer those questions. We saw Desmond willingly join up with Widmore, then just as willingly ditch Widmore’s crew to follow Sayid back to the Man in Black. I’d wager that the end-goal is still to contain MIB to the Island, preventing his contamination of the outside world and ensuring that everything that everybody loves doesn’t “cease to exist,” as Widmore put it. But how does Desmond’s mission impact that?I think it might have something to do with Jacob and the MIB’s candidates. While we know little about these two and their “game,” it does seem that they require willing, able-bodied subjects to help them along their way. Jacob has a lighthouse wheel full of candidates to replace him. MIB has assumed the body of a mortal, while claiming the souls of a few others, all of which he deems necessary for his escape plan.But Desmond’s plan seems to transcend that game. It's as if he's out to overstep that eons-old squabble between these two mystic entities. MIB and Jacob be damned, Desmond just wants people to self-actualize and find their path in life.Here’s the catch, though. By doing that, Desmond helps Jacob win. Jacob would prove – through Desmond – that mankind, despite its corruptibility and potential for evil, is capable of doing the right thing. When presented with the potential for meaningful happiness, true love and real purpose, mankind will choose to pursue that life. They’ll do what they need to do to secure that for themselves and the people they love. Maggie and I both realized, at the end of this episode, that we haven’t really seen any of our alternate reality characters experience any kind of true love (even Jin and Sun were just dipping their pins in company ink; not quite in love yet). Maybe a world devoid of true love is the world into which the Man in Black can escape – cheesy, I know. But if Desmond can convince Jack that there’s more than being a good surgeon; or Kate that there’s some things not worth running away from; or Locke that physical limitations do not a weak spirit make; if Desmond can steer these people towards lives of meaning and substantive love, then Jacob might win his argument.And to that unintelligible paragraph of sappy what-ifs, I’ll add this one. Maybe Widmore knows that Desmond is the only one who can consciously transcend and comprehend the alternate versions of himself. He knows that it’s up to Desmond to create a world that the Man in Black can’t escape to. So he brought him to the Island, pumped him full of electromagnetism, and let his mind wander to different times and places until he could grasp, for himself, the idea that the Man in Black’s cynical worldview could be contained by free-willed, self-actualizing optimism.Widmore said Desmond was the x-factor that could prevent the release of MIB. Is this mission of betterment the manor in which Widmore saw that happening? Is Desmond, the insignificant speck on Widmore’s radar for all his life, actually the cork the Island needs and the fulfillment of Widmore’s eternal promise to protect the Island? I think it could be. And if you buy that, maybe you’ll buy this: Desmond’s “sacrifice” will be to stay on the Island forever, replacing Jacob as the protector of the power of free will –and the enduring spirit of optimism.Namaste.CharlieBabies who are exposed to animal dander, roach allergens, and household germs during their first year appear to have lower allergy and asthma risk, a new study shows.
You’re probably familiar with the hygiene hypothesis: Children who grow up in germ-free, too-clean environments develop hypersensitive immune systems. Previous work has shown that children growing up on farms, with regular exposure to microbes in soil, have lower allergy and asthma rates. Other studies, however, found increased risk among inner-city children who are exposed to high levels of roach and mouse allergens. So, what gives?
The Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma study examined a birth cohort of 560 children at high risk for asthma in Baltimore, Boston, New York, and St. Louis over three years. They measured allergen exposure and the bacterial content of house dust, and they monitored the infants for allergies and wheezing using physical exams and blood and skin-prick tests.
A team of researchers looking through these data found that infants who grew up in homes with cockroach droppings and mouse and cat dander in their first year have lower rates of wheezing at age three, compared with infants who were unexposed to these allergens. Furthermore, exposure to all three allergens lowered risk more than exposure to just one or two.
About 40 percent of allergy-free, wheeze-free kids grew up in homes with the highest levels of allergens and the richest array of bacterial species. By contrast, only 8 percent of children who suffered from both symptoms had been exposed to those similar substances during their first year. Wheezing, in particular, was three times as common among children growing up without exposure.
The protective effects, however, disappear if infants encounter them after their first year. “The timing of initial exposure may be critical,” Robert Wood of Johns Hopkins Children’s Center says in a news release. “Not only are many of our immune responses shaped in the first year of life, but also that certain bacteria and allergens play an important role in stimulating and training the immune system to behave a certain way.”
The work was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology last week.
[Via Johns Hopkins Medicine]
Image: Fotofolia via JHM MediaLeft-wing media bias is real, according to a research poll conducted by journalism professors at Indiana University.
Despite dismissals from the very liberal establishment the media benefits, the truth is that a miniscule percentage of journalists identify as Republicans. While in an ideal world this shouldn't skew a journalist's ability to be objective, it does. Because, after all, journalists and the outlet executives for whom they work are subjective beings.
In some cases the political slant in an article or news segment is blatant, as was the case during the last Republican debate moderated by CNBC. Other times, the bias comes from omission, or slight variations in word-choice, thus making it more difficult to detect and prove -- but it is there nonetheless.
Those who believe authentic journalism still exists claim that a journalist's personal politics offers no impediment to reporting a story objectively, but the research tells a different story.
Only 7 percent of journalists identify as Republicans, according to a research poll. What's more, those who do align with the GOP end up donating to Democrats. The Washington Times shares more on the survey's findings:
And self-proclaimed Democratic journalists outnumber Republicans by 4-to-1, according to research by Lars Willnat and David Weaver, professors of journalism at Indiana University. They found 28 percent of journalists call themselves Democrats, while just 7 percent call themselves Republicans — though both numbers are down from the 1970s. Those identifying as independent have grown. Among Washington correspondents, the ones who dominate national political coverage, it’s even more skewed, said Tim Groseclose, author of “Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind.” More than 90 percent of D.C. journalists vote Democratic, with an even higher number giving to Democrats or liberal-leaning political action committees, the author said.
Detractors, like David D'Alessio, a communications professor at the University of Connecticut at Stamford, claims that media bias has no real impact on our lives and that bias has in fact "evened out" with the advent of online blogs providing counter-points for a vast array of political leanings.
“If you stop to think about media as larger than just reporters and owners they’re business entities and their job is to make money. If you look at where people’s opinions are, they are in the middle, so that’s where a lot of reporting goes because that’s where the eyeballs go,” he said. Mr. D’Alessio argues that for every liberal news network like MSNBC, there’s a Fox News counterpoint because the market creates that opening. For The Huffington Post online, there’s the Drudge Report online, and for The New York Times there’s the New York Post.
D'Alessio fails to acknowledge, however, that while some balance might be found online, or with the lone right-leaning media network Fox News, the majority of large, mainstream media outlets are in fact left-leaning. Large, mainstream media outlets are from where the majority of the general public absorbs its news and shapes its views.
And the research bears out:
People’s voting patterns are influenced by which kind of media they follow, according to a study done by Alan Gerber, a political science professor at Yale University. Mr. Gerber offered people in the Washington metropolitan area a free subscription to either The Washington Post or The Washington Times for several weeks ahead of a gubernatorial election. The Post, by his estimation and work done before, slanted as much to the left as The Times did to the right. In a survey he conducted after the election, Mr. Gerber found those who were given a free subscription of The Post were 8 percentage points more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate for governor than those assigned to the control group.
Nonetheless, all the research in the world will never convince the Left -- which thinks that media bias actually favors conservatives -- that it holds all the cards in terms of swaying the American public, and that it propagates a harmful double standard when it comes to conservatives.A suspect who kicked a smoking gas canister back at police in the aftermath of Trump's Phoenix rally may have been located and arrested because of an extensive discussion of the incident on Reddit, as well as the local news. He now faces three felony charges of assaulting police officers.
Reddit is a social media platform that allows users to create groups around a theme or topic. The day after the rally, a user named "gotyourqueen" posted in the Phoenix group. The post was titled, "I'm the guy in the blue shorts who got shot in the crotch last night. AMA!" — a Reddit abbreviation for "ask me anything."
The Arizona Republic first reported on the Reddit posts on Thursday night, after a Phoenix Police Department spokeperson told media outlets in an email that 29-year-old Joshua Cobin of Scottsdale had been booked for three felony counts of aggravated assault on police and one count of unlawful assembly. Sergeant Jonathan Howard wrote that "many of you will recognize this man as he has posted images and admissions to his crime on social and local media outlets."
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In video from Tuesday night, a protester wearing blue shorts, a black T-shirt, and a gas mask kicks a smoking canister toward a line of police officers in riot gear. After backing up a few steps, he's immediately hit in the groin area by a pepper ball fired from the line of officers. Another demonstrator helps him up.
Police have arrested the protester who kicked canister at ofcrs, then got hit with a non-lethal round in the crotch #azfamily #pepperballs pic.twitter.com/8hrRJw5dwh — Derek Staahl (@DerekStaahl) August 25, 2017
In the Reddit thread, the user posted a photo of himself before the rally as proof of his identity as the person who was hit by the pepper ball. He also fielded questions from other Reddit users about the rally, telling them he was there "[b]ecause I despise Trump and wanted to vocalize my displeasure with him and his supporters. Number one thing that drives me to protest is a sense of patriotic duty to defend our country's ideals."
He also said that added, "I was ready for tear gas yes..I didn't think it would be necessary, but here we are."
In response to someone asking why he kicked the canister, the user wrote, "Because I believed we had the right to peacefully assemble and that right was being violated. I knew once I kicked it that I was going to be a target for rubber bullets or pepper balls so it wasn't a huge surprise. It just knocked the wind out of me and of course brain went into 'protect the genitals' mode."
"Are you worried about the police pressing charges now that you've publicly identified yourself?" another user asks him.
"[N]ot really," he replies. "[I]f they wanted to arrest me I feel like they would have done so already[.]"
A spokesperson for the Phoenix police department declined to comment on what specific social media posts led them to the suspect, only telling Phoenix New Times in an email that evidence will be presented in court.
To be sure, an interview with the legacy media also might have helped police find the suspect. Cobin gave an interview to CBS-5 News on Wednesday, telling them that he suffered second-degree burns on his hand and wrist after picking up another canister. The station, however, did not use his name in that interview.
As far as social media goes, had it not been for the Reddit back-and-forth, it's unclear where else police would have identified the suspect on social media. A Facebook account that belongs to Cobin mostly features his public profile photos. Similarly, he has not posted on a Twitter account that appears to belong to him since June 16, where he shared a photo of a poker game.
Cobin did not return a message seeking comment.
Reddit is the fourth-most-popular website in the U.S. according to traffic-ranker Alexa and advertises itself as the front page of the internet. Users can discuss topics in a wide array of groups known as subreddits, voting the best posts to the top of the list. Items that make it to the front page of the website often go viral.
In this case, video of the suspect being hit in the groin resulted in a lot of online taunting, not all of it good-natured. On Reddit, user "notmyqueen" said he's taken the ribbing in stride.
On Friday morning, Commissioner Paula Williams of the Superior Court of Maricopa County released Cobin on his own recognizance, not finding that he was a danger to the community. However, she did warn Cobin about his use of social media.
"Mr. Cobin, my understanding is that you've posted a lot of things regarding this. I haven't seen any of it," Williams said. "I just caution you about that. I'm not going to make it part of your release conditions, but I hope you and your attorney have a serious conversation about that."
"Yes, your honor," Cobin said.Which application is the most popular?
Since version 2.2, the WhatPulse client has been able to send application stats to the website. This has been an awesome way for people to keep track of application usage across the board.
From the day that that feature was released, we got a lot of questions like "What is the most popular application?", "Which application gets the most keys?" or "Is application X used on OS Y?"
Those questions can now be answered with the applications overview! Each application has it's own profile page, which can tell you how that application is used and how popular it is!
As always, you have full control if you appear in these overviews, as per the privacy settings. Have a look at those, if you haven't already.
Other website updates
The website has also been updated with a few other cool things, here's a quick overview:
There have been general design and menu changes to enhance your browsing experience.
Team links have been updated to a more friendly format, making it easier to share team profiles.
You can now merge computers on your computer overview.
Want to know how many people you referred to WhatPulse? Check out your Referrals Overview.
We have added some cool global stats to the project numbers page.
Fun Fact: Did you know that you can earn free premium by following WhatPulse on twitter or Facebook?Tech legend Roger McNamee loves Facebook as a stock, but the company has him worried 6:30 PM ET Wed, 26 July 2017 | 05:03
Facebook reported a much-higher quarterly profit, driven by surging sales of mobile video ads, as its advertising revenue grew at more than twice the rate of larger rival Google.
The company also said on a conference call to discuss the results that 2017 expenses would rise less than previously forecast -- it's now saying that expenses will go up 40 to 45 percent, instead of 40 to 50 percent.
The stock jumped as much as 4 percent to a record high after Facebook announced that news.
Here are the key second-quarter metrics:
EPS: $1.32 vs. $1.13 expected, according to Thomson Reuters
Revenue: $9.32 billion vs. $9.2 billion expected, according to Thomson Reuters
Mobile ad revenue: $8 billion vs. $7.68 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
Monthly users (MAUs): 2.01 billion vs. 1.98 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
Capital expenditures: $1.44 billion vs. $1.73 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
Facebook has been adding more video and display ads to the mobile version of its app as more consumers access the internet via their smartphones. The company is expected to add short TV-like programming soon.
"We are making some early investments to create episodic content," Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told CNBC in an interview.
The company has also overhauled its Instagram service over the past year to beat back a challenge from smaller rival Snap.
More than 15 million businesses now have a presence on Instagram, in addition to the 70 million who have Pages on Facebook, Sandberg said.
"Our goal is to be a platform for content creators," she said.Senator Ted Cruz no doubt hoped the release of his birth certificate to The Dallas Morning News would settle the question of whether he is a "natural born" American citizen and thus eligible to run for president. Instead, the revelation that Cruz is a dual Canadian-American citizen -- which, given that his Canadian birth was already widely known, should not have come as a surprise -- ignited the debate anew. (Cruz, for the record, is more than happy to renounce the country of his birth).
Real estate mogul and noted political sage Donald Trump has been surprisingly subdued on the issue of Cruz's citizenship. "I don't know the circumstances. I heard somebody told me he was born in Canada. That's really his thing," he told ABC News last week with no apparent sense of irony.
But that was last week. Following the release of the birth certificate, Trump went into full birther mode, as the National Review reported:Caterpillar picks Deerfield for global HQ
hello
Caterpillar Inc. will move its headquarters from downtown Peoria to Deerfield. Associated Press file photo
Caterpillar Inc. said Wednesday it will move its new global headquarters to Deerfield. Associated Press file photo
Caterpillar Inc. will move its headquarters from downtown Peoria to Deerfield. Associated Press file photo
Caterpillar Inc. will be in good company when it moves its global headquarters from Peoria to Deerfield in coming months.
Caterpillar will become neighbors to other headquarters for Walgreens, CF Industries, Mondelez and Takeda, said Deerfield Mayor Harriet Rosenthal.
"It all comes down to access to O'Hare, ease of commute, good housing and good schools," Rosenthal said.
Caterpillar, which makes construction equipment, engines, turbines and diesel-electric locomotives, said Wednesday it reached a multiyear lease deal with Corporate 500 office park at 510 Lake-Cook Road in Deerfield.
About 100 employees will relocate this year from Peoria to Deerfield. The new Lake County headquarters will ultimately house about 300 workers by mid-2018. Besides the top executives, departments to move will include human resources, finance, communications and support staff. And workers are expected to remain in outlying offices in Aurora, LaGrange and downtown Chicago.
The company was been quiet about its move since it announced in January plans to relocate to the Chicago suburbs.
"They were very discreet about when they were looking here and they only spoke with their brokers," Rosenthal said. "We only learned about it when Caterpillar told us we were on the short list."
The company did not receive any incentives from Deerfield, Lake County or the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, spokesmen said.
"This is a huge win for us in Lake County, not just because Caterpillar is moving here, but because it's an endorsement of our economic development strategy," said Lake County Board Chairman Aaron Lawlor, who is also a board member of Lake County Partners, the area's economic development organization.
Caterpillar looked at about 20 towns and felt that Deerfield offered the best access to global transportation with O'Hare and the local expressways, said Caterpillar spokeswoman Corrie Heck Scott. She declined to say what other towns were under consideration.
"This site gives our employees many options to live in either an urban or suburban environment. We know we have to compete for the best talent to grow our company, and this location will appeal to our diverse, global team, today and in the future," Caterpillar CEO Jim Umpleby said about Deerfield in a statement.
Caterpillar had several local mayors and economic development officials speculating about where the new headquarters would be located. Some suggested DuPage County or south suburban Oak Lawn as possibilities.
Also since the company decided to move, it said it will not build a new, previously announced headquarters complex in downtown Peoria. The current Peoria building will continue to be used for Caterpillar offices, Scott said.
It was reported in earlier this year that Caterpillar's continued vows to stay in Peoria changed due to lost revenue and a decline in the industry. It has cut about 16,000 employees in recent years and saved about $2.3 billion. But its sales and revenues for last year were about 40 percent below its peak in 2012.We could try to be impartial whilst writing this but it’s probably better to come clean from the off: we love photography books. We probably love photography books more than photography exhibitions. We love owning them and flicking through them at my leisure. We love the fact they can have a secretive element; risqué publications tucked away alongside innocent dust jackets, ready and willing to catch out an unsuspecting browser. Monographs, anthologies, biographies, catalogues, artist editions… We unashamedly love them all. But, if we had to pick five, these are the ones we think you should read. Here’s why.
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For anyone well versed in the history of photography, the name Robert Capa has always stood tall. However, if you want to make it stand a little taller, indulge yourself in his legendary memoirs,
Capa’s oft repeated photographic motto was ‘If your photographs aren’t good enough, then you’re not close enough’. And this infinitely readable recounting of his life through World War II helps illuminate and expand upon that sentiment; from getting caught short in a mine field to his up and down relationships with his employers to the sticky fact of his nationality and ‘enemy alien’ status throughout the Allied countries.
There are many stories which touch on combat correspondents eternal dilemmas; getting pictures back to print, the dreaded ‘pool’ system, the moral obligations and the perennial questioning by the actual soldiers ‘You mean, you don’t have to be here..?’ But it’s Capa’s gambling instinct and wit that ultimately makes him so likeable. His decision to be a part of the first wave of D-Day landings and his first ever parachute jump into occupied Sicily give you an idea of the risks he voluntarily took.
1976: The Year it all Changed
Prior to the mid-1970s if you were a serious photographer you worked in black and white. And then, ironically enough, out of the blue, came William Eggleston.
On the 25th May 1976, courtesy of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the accompanying book, ‘William Eggleston’s Guide’, all that changed. Colour photography had arrived in the art world and there was no looking back.
The catalogue, with its essay from infamous photography critic John Szarkowski, was reprinted in exact facsimile in 2002. One for every photographer’s bookshelf.
Les Américains
First published in France in 1958 and then in the U.S. in 1959, The Americans was the result of a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation grant issued in 1955. Robert Frank shot a reported 28 000 photos over a two year period and selected 83 for the final book.
Although in America it was initially derided as featuring ‘meaningless’, ‘muddy exposures’ with ‘drunken horizons’, The Americans slowly gained an iconic status and is now commonly listed as one of the most influential photography books of all time.
A first edition of the French original will set you back the price of a small car…
LIFE, eh?
Whilst dedicated monographs are nice for truly getting to grips with a photographers work, you sometimes just want something to dip into for some quick inspiration. There are literally thousands of these ‘overview’ anthologies but I’ve plumped for the one that never fails to excite me:
Six hundred pages of photojournalism at its finest; celebrities, wildlife, war zones, politicians, sports and science. The sheer scope, quality and ingenuity means every page is an absolute delight.
The Back Story on the Photos You Know…
I am in no doubt that when the publishers commissioned this book, they immediately took the rest of the week off. It simply has success written all over it. The premise is so simple that one can only assume it was getting the photographers to agree that prevented this book being published earlier.
A contact sheet is the print made directly from the negative strip, (so the negative is literally in contact with the paper). It is the first print made in the darkroom and gives the photographer an idea of which shots have worked and will be printed properly. It also gives an accurate time sequence to the photographs, showing what came directly before and after.
Sometimes a shot will be one of a carefully structured sequence and at other times it’ll come out of nowhere as a moment of pure serendipity. Whichever way it goes, this is a book that fleshes out the shots we know so well. It’s like looking at an artist’s diary….
These are the five books we’d recommend, but there are literally dozens more that could have been included. If there’s others that you think warrant a mention, please let us know.
Image credit: Keith Williamson
GARD Pro Not Registered For more super stories follow us on Twitter and FacebookLong before I started writing the Critical Shopper column for The New York Times — five years and counting, now — I was a critical shopper on the outer edge of Brooklyn, sniffing around Kings Plaza for new Girbauds, shopping for Carhartt on Avenue U. Before there were stores that specifically catered to hip-hop taste, you pieced together your outfit as best you could. Some days in the 11th grade, I’m sure I wore a motorcycle jacket with saggy jeans and Jordan Vs — I looked ridiculous, I imagine, but 16-year-old me would have been glad to know that a couple of decades later, that would turn out to be a dominant hip-hop look for a few months.
Back then, hip-hop style was an imperfect art, and looking right took work. Eventually, though, in the early- and mid-1990s, rappers started colonizing mainstream brands — Raekwon wore the brashest Polo, Grand Puba made Tommy Hilfiger swing. That was the first era where men’s clothing designers began to respect the hip-hop dollar. On lucky days, I’d come into Manhattan and get lost in the Polo or Hilfiger section of Bloomingdale’s, wondering how loudly I could let a logo scream off my body.
Very loudly, as it happened, and hugely, too. As men’s high fashion was becoming emaciated, hip-hop was asserting its own silhouette — baggy, slouchy, indifferent, with a tenuous relationship between the clothes and the body hidden beneath. (I’m bigger now than I was in high school, but my old Carhartt jacket is still two to three sizes too large.) What may have begun as a reflection of mainstream white stiffness ended up becoming a stand-alone aesthetic.
No one told us what we were doing was fashion, and for the most part, we didn’t care, content to be on the outside and in control.
And for a while, hip-hop didn’t ask much of high fashion. Left out in the cold, it created its own style heroes — Karl Kani, Maurice Malone. Eventually, rap stars, sensing a swelling marketplace at the peak of their mainstream selling potential, began clothing lines of their own.Johnny Manziel's time with the Cleveland Browns could very well be nearing its end, but that doesn't mean he won't have teams willing to take a chance on him thereafter.
Discussing the young quarterback's future in an appearance on "The Dan Patrick Show" on Thursday, ESPN's Adam Schefter made mention of several teams which have looked into him at some point.
.@AdamSchefter says Rams, 'Boys, 49ers have looked hard at Manziel at some point. And Chip Kelly. "Somebody's gonna roll the dice on him." — Andrew Perloff (@andrewperloff) December 3, 2015
Whether Manziel's most recent disciplinary issue has at all affected the level of interest is unclear, but it would certainly be no surprise if multiple teams explored the possibility of landing him this offseason.
Prior to the |
a “division” between “privacy and social responsibility” that was “tenuous.”
Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington chastised Biden for not recognizing that “When life begins is not a matter of faith, but a matter of science.”
The conventional wisdom holds that both vice-presidential candidates, Rep. Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden, are roughly equal in terms of their Catholic standing: Ryan is good on the life issues, but weak on social justice; the reverse is said to be true of Biden. But is it a draw? Not even close: Only one of these Catholics — Biden — has been criticized, reprimanded, and sanctioned by the bishops. Make that 17 bishops.Before detailing all the trouble Biden has gotten into with the bishops, some debunking of the conventional wisdom is in order. Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK, a Catholic dissident organization, is responsible for much of the mythology about Ryan.Sister Simone began her speech at the Democratic National Convention saying, “Good evening. I’m Sister Simone Campbell, and I’m one of the ‘nuns on the bus.’” She was referring to the 2,700-mile bus journey through nine states that she and “other Catholic sisters” participated in seeking to educate the public about the horrors of the Ryan budget.The fact of the matter is there were hardly any “nuns on the bus.” Out of 57,000 nuns in the United States, a grand total of two made the entire trip. Moreover, there were never more than six on the bus at any one time (it was a luxury bus, to boot). In other words, the “nuns on the bus” story was a colossal media scam, led by Sister Simone; they could all have fit comfortably in a sedan.Sister Simone did not start the fiction that the bishops have lined up against the Ryan budget, but she did give the story high profile. Unequivocally, she contended, “the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops stated that the Ryan budget failed a basic moral test, because it would harm families living in poverty.”To put it politely, Sister Simone overreached. There was one bishop, Stockton Bishop Stephen Blaire, who wrote a letter on April 16 to two congressmen, Rep. Frank D. Lucas and Rep. Collin C. Peterson, leaders of the Committee on Agriculture, asking them to resist “unacceptable cuts to hunger and nutrition programs.” Nowhere in the letter is Rep. Paul Ryan’s name mentioned.Bishop Blaire is the chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and he did speak on their behalf. But by saying on national television that the bishops had condemned the Ryan budget, Sister Simone was, in the words of theologian George Weigel, being “either woefully ignorant or willfully malicious.”After distorting the record, Sister Simone proclaimed, “We agree with our bishops.” What is so remarkable about this statement is that it comes from the leader of NETWORK, a group hardly known for practicing fidelity to what the bishops say. In fact, when Sister Simone was asked at the Democratic National Convention if she supports laws that ban abortion, she took a page from her hero, President Obama, and replied, “That’s beyond my pay grade. I don’t know.”NETWORK was founded in the early 1970s by radical nuns professing a strong belief in social justice but no interest whatsoever in abortion. It is so radical and disrespectful of what the bishops say that it has butted heads many times with the Church hierarchy in the U.S., as well as in Rome.In 1983, it took the side of a dissident nun who refused to denounce publicly funded abortions; when the nun refused, the Vatican stepped in to force her to leave her order. The very next year, Sister Marjorie Tuite, a founder of NETWORK, was herself threatened with expulsion from her order for her pro-abortion activities. I mentioned all of this to Sister Simone on a radio show earlier this year but she refused to comment on it.In other words, it is not Rep. Ryan who has been called out by the Vatican for his dissident views — it is Sister Simone’s group.The nonsense that Ryan’s budget was condemned by the bishops was floated by Dana Milbank in The Washington Post on April 27, just 11 days after Bishop Blaire’s letter was released. In his article, Milbank said, “the bishops sent letters to Congress” about Ryan’s budget. But the link he provides is only to Blaire’s letter.Similarly, on August 11, Melinda Henneberger wrote in a Washington Post blog that “the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops took the unusual step of repudiating the deep cuts envisioned in Ryan’s budget”; the link is to Milbank’s piece.Then on August 20, Robert P. Jones did an article for the same site saying, “the bishops sharply repudiated the Ryan budget”; predictably, he linked to Henneberger’s post.The Washington Post earns an “A” for getting its talking points down with precision; too bad it fails the test for accuracy. Their grade is actually worse than this: Not only is it inaccurate to suggest that more than one bishop was upset with Ryan’s budget, it is intellectually dishonest not to mention those bishops who have spoken favorably about the Wisconsin congressman’s work. And unlike Bishop Blaire, Ryan’s supporters mentioned him by name.Just before Milbank got the anti-Ryan train running, Ryan’s own bishop, Robert Morlino of the Diocese of Madison, wrote a column commending him. Bishop Morlino cited Ryan’s “accomplishments as a native son, and a brother in the faith.” In a subsequent radio interview, he said Ryan is an “excellent Catholic layman of the very highest integrity,” adding that he “understands the principles of Catholic social teaching” and applies them “very responsibly.”More recently, Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois spoke in Green Bay, Wisconsin, saying, “Congressman Ryan is undoubtedly correct in asserting that the preferential option for the poor... does not entail ‘a preferential option for big government.’” Similarly, the president of the USCCB, Timothy Cardinal Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York, has written favorably of Ryan’s commitment to Catholicism.When it comes to Vice President Joe Biden, it’s a different story. To put it mildly, he has incurred the wrath of the bishops, and on more than one occasion.Biden got into big trouble with the bishops after his infamous 2008 appearance on “Meet the Press.” Tom Brokaw asked Biden if he agreed with the Catholic Church on abortion. “I’m prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at conception. But that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society.” He also said that in the Catholic Church there has long been a “debate” on when life begins.Following the interview, the bishops weighed in with vigor:These 15 bishops are not alone.Prior to the “Meet the Press” fiasco, Biden was banned by his own bishop from speaking in Catholic schools. In 2006, Wilmington Bishop Michael A. Saltarelli also intervened to stop a building that was to be named after Biden at the Catholic high school he attended. In 2008, he said that even if Biden were to become vice president, he would still be barred from speaking at Catholic schools.Subsequent to his “Meet the Press” interview, Biden was told in 2010 by Bishop Emeritus Henry Gracida of Corpus Christi that he “crossed the line as a Catholic” when he lobbied for a pro-abortion law in Kenya. Referring to Biden’s two aneurysms, the bishop said, “Perhaps God, who knows whether or not Biden’s brain was permanently damaged by his brain surgery, will not judge him too harshly, but the Church, which does not have that kind of knowledge, should certainly speak out and reprimand him.”The record is clear: There is absolutely no comparison between the Catholic standing of Rep. Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden. Biden’s public defiance of Catholic teachings has gotten him into hot water with the bishops. Ryan, on the other hand, has never been punished by the bishops, and has indeed won the plaudits of many.Saint Louis, Mo. — State senator Jason Holsman, D-Kansas City, wants to amend the United States Constitution.
Well, sort of.
Holsman was just elected co-president of the Assembly of State Legislatures. Missouri is one of 31 states that send delegates to the bi-annual meetings of the ASL. The organization’s primary purpose is to establish the framework for an “Article V Convention,” which, under the U.S. Constitution, would be empowered to propose and ratify amendments to the nation’s founding document.
Amending the Constitution is notoriously difficult. It hasn’t been done since 1992, when congressional pay limitations were finally ratified into the document a whopping 202 years after Congress first offered the measure to the states for consideration. Prior to that, the Constitution hadn’t been amended since 1971, when the voting age was lowered to 18.
But under Article 5 of the Constitution, states may call their own convention to propose amendments and, with approval from ¾ of the states, ratify new amendments to the Constitution without making Congress lift a finger.
Article V reads, in full (emphasis added):
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”
Holsman and the ASL have an optimistic goal: to successfully force Congress to “call” an Article V convention and to establish rules and regulations for the sending of delegates and the function of such a convention. ASL is a bi-partisan organization that Holsman said has sometimes vexingly been accused of possessing a secret agenda.
“When I first got engaged [with the ASL] I saw very quickly that the leadership of the executive committee got it,” Holsman said. “They knew getting to 38 requires bipartisan effort and there is no other substitute for working together. They can’t do it alone, and we can’t do it alone.”
The ASL and the movement to amend the constitution in general has gained renewed steam in recent years. From conservatives there has been a steady call for a “balanced budget amendment” while liberal camps around the country are seeking a constitutional amendment to overturn the infamous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and institute aggressive campaign finance reform.
The separate camps are almost entirely working “with their backs to each other,” Holsman said. But ASL — which is composed entirely of currently serving state lawmakers and has shared leadership positions for both parties — has no agenda other than to successfully initiate an Article V convention.
“That’s why our numbers have grown in the last year,” Holsman said. “As more legislators recognize it is not going to rewrite the constitution but could provide forum for significant and subtle changes that could lead to more transparency and control on the federal government.”
New York and Illinois both recently sent their first delegates, adding weight and Democrats to an organization currently more heavily dominated by Republicans. Of course, Republicans control 31 state legislatures. The ASL permits states to send 6 delegates, 3 from each legislative chamber on a 2-1 majority/minority basis. Holsman is currently the only Missouri Democrat serving on the ASL delegation. State Senators Ed Emery and Wayne Wallingford, serve with Holsman in the ASL as well. The House has not formally selected all three of its delegates. Rep. Mike Moon, a Republican, is the only House member in the ASL.
The group is turning its focus to creating templates for individual states to submit their own joint resolutions to Congress formally requesting a “call” for an Article V convention. But more challenging is crafting a template for state’s to designate their delegates to such a conference. If it is decided that delegates to an Article V convention must be elected to the post, no serving federally elected officials will be able to attend. That decision is largely left to the FEC, a decision that is expected to come very, very soon.
Holsman says the American citizens can’t rely on Congress to amend the constitution with respect to the budget or campaign finance because those are areas where Congress does not want to restrict itself. Whether it’s Congressmen who don’t want to see a balanced budget forcing spending cuts to their districts or federally elected officials who are so rarely keen to restrict how much money donors can give their campaigns, Holsman believes the fastest way to get to a convention is through the states.
With Congress prone to punting their duty to recognize state’s demands for a call, the FEC set to rule on whether or not to accept a petition designating delegates as federally elected officials and knocking the wind from the ASL’s current work with the states, and the historically entrenched political rivalries that would be required to temporarily unite, some regard any real hope for a convention as mere fantasy. Holsman calls participation in ASL an easy choice.
“It’s low risk, high reward,” Holsman said. “The only thing I risk is my time. If I put time and energy into this and nothing comes from it, then we retain the status quo. But if I put time and energy into this and something comes of it, then that would be a significant legacy for good government.”On the final day of last year’s offseason workouts, the Carolina Panthers’ coaching staff sprung a surprise. Few on the field knew quarterback Cam Newton would participate in 7-on-7 drills for the first time since his ankle surgery.The final day of this year’s offseason program was much less dramatic.Before the Panthers were freed for the next six weeks, Newton let out an excited scream Thursday morning as he sprinted across the blazing hot turf. Between OTAs and minicamp, there were 13 practices scheduled this month. He was about to begin his 13th.Afterward, coach Ron Rivera said the team’s most important player “took some real big steps” this spring. It helped that Newton was on the field instead of in a walking boot. And while his feet were again an offseason focus, this was different. It’s no secret Newton struggled with accuracy and consistency his first four seasons. A 59.5 completion percentage ranks him 23rd in that time frame. To improve Newton’s mechanics, coaches drew up some new drills.”He’s got such a strong arm that on some of the throws he doesn’t have to get his feet set. He turns and torques,” Rivera said. “That’s one thing that (quarterbacks coach) Kenny (Dorsey) and (offensive coordinator) Mike (Shula) have been working with him on, getting his footwork in the proper position and then getting set and throwing the ball. That’s something they’re going to continue to harp on.”While his $103.8 million extension made him one of the league’s highest-paid players at his position, it’s important to note both Newton and the Panthers admit he’s not yet one of the league’s top quarterbacks.During an interview last week with WFNZ, he said he hopes to up his completion rate to 65-70 percent this year. Again, his career average is 59.5. His career best was 61.7 in 2013. To make that leap, not only does Newton need to be much better, but so does his supporting cast. It’s not easy for a guy to get his feet set when defensive lineman are in his face shortly after the snap. It’s even tougher if he doesn’t have open receivers.With additions like left tackle Michael Oher and receivers Devin Funchess and Ted Ginn, the Panthers believe they’ve fixed some problems that surrounded Newton in 2014. But it’s impossible to know for sure after just a handful of non-padded practices.“Time will tell,” Newton said when asked if the foundation around him felt more solid. “For me, it’s just all about trust in the offense, not only with my ability, but with the offensive line, the protection, the route running and everything else.“It’s just all about footwork and trust in the protection.”Another issue with Newton has been that his heart often overrules his head. The Panthers have for years begged him to “take what the defense gives you,” only to see him misfire downfield time and again. That he appeared more willing to make shorter and safer passes throughout the past month could be a major sign of growth.”I think part of it is learning you don’t have to make a big play every time,” Rivera said. “He wants to make the play downfield; he likes the splash play. With him, with his ability to stay upright, I think he tends to stick with a guy a little too long. I think he’s learning ‘If I don’t got it right now, let me just go ahead and just give it to one of our guys, let him catch and run.'”Dumping off to running backs Jonathan Stewart or Fozzy Whittaker is a better option than chucking a ball to a covered receiver. So is a quick hitter to Corey Brown or Ginn on a crossing route. If Newton can add patience and better decision-making to his unique skill set, it could make for a deadly combination against defenses.“He’s a young man. He came into this league after playing only one year of major college football so he wasn’t as advanced as your Russell Wilson’s or your Andrew Luck’s that played four or five seasons,” Rivera said.”I think his development is really headed in the right direction, and again, the big plus is we had him for all the OTAs and minicamp this year.”Asked what he planned to do on his summer vacation, Newton answered, “Just work.” That may mean Under Armour and Oikos appearances, but his schedule will also include a heavy dose of football.Like they did heading into last year’s training camp, Newton and a handful of receivers plan to get together for some pre-Spartanburg workouts. But unlike last summer, he and his teammates already have a solid foundation for the upcoming season.“This was one of our better camps,” Newton said. “For me, just to be out there and to get the reps, the things that I wasn’t able to get last year, it just felt great.”Knitting sweaters for penguins, a perfect storm of squee and awww that hits every hipster button: Cute widdle birds, knitting, helping some faraway land during an environmental disaster, and social media. Except the sweaters don’t get put on the birds; they are used for fundraising.
It’s possibly one of the best yarns that the internet has even spun.
In 2001 an oil spill in Phillip Island, Australia left many Blue Penguins oil-covered. Through trial and error a bird rescue team developed a little knitted sweater to help the 453 birds affected by the spill because
oil clogs the feathers of these tiny seagoing birds, and reduces their insulating and waterproofing qualities. Even worse, the penguins attempt to clean themselves by preening, and rapidly become poisoned.
Volunteers from around the world, alerted by email, pulled out their needles and got to clicking. Soon there were plenty of sweaters for the little penguins, too many in fact.
Flash forward a decade:
On October 5, 2011 the cargo ship Rena ran aground near Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty, a couple of hours drive from Auckland, New Zealand, leaking 350 tons of oil. With social media in full force, penguins being pop culture icons thanks to March of the Penguins, Mr. Popper’ Penguins and Happy Feet, and knitting being the hobby du jour, penguin sweaters suddenly became a huge passion for needle clackers around the world.
Patterns were posted, sweaters were knitted and shipped off to the Philip Island Penguin Foundation, and darling pictures of penguins in sweaters were posted. Ohhhhh squeeeee! Sooooo cuuuuuute. Totes adorbs, oh em gee!
Tasmanian Conservation Trust politely posted that their project was closed after 15,000 sweaters were received. Just weeks after the 2011 Rena knitting project was mentioned on a knitting forum, the forum’s moderator posted:
And by now it turned out that none—not one—of the sweaters was actually used. The rescued penguins were being kept in warm water and recovering under heat lamps, much less stressful for wild birds than dressing them in a cute knitted sweater. Nobody seems to have asked the vets and rescue workers if they in fact needed penguin sweaters, and those interviewed seemed a bit surprised by the international knitting effort…Apparently the sweaters will be sent to a conservation group in Australia, though with crates of penguin jumpers already in storage it’s hard to see when they’ll ever be needed; some might be sold for unspecified fund-raising purposes.
Oh yes, they were being sold for fundraising purposes, not being fitted on sweet little penguins. And they are still being sold for fundraising, and the foundation behind the sweater drive wants everyone to keep knitting and sending the penguin sweaters.
The conservation group, the Penguin Foundation located on Phillip Island, makes a massive push this month for more penguin sweaters. From TIME Magazine, March 6, 2014:
These Cute Rescued Penguins Need You to Knit Little Sweaters For Them
An Australian foundation calls for knitters to send sweaters for oil-damaged birds…And if your masterpiece arrives at a time when the Penguin Foundation is overstocked, the organization will use them in educational programs and sell them in fundraisers.
The Daily Mail, March 6, 2014:
The Penguin Foundation recently staged a competition for the most creative jumper, which received an enthusiastic response.
A Melbourne, Australia radio station posted a plea for knitters for make more penguin sweaters, and even my local morning news show ran a story about the need for penguin sweaters. Guess what?
The Penguin Foundation rescues approximately 20 birds a year.
With money raised from selling penguin sweater-dressed plush toys, the foundation opened a new Phillip Island Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre which can house up to 1500 penguins in the event of a major oil spill. Which is great! The world needs more wildlife conservation centers. But they don’t need to be built on the dreams of grannies and hipsters who believe they are creating woolly jumpers for distressed penguins, when in reality they are creating merchandise to be sold.The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II: The Rise of the Witch-king Developer(s) EA Los Angeles Publisher(s) Electronic Arts Game engine SAGE Release date November 28, 2006 Genre RTS Modes Single-player, Multi-player Platform(s) PC
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II: The Rise of the Witch-king (abbreviated ROTWK) is a real-time strategy video game published by Electronic Arts, based upon the fantasy book The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien and the film trilogy based on the book, directed by Peter Jackson. First announced during The San Diego Comic-Con of 2006, The Rise of the Witch-king is the official expansion to The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, which was published by the same company and released in 2006, exclusively for the PC. The Rise of the Witch-king was shipped to stores in the United States on November 28, 2006 and was officially released on November 30 of 2006.
It is the last of the Battle for Middle-earth games.
According to the Guiness Book of World Records Gamer's Edition, this game has the longest game title ever.
Contents show]
Story setting Edit
After 1000 years of peace that followed the Battle of the Last Alliance, evil once more began to spread across Middle-earth. In the year 1300 of the Third-Age, evil things started to stir in Middle-Earth again, and the Nazgul re-appeared. The Witch-king settled in Angmar, and after having built an army there, invades Arnor in the year 1409, and waged a 500-year war against the kingdom of Arnor, the Northern-Kingdom of men. The tower of Amon-Sûl is destroyed, but the great fortress of Fornost is defended, and war continues. After the Great Plague in 1636 which devastates Gondor and desolates many parts of Eriador, the southern part of Arnor, the Witch-king finally destroys Fornost, and takes it as his own fortress.
The Rise of the Witch-king tells the story of the evil Witch-king’s rise to power, domination of Angmar and invasion of the great kingdom of Arnor. In the campaign, the player must dominate the land of Angmar, gather a huge army, and then launch a massive invasion that will span half a millennium in Middle-earth's history.
New Angmar Faction Edit
The Angmar faction can be thought of as the evil counterpart to Dwarven faction The Battle for Middle-earth II; they are strong and sturdy, but slow. They also have mixed units similar to Mordor, combining cheap spammable units with elite infantry and heavy support units.
Units
Thrall Master - A Black Númenorean emissary who can summon and command a horde of Orc or Hill-men class thralls in the service of the Witch-king. These thrall units are extremely weak but can serve as the first line of defense against a variety of enemy unit types. You can only summon one type of unit battalion per Thrall Master. Thrall Masters and their thralls can not be upgraded with armor or weapon upgrades. You should also beware that if the Thrall Master is killed in action, the entire battalion dies as well. This is why the Thrall Master always remains in the back of the battalion for protection. He can summon: Rhudaur Spearmen - The Rhudaur Hillmen are wild Men made savage by the cold and hardship of life in the far north. They wield spears to take down enemy cavalry. Due to their low level of training they do NOT get the Porcupine formation. Rhudaur Axemen - Axe-throwing Hillmen with short range. Gundabad Warriors - Gundabad Orcs live far from Mordor, but they are just as bloodthirsty and savage as their southern brethren. Gundabad Wolf Riders - The orcs of Gundabad ride wolves instead of Wargs. This unit is the primary cavalry of Angmar. They have less physical constitution than the Warg Riders of Isengard, who are notoriously easy to kill. Mountain Giants (Special Missions only) Barrow-wights (Special Missions only) - See below for details.
Black Númenóreans - The core Angmar elite infantry unit, composed of Black Númenórean Men clad in splinted armor and wearing fearsome iron masks. They wield giant two-handed swords and have larger health pools than the Uruk-hai and dwarven infantry. They can also gain the Black Mask passive debuff upon gaining enough experience, which reduces any hostile infantries attack and defense by 25%.
Barrow-Wights - A special melee unit. They are not overly powerful or have much health, but they can heal themselves when killing units based on the damage. They are summoned by their respective power, a Thrall Master (Special Missions), and by killing units with a Morgul-blade/Morgul corruption or the Well of Souls.
Dark Rangers - The core ranged unit for Angmar. Dark Rangers wear the iron masks of the Black Númenórean and leather armor. They wield Númenórean-style longbows.
Snow Troll - Snow trolls are native to the frozen northern wastelands taken over by Angmar, and now obey the Witch-king. They are not as big as their southern relatives (the Cave and Mountain trolls), but they are faster and smarter. They wear fur wraps to insulate against the cold, and carry picks and shields. Because of their size and speed they serve the purpose of the main cavalry unit of Angmar. Even though they are considered calvary, most pikemen have troubles taking down Snow trolls due to their large health and damage output.
Hill-Trolls - Hill trolls inhabit the hills and swamps of the North. They are the more advanced pikemen of Angmar, who are a threat to evenmy cavalry, and unlike the Hillmen, they can be upgraded, and know the porcupine formation.
Dire Wolves - The shock troops and raiders of Angmar, Dire Wolves are abnormally large members of their species. While as fast as most cavalry, they do not have the overrun ability associated with that type of troop. They should be considered as very fast swordsmen. They are very brittle, though, and without upgrades will die fast to any serious defense.
Sorcerers - The Sorcerers of Angmar are followers of not just of the Witch-king but of darker powers still. A Sorcerer battalion consists of a single Sorcerer and his Acolytes. Each spell a Sorcerer casts consumes the souls of one or more of his Acolytes. A Sorcerer's Acolytes "re-grow" over time (the rate at which they return can be increased through the "House of Lamentation" Fortress upgrade for Angmar). The Sorcerer has a standard attack which targets a single enemy unit or battalion element at close range, but his primary use is for his powerful spells. Sorcerers can cast Black Ice (slows the enemy), Fell Strength (augments friendlies), and a choice of a third: Soul Freeze (freeze an enemy), Well of Souls (damages units, turning any it kills into wights), or Corpse Rain (downpour of exploding cadavers).
Troll Stone Thrower - A siege engine that utilizes the brute power of trolls to power a counterbalance engine similar to the historic petrary type of machine. Although simpler to construct than a Trebuchet, the Troll Stone Thrower has a similar range and power thanks to the awesome might of its troll crew.
Heroes
The Witch-king of Angmar - Fleeing defeat at the hands of the Last Alliance, the Witch-king's ambition and lust for power is not so easily thwarted. He seeks to create a mighty empire while his Dark Lord's strength returns. The Witch-king no longer rides his Fell beast, but strides the battlefield in full regalia, wielding his Morgul Blade and a mighty iron scepter signifying his rule of Angmar… and all the lands west of the Misty Mountains, should his crusade be victorious.
Rogash - A Troll of exceptional cunning and cruelty, Rogash destroys the Witch-king's enemies with unparalleled might and brutality. His leap attack is especially feared, and can destroy multiple forces in one powerful blast.
Morgomir - One of the Nine and Lieutenant of Carn Dûm. This one-time Captain of the Black Númenóreans is the Witch-king's right hand and rules over the corrupted Men of Angmar with an iron fist. His greatest power is the ability to completely destroy structures and render them useless.
Karsh "the Whisperer" - The shade of a celebrated Captain of Arnor, the Whisperer's victims often hear only the slightest whisper before they join in his fate.
Hwaldar "the Brigand" - A Rhudaur hillchief secretly in league with the Witch-king, Hwaldar paves the way for Angmar's invasion but must escape from the clutches of the loyal Rhudaur hillmen to complete his treachery. He is an ideal early-mid game hero to support the weak Rhudaur Hillmen.
Buildings
Angmar has access to walls from their main fortress that can be set up with troll stone throwers, main gates, side gates, or battle towers.
They build Mills to gather resources.
The Hall of the King's Men allows training Black Númenóreans (when at level 2), Dark Rangers (when at level 3), and Thrall Masters (who allow the further use of Gundabad Warriors, Rhudaur Spearmen, Rhudaur Axethrowers and Wolf Riders).
The Temple of Twilight will allow the training of Sorcerers to battle and three spells (each can be acquired at a level of the Temple).
Angmar also have Battle Towers, which can be upgraded to shoot an Ice Arrow instead of a normal Arrow, dealing more damage, two units can be garrisoned in here (when they have a ranged attack, they will use this when enemies come close).
They have a Dark Iron Forge, used for researching upgrades and building Troll Stone Throwers.
To train Hill Trolls, Snow Trolls, and Dire Wolves (with their upgrade Spiked Collars), they have a Wolf & Troll Den.
Upgrades
Unit upgrades include Dark Iron Blades, Dark Iron Armor, Frozen Arrows and Banner Carriers. Dire wolves have an exclusive upgrade called Spiked Collars, which provides an increase in defense.
House of Lamentation - Fortress upgrade that decreases the strength and defense of nearby enemies.
Flames of Darkness - Fortress upgrade that provides a leadership bonus to units near the fortress.
Razor Spikes - Fortress upgrade that lines the edges with spikes that damage attacking enemies.
Freezing Projectiles - Increases damage of arrows and boulder weapons on the fortress.
Frost Hardened walls for the Fortress upgrade. Pre-requisite to the Angmar Tower Upgrade.
The Sanctum of the Witch-king - The Angmar Fortress Tower Upgrade which allows the prices of heroes and revival times to be lowered. Its primary function is to hurl a huge ice boulder at a target area, causing massive damage and slowing down surviving units. This is similar to Mordor's Gorgoroth Spire, but with ice instead of fire.
Campaign Storyline Edit
Foundations of Angmar Edit
The Witch-king and Morgomir arrive at a barren land to the North near the Ettenmoors. They immediately notice a highly intelligent warrior troll, Rogash, and recruit him on the promise that they will reunite the Snow and Hill Trolls. The three Angmar Champions rush to the fighting Trolls, where the Witch-king fulfills his promise to Rogash and unites the Trolls. The Witch-king orders the foundation of three mighty Angmar fortresses while his armies eliminate the Black Númenóreans in the area, freeing other trolls in the process. Soon after, a great army of Black Númenóreans arrive to eliminate the intruders, but the Witch-king and his troll army easily crush them. The Witch-king forces the allegiance of the Black Númenóreans, and Angmar is successfully founded.
Fall of Rhudaur Edit
A group of Hillmen of Rhudaur begin to rebel against Arnor, led by Hwaldar. Hwaldar is seized and arrested, but Morgomir recognizes a valuable ally to control the Hillmen of Rhudaur. The Witch-king and his army eliminate the Loyalists and recruit the rebels. Soon after, they destroy the Dúnedain guarding Hwaldar and free him. They then proceed to attack the mighty Arnor fortresses in Rhudaur, but the attack (while successful on one fortress) weakens the Angmar forces badly and King Argeleb I soon arrives to finish them off. Morgomir brilliantly trains the Thrall Masters to replenish the Angmar army and wipe out King Argeleb and his army. They then destroy the other fortress, claiming total control over Rhudaur.
Invasion of Amon Sûl Edit
Further invasions from Angmar are thwarted by King Arveleg I, who uses the Palantír of Amon Sûl to foresee attacks. To proceed in Arnor's destruction, the Witch-king must destroy Amon Sûl and claim the Palantír.
Rogash, Hwaldar, Morgomir, and the Witch-king are all involved in this battle. The forces of darkness start off by destroying five Mallorn trees that power various defenses of Amon Sûl. After they are destroyed, they proceed in destroying the main fortress. Reinforcements of Arnor later arrive, but the enemy wipes them out completely. The Angmar forces turn back towards Amon Sûl and begin destroying the structures in the fortress despite heavy resistance. Angmar eventually summons two Mountain Giants and proceeds to attack the watchtower, destroying it once and for all. Though Angmar has destroyed Amon Sûl, Arveleg has escaped with the Palantír. The Witch-king sends Morgomir and Sauron to retrieve it.
Dark Lord's Eye Edit
A small Angmar scout party sent by Morgomir pursues Arveleg. The Dire Wolves make a mad rush for King Arveleg, while the Thrall Masters summon Gundabad Orcs to attack the Tower Guards. The combined forces successfully wear down Arveleg, but before he is killed he smashes the Palantír, causing a huge explosion killing everything nearby.
Morgomir and more powerful forces later arrive and notice a shard of the Palantír, which is still filled with power. Arnor also notices it and sends orders to retrieve it. Angmar and Arnor compete and race for mastery of the shards, partially since both of their powers have been nullified by the blast and are regenerated with the Palantír shards. Angmar gets most of them, but when Arnor brings some to their outpost Morgomir and his forces destroy the outpost. After the Arnor outpost is destroyed, Morgomir easily gathers the seven shards and gains victory for Angmar.
Barrow Downs Edit
Cardolan wasn't affected by the destruction of Amon Sûl so the Witch-king attacks the Barrow Downs, planning to draw out Cardolan's forces into a foolish and self-destructive charge. He sends Hwaldar to claim the royal barrow. To assist the conquest, Hwaldar destroys the attacking forces and kills some Dúnedain rangers that planned to attack the reinforcements of Angmar. With him are some Thrall Masters and Sorcerers that have gained power from the Palantír shards. When Hwaldar reaches the Royal Barrow, Cardolan becomes enraged and sends its forces to destroy him. But, the Rhudaur Warriors hold back each |
But Google is setting expectations for devs here - and those devs might be very disappointed down the road.
As you've seen there are plenty of issues with the user experience. But obviously technical issues exist as well.
It seems that it's not that easy from a technical point of view as Google makes us believe it is. Just have a look at the sample apps. Five (!) of those 17 apps do not run on Android at all. Another six only with limitations. Or put it another way: Only one third of those apps works properly on Android. For iOS it's about the same (though with different apps): Six apps don't work at all, another five only with limitations. Only two out of 17 apps work properly on both supported platforms! And this is about to help devs? This should be a proper way to develop cross-platform apps? Not at all!
The only thing that I am confident to work properly is the responsiveness of those apps. Web developers do that for years. They understand and grok responsiveness.
If you want to publish apps and want your users to like your apps, you have to take the patterns and specifics of each platform into consideration. That means work. No matter which approach you choose. I guess that the total amount of work is even less if you design and develop different apps for Android, iOS, Windows Phone and (hopefully) Firefox OS than when you try to use a cross-platform tool. And I have yet to see a cross-platform app that actually does work properly on different platforms.
Google has done so much in recent years to consolidate the design, interaction patterns and overall usability of Android. Which makes the recent announcement all the more disappointing. It's a step backwards. It's going back to where we were some years ago: A world without a unified design language without common interaction patterns. I do not want this. And I strongly believe, users do not want this as well.
As a developer you have to keep an eye on this project. At least because your clients might mention it. But it's not working. At least not yet. If it ever will - I do not know.
Project managers and product managers should also carefully consider the limitations of this approach. Don't think it will save you money! Don't think it will save you time! If you're not careful and use it without proper analysis, you're bound to see costs rising unexpectantly (well, actually that's to be expected) and your users will still rate your app poorly.
Note: This post has initially been written for the German publication computerwoche.de.Investigators with the Harrisonburg Police Department say they've seen several cases of people using e-cigarettes to smoke hash oil or "honey oil."
Back in November, the Waynesboro Police Department said they noticed people clearing the shelves of butane, which is used to make hash oil, at local hardware stores.
Officer Chris Monahan, with the Harrisonburg Police Department, said this drug is not only hard for parents to detect, it's difficult for officers to make arrests.
"It's hard to detect because sometimes these e-cigarettes will mask the odor coming from the use of it. Therefore it's harder for law enforcement or civilians who are walking by somebody using an e-cigarette to detect that it is something other than the e-cig itself," said Monahan.
He said another reason it's easily undetected is because both products are legal to purchase.By Elisinio Castillo
WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux and his current manager Gary Hyde have had their fair share of ups and downs over the years.
A few days ago, Rigondeauxs denied the information contained in a recent press release which stated he would be traveling over to the UK to confront'regular' WBA champion Scott Quigg. He denied making any of the statements that were contained in the press release.
Rigondeaux says his contract with Hyde is set expire in September. The Olympic two-time gold medal winner is looking forward to what he believes to be a new dawn in his career, but is not revealing any information regarding what changes are going to take place. Rigondeaux (15-0, 10 KO) seems to be looking to sit out until contract with Hyde expires.
"I want to make it perfectly clear - I'm not going anywhere. I'm the champion, the best at 122 pounds and I don't have to do anything. I'm going to wait until September when better things will come," Rigondeaux told George Ebro.
"In September a lot of windows will open - the best fights, best opponents, everything will be different. I can not say much right now. But change is coming.''
Hyde has now responded, stating his contract with Rigondeaux is good until January and if the boxer intends to sit out until then - the contract will be extended.
"Rigondeaux has turned down the offer to travel to the UK to call out Scott Quigg and Carl Frampton. He believes they should go to him because he is the number one guy at 122. This could be possible if he had a promoter who could pay the kind of money that Quigg and Frampton command," Hyde wrote.
"I signed Rigo in March 2007 for five years. After Rigo won the WBA interim title by beating Ricardo Córdoba, his promoter Top Rank and HBO told me they never wanted to see Rigo again. I brought him to Dublin Ireland to make his first defense against Willie Casey."
"The WBA regular champion was Akifumi Shimoda and he was scheduled to fight Rico Ramos. I stopped this fight because Rigo was Shimoda's mandatory as he was interim champion. The WBA instructed Shimoda to deal with Rigo's manager if they wanted the Shimoda-Ramos fight to happen. They gave Rigo $20,000 to step aside and we agreed on condition the we would fight the winner. Ramos won and Rigo KO'd Ramos to become WBA world champion. Rigo was all if a sudden more appealing to HBO and Top Rank. He defended against Teon Kennedy, dropping Kennedy 5 times."
"Some people from Miami who are renowned for stealing fighters then ripping them off claimed they were Rigo's team and they got Rigo to sign a three fight deal with a leading promoter. Rigo would have received a total of $450,000 for the three fights and the contract was for 18 months. The promoter could extend for a further 18 months if he wished with no bonus being paid to Rigo. These people gave Rigo $100,000 advance, telling him it was a signing bonus."
"I went to court in Miami and secured an injunction stopping this fight. Rigo asked me to allow him to fight Marroquin and I said I would if he sent me the contract which he signed for these Miami people. He did and I was disgusted when I realized how these people were exploiting Rigo. I got the promoter to terminate this contract then I negotiated a new contract with Top Rank which guaranteed him a minimum of $1.8 million for three fights in 18 months with no extension. Rigo fought Marroquin and the new contract kicked in."
"The first fight of the new contact was supposed to be in December 2012 but the opponent failed his medical and could not fight. Rigo was then scheduled to fight Donaire on April 13th 2013. Rigo received $750,000 and Caribe received 20% on top. Rigo then fought the second fight of the Top Rank contract against Joseph Agbeko and received $525,000 with Caribe receiving 20% on top. Rigo fought the 3rd fight of the contract against Kokietchem in Macao and received $525,000 with Caribe being paid 20% on top. The total paid to Rigo for the three fights was $1,800,000. Caribe received 20% on top."
"In July 2014, I negotiated a promotional deal for Rigo with Roc Nation where Rigo would earn $1.8 million in 12 months. Rigo refused to sign this deal. After a very frustrating impasse I wrote to Rigo and pointed out the provision in our contract which allows automatic extension of our contract if Rigo refuses to cooperate with his manager and refuses to sign contracts. Caribe were the main reason Rigo did not sign the Roc Nation contract and Roc Nation withdrew their offer stating they could not deal with Caribe's demands."
"In September 2014 I offered Rigo a fight in Japan and he said NO. However in November 2014 Rigo accepted the same fight in Japan when Caribe offered it to him. To me it doesn't matter who offers the fights or promotional deal once we fight."
"Rigo is being poached by a major promoter/agent/manager in the U.S. since January of 2013. This entity offered to buy me out in November of 2014. I declined the offer. Now Rigo thinks he can sit out the time remaining on my contract and go with this entity."
"It's is a great honor for me to manage who I believe is the best fighter in the world. Rigo is unified champion but this did not happen by fluke. It is plain to see that I have been instrumental in getting Top Rank and HBO interested in Rigo after the Cordoba fight. I also prevented him from being ripped off by these Miami people who signed him to the atrocious contract and secured $1,800,000 for the same three fights with no extensions. I secured a lucrative deal with Roc Nation which he refused to sign. I secured the Japan fight which he refused to sign."
"Allowing for time added on to the contract for refusing to cooperate with his manager, our contract is extended until at least January 30th, 2016 but if Rigo attempts to sit out the remaining time then the contract will be extended."Report: Immigrants living illegally in Houston and Dallas top 1 million
Keep going for a closer look at the impact of Texas' immigrant population. less President Donald Trump signs an executive order for border security and immigration enforcement improvements, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017, at the Homeland Security Department in Washington.
Keep going for a closer... more President Donald Trump signs an executive order for border security and immigration enforcement improvements, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017, at the Homeland Security Department in Washington. Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, STF Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, STF Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close Report: Immigrants living illegally in Houston and Dallas top 1 million 1 / 24 Back to Gallery
Houston and Dallas have not declared themselves to be "sanctuary cities" for immigrants who are in the United States illegally, but in the eyes of some, they might as well.
According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, the two metropolitan areas together have nearly 1.1 million residents who are there illegally - 575,000 in the Houston-Woodlands-Sugar Land area and 475,000 in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area.
That puts Houston and Dallas among the top five metropolitan areas in terms of numbers of people living there illegally, based upon 2014 estimates. Austin also made the list, with an estimated 100,000 immigrants living there illegally.
RULE ON THE RULING: Trump travel ban suffers a judicial setback
While there is no legal definition of what constitutes a sanctuary city, the concept has been in the news lately with President Donald Trump signing an executive order on Jan. 25 promising to "ensure that jurisdictions that do not comply with federal law do not receive federal funds, except as mandated by law."
The mayors of some large sanctuary cities, including New York, Chicago, Boston and Seattle, have said they will not comply with the order.
Mayor Sylvester Turner has said Houston will continue to be a welcoming city.Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, center, arrives at federal court in Washington, Friday, Dec. 1, 2017. Court documents show Flynn, an early and vocal supporter on the campaign trail of President Donald Trump whose business dealings and foreign interactions made him a central focus of Mueller's investigation, will admit to lying about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the United States during the transition period before Trump's inauguration. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A list of key players relevant to the special counsel investigation into former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn:
MICHAEL T. FLYNN
A retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration, Flynn served for less than a month as President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser. He was fired in mid-February by Trump after officials said that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his phone discussions with Sergey Kislyak, at the time the Russian ambassador to the United States. Flynn’s statements about his Russia contacts and his 2016 consulting work for a Turkish client both came under scrutiny by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. He admitted Friday to making false statements about his contacts with Kislyak.
SERGEY KISLYAK
As Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Kislyak attended the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where Trump was nominated as the party’s presidential candidate. During the campaign, Kislyak met several Trump aides, including then-Sen. Jeff Sessions. After Trump’s election, Kislyak spoke by phone several times with Flynn in late December, and discussed sanctions put in place by the Obama administration. The calls were monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies, and days after Trump took office in January, Flynn was interviewed by FBI agents about those talks. He acknowledged as part of his plea to lying during that interview by saying, among other things, that he had never discussed sanctions.
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE
As media revelations emerged about Flynn’s talks with Kislyak, Pence stated publicly that he had spoken with Flynn and been assured that the national security adviser and Kislyak had not discussed sanctions. The White House later explained Flynn’s ouster by saying he had lost the trust of both Trump and Pence.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
After naming Flynn to head the National Security Council in January, Trump forced him from the position less than a month later. He has since praised Flynn as a good man and has made statements, including on social media, that have appeared protective or defensive of him. On Saturday, Trump suggested that he was aware that Flynn had lied to the FBI when he ousted him on Feb. 13, saying in a tweet, “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI.”
JAMES COMEY
The former FBI director, whose firing in May precipitated the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel, has said that Trump asked him during a private Oval Office encounter in February if he could see his way to letting the Flynn investigation go, and told him that Flynn was a good man. Comey has said he found the request disconcerting and documented it in an internal memo, summaries of which were later disclosed to reporters. The White House has denied that the conversation occurred as Comey described.
SALLY YATES
As acting attorney general at the end of the Obama administration, Yates and another Justice Department official went to the White House on Jan. 26 to warn White House counsel Don McGahn that Flynn was potentially compromised and vulnerable to blackmail because of discrepancies between the public accounting of the Kislyak conversation and what actually occurred. Though White House officials including Pence had stated publicly that Flynn had not discussed sanctions with Kislyak, Yates has said she advised McGahn that there were factual problems with that account. She has said she expected the White House to take action.
MICHAEL G. FLYNN
Michael Flynn Jr., as he is known, accompanied his father on his 2015 trip to Moscow. Flynn Jr. worked for his father’s company as part of its 2016 research aimed at developing a criminal case against Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish Muslim cleric whose extradition from the U.S. has been sought by Turkey’s government. Flynn’s son was paid $12,000 for unspecified “administrative support” under the Turkish contract. Flynn Jr. also acted briefly as his father’s chief of staff during the transition, but was forced to resign after his frequent tweets on conspiracy theories.
JARED KUSHNER
Kushner, married to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, was a valued adviser during the campaign and remains so inside the White House. According to a person familiar with the matter, he is referenced obliquely in charging documents in the Flynn case as a transition team official who directed Flynn to contact foreign governments, including Russia, about a U.N. Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements. last December
KT MCFARLAND
The former deputy national security adviser in the Trump administration, and former Fox News analyst, was nominated in May to be ambassador to Singapore. According to two former transition officials, McFarland was referenced in court papers Friday as the unnamed Trump transition team member who spoke with Flynn last December about what, if anything, to say about sanctions that had just been imposed on Russia by the Obama administration in response to election meddling.Facebook launched in 2004. If you’re over the age of 20, there’s a good chance it’s been a part of your life for at least a few years—if not a full decade. When you first joined the social network, it was a place to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. Now your feed is probably flooded with people you barely know, making posts about things you don’t care about and or political memes that make you want to throw your computer out the window. If you’ve finally had enough, deleting a Facebook account is a great way to never look back.
There are several other steps you can take before unplugging completely. You can delete a Facebook page you manage to reduce some of the stress. You can change your name on Facebook to make yourself harder to find or block someone if it’s just an ex or two you’re trying to avoid on Facebook. If it’s something incriminating you’re trying to cover up, it’s easy to delete photos from Facebook or delete all of your Facebook messages.
Or you can temporarily deactivate Facebook. This action basically puts your account on hold. Your info won’t be publicly visible, but it’ll still be there when you’re ready to log back on. It’s the right step if you’re just looking for a temporary breather from the storm of social media.
Be warned: Deleting your Facebook account is forever. There are no take backs. Your memories, all your silly jokes, every moment someone said “Happy birthday!” will be lost forever. That’s why it’s a good idea to back up your information before you say goodbye. Here’s a step-by-step guide that will walk you through that process.
Ready to move forward? Let’s do this.
How to permanently delete Facebook on your computer
Deleting your Facebook account from your computer is incredibly simple. Just go to this link and say yes.
Don’t worry: Visiting this link won’t automatically delete your account. It’s Facebook—not the video from The Ring. Once you click Delete My Account, your account will be removed from the site immediately. However, it can take up to 90 days to have your content fully deleted from Facebook’s servers.
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How to permanently delete Facebook on your mobile device
Deleting your Facebook account from the mobile app is a little more complicated, but not impossible. I’d recommend booting up your laptop and clicking the link above, but if that’s not an option, here’s what you need to do.
1. Select the menu at the lower right of your screen.
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2. Scroll down to the bottom of the menu until you see the Help and Support option. Select it.
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3. In the Help and Support menu, select Help Center.
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4. In the search bar at the top of the Help Center, type in “delete my account.” Select the option for How do I permanently delete my account?
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5. Read the paragraph explaining what it means to delete your account. In the last sentence, there is a link marked let us know. Click it.
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6. You’re almost done. Enter your password and click Submit. You have now officially deleted your Facebook account.
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Congratulations! Facebook isn’t your problem anymore. You’ve taken the step to break up with Facebook. Go out there and meet someone new. We hear Instagram is hopping this time of year.dcss-zoof a guest Feb 14th, 2013 141 Never a guest141Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 56.27 KB Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.7.1-1-g7ce9b19 character file. 1286017 Zoof the Annihilator (level 27, 93/93 (98) HPs) Began as a Deep Elf Wizard on Jan 30, 2013. Was the Champion of Sif Muna. Escaped with the Orb... and 4 runes (of 4 types) on Feb 14, 2013! Zoof's game lasted 18:40:16 (248222 turns). Zoof the Annihilator (Deep Elf Wizard) Turns: 248222, Time: 18:40:16 HP 93/93 (98) AC 13 Str 11 Exp: 27/1313901 (11349) MP 30/49 EV 20 Int 35 God: Sif Muna [******] Gold 5465 SH 16 Dex 14 Spells: 21 memorised, 5 levels left Res.Fire : +.. See Invis. : + k - staff of wizardry Res.Cold : + +. Warding :. N - +4 robe of Night {+Inv MR SInv Stlth++} Life Prot.:... Conserve :. e - +2 elf buckler Res.Poison: + Res.Corr. :. b - -1 elf wizard hat Res.Elec. : + Clarity : + p - +0 cloak "Wane" {rElec Int+3} Spirit.Shd:. Stasis :. r - +2 pair of gauntlets {archer} Sust.Abil.:.. Rnd.Telep. :. w - +2 pair of boots {run} Res.Mut. :. Ctrl.Telep.:. u - amulet of clarity Res.Rott. :. Levitation :. c - ring of poison resistance Saprovore :... Ctrl.Flight:. D - ring of Psychosis {Hunger- rF+ rC++} @: quick, extremely resistant to hostile enchantments, extremely stealthy A: hooves 1, herbivore 1, poison resistance, electricity resistance, AC +1, EV +2, Str +1, Int +1, Dex +1 a: Channel Energy, Forget Spell, Renounce Religion, Evoke Invisibility You escaped. You worshipped Sif Muna. Sif Muna was exalted by your worship. You were not hungry. You visited 18 branches of the dungeon, and saw 84 of its levels. You visited the Abyss 1 time. You visited 2 bazaars. You visited 2 portal chambers: bailey, wizlab. You collected 8830 gold pieces. You spent 3385 gold pieces at shops. Inventory: Hand weapons g - a +6,+5 dagger of electrocution (quivered) Armour b - a -1 elven wizard hat (worn) e - a +2 elven buckler (worn) p - the +0 cloak "Wane" (worn) {rElec Int+3} (You found it on level 5 of the Crypt) It affects your intelligence (+3). It insulates you from electricity. r - a +2 pair of gauntlets of archery (worn) w - a +2 pair of boots of running (worn) N - the +4 robe of Night (worn) {+Inv MR SInv Stlth++} (You found it on level 4 of the Elven Halls) It increases your resistance to enchantments. It enhances your eyesight. It lets you turn invisible. It makes you much more stealthy. According to legend, this robe was the gift of Ratri the Goddess of the Night to one of her followers. Magical devices n - a wand of disintegration (8) y - a wand of fireball (11) K - a wand of fireball (5) M - a wand of paralysis (9) Y - a wand of digging (10) Comestibles m - 11 royal jellies o - 5 honeycombs Scrolls v - a scroll of remove curse C - a scroll of fear Jewellery c - a ring of poison resistance (right hand) d - an uncursed ring of protection from magic f - an uncursed ring of wizardry j - an uncursed ring of levitation u - an amulet of clarity (around neck) z - an uncursed amulet of the gourmand D - the ring of Psychosis (left hand) {Hunger- rF+ rC++} (You found it on level 8 of the Vaults) [ring of sustenance] It protects you from fire. It greatly protects you from cold. F - an uncursed amulet of resist corrosion O - an uncursed ring of magical power V - the ring "Thu Sul" {rC+ Dex+3 Acc+4} (You found it on level 8 of the Vaults) [ring of protection from cold] It affects your dexterity (+3). It affects your accuracy (+4). Potions i - a potion of restore abilities s - 5 potions of healing t - a potion of heal wounds B - 4 potions of brilliance E - a potion of invisibility I - 2 potions of agility Q - a potion of speed S - 2 potions of resistance Magical staves a - a staff of summoning k - a staff of wizardry (weapon) W - a staff of earth Orbs of Power x - the Orb of Zot Miscellaneous h - a serpentine rune of Zot l - a silver rune of Zot q - the horn of Geryon A - an abyssal rune of Zot J - a barnacled rune of Zot You had 11349 experience left. Skills: + Level 1 Fighting - Level 4 Short Blades + Level 1 Staves + Level 2 Armour - Level 11 Dodging + Level 9 Stealth - Level 1 Stabbing + Level 4 Shields + Level 3 Traps & Doors + Level 24 Spellcasting * Level 27 Conjurations + Level 6 Enchantments + Level 16 Summonings + Level 15 Necromancy + Level 5 Translocations + Level 8 Transmutations + Level 13 Fire Magic - Level 1 Ice Magic + Level 2 Air Magic + Level 15 Earth Magic + Level 4 Poison Magic + Level 10 Invocations + Level 1 Evocations You had 5 spell levels left. You knew the following spells: Your Spells Type Power Success Level a - Magic Dart Conj ##### Perfect 1 b - Dispel Undead Necr ######### Perfect 4 c - Iron Shot Erth/Conj #########. Excellent 6 d - Blink Tloc N/A Excellent 2 e - Haste Ench #######.. Excellent 6 f - Conjure Flame Fire/Conj ######### Perfect 3 g - Apportation Tloc #######... Excellent 1 h - Abjuration Summ #########. Perfect 3 i - Shadow Creatures Summ N/A Excellent 5 j - Iskenderun's Mystic Conj ######### Perfect 4 k - Cure Poison Pois #######... Excellent 2 l - Alistair's Intoxicat Pois/Trmt N/A Excellent 4 m - Recall Tloc/Summ N/A Excellent 3 n - Animate Skeleton Necr N/A Perfect 1 o - Sublimation of Blood Necr #########. Perfect 2 p - Lehudib's Crystal Sp Erth/Conj #########. Excellent 8 q - Lee's Rapid Deconstr Erth/Trmt ########.. Excellent 5 r - Repel Missiles Air/Ench #######... Excellent 2 s - Stoneskin Erth/Trmt ########.. Perfect 2 t - Selective Amnesia Ench N/A Excellent 4 u - Summon Butterflies Summ #########. Perfect 1 Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations Branches: Dungeon (27/27) Temple (1/1) D:5 Orc (4/4) D:8 Elf (7/7) Orc:4 Lair (8/8) D:9 Shoals (5/5) Lair:6 Slime (1/6) Lair:8 Snake (5/5) Lair:5 Hive (2/2) D:14 Vault (8/8) D:14 Blade (1/1) Vault:5 Crypt (5/5) Vault:2 Tomb (1/3) Crypt:2 Dis (0/7) Hell Geh (1/7) Hell Coc (1/7) Hell Tar (1/7) Hell Zot (5/5) D:27 Altars: Cheibriados Elyvilon Fedhas Kikubaaqudgha Makhleb Nemelex Xobeh Okawaru Sif Muna The Shining One Trog Vehumet Xom Yredelemnul Zin Shops: D:9: *[[* D:20: ++ D:21:? D:26: [![+ D:27: % Orc:2:! Elf:2: //=/ Elf:4: ( Shoals:1: * Shoals:3: ( Snake:3: = Snake:4: * Vault:1: * Vault:3: % Vault:5: / Vault:8: / Portals: Hell: D:21 D:22 D:23 D:24 D:25 D:26 D:27 Abyss: D:22 D:24 D:25 D:27 Pan: D:22 D:24 Annotations D:12 exclusion: 44 flame clouds D:20 exclusion: 36 flame clouds Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations You have large cloven feet. You are surrounded by a mild repulsion field (EV +2). You are partially covered in colorless scales (AC +1). You are agile (Dex +1). Your mind is acute (Int +1). You digest meat inefficiently. Your system is resistant to poisons. You are resistant to electric shocks. Your muscles are strong (Str +1). Message History A dart shoots out and hits you! There is a dart trap here. You see here a dart. There is a stone staircase leading up here. There is a stone staircase leading up here. Are you sure you want to leave the Dungeon? You have escaped! #.#######.######### #.#######.# #.........# #..########### #.####.##....## #.###..#......## #.##...........# #.#............### #.......~~~......# #......~..<~.....##.......~.@.~....... #......~<..~......#.......^~~~.......# #.#.......(.....#.# #.##...........##.# #.###........####.# #.####..###.## ##.# #..#############..#...........)....... #.#######.########. There were no monsters in sight! Vanquished Creatures 2 orbs of fire 2 ancient liches Saint Roka (Shoals:3) Mara (Vault:4) 3 Killer Klowns (Zot:5) 3 electric golems 4 curse skulls A golden dragon (Zot:1) 9 Orb Guardians (Zot:5) 7 shadow dragons 2 deep elf blademasters (Elf:7) 4 liches 2 sphinxes 12 storm dragons Frances (D:23) A draconian monk (Zot:2) Francis (Shoals:4) Aizul (Snake:5) 4 frost giants 12 bone dragons An iron dragon (Vault:8) 4 fire giants A draconian zealot (Zot:4) 33 stone giants 6 tentacled monstrosities A quicksilver dragon skeleton (Crypt:2) A draconian caller (Zot:5) Snorg (Snake:2) 6 deep elf annihilators 5 deep elf sorcerers (Elf:7) Wayne (Vault:5) 5 deep elf death magi 2 black draconians 3 green draconians 2 mottled draconians A pale draconian (Zot:1) 4 vampire knights A white draconian (Zot:1) A titan zombie (Crypt:5) 2 deep elf master archers (Elf:7) 7 greater nagas (Snake:5) 22 vault guards (Vault:8) A salamander (Hell) 22 yaktaur captains A great orb of eyes (shapeshifter) (Elf:1) 2 sirens 10 hydras 6 ogre magi A storm dragon skeleton (Crypt:4) Josephine (D:14) 3 death cobs An iron troll (shapeshifter) (D:20) 3 great orbs of eyes Harold (Lair:4) 2 golden dragon zombies 3 merfolk javelineers (Shoals:5) 10 dancing weapons 6 ice dragons 4 dragons 2 merfolk aquamancers (Shoals:4) A hydra (shapeshifter) (Vault:7) 8 deep elf demonologists 4 anacondas 2 shadow dragon zombies (Tar:1) An alligator (shapeshifter) (Vault:8) Nergalle (Orc:4) 4 merfolk impalers A fire giant zombie (D:21) 10 death yaks 5 deep trolls (Vault:8) 3 stone giant zombies 4 deep elf high priests 17 ball lightnings (D:26) 23 centaur warriors 2 shadow dragon skeletons 6 stone giant skeletons 2 soul eaters An iron dragon skeleton (Crypt:3) 38 deep elf knights 6 hell knights (Crypt:5) A fire giant skeleton (D:24) 3 iron trolls 13 vapours 2 frost giant skeletons 6 iron golems 4 flayed ghosts 4 griffons 2 ice devils 82 skeletal warriors 11 naga warriors 8 sea snakes A yellow draconian zombie (Crypt:5) 5 unseen horrors 2 wizards A swamp dragon (shapeshifter) (D:27) 22 orc knights An ice statue (Vault:6) 2 vampire magi A death yak skeleton (Crypt:5) A draconian (Vault:7) A black draconian zombie (Crypt:3) A giant amoeba (shapeshifter) (Vault:6) 22 harpies A lindwurm (shapeshifter) (Elf:5) A yellow draconian skeleton (Crypt:5) 15 hill giants A human (shapeshifter) (Vault:8) A purple draconian skeleton (Crypt:5) A red draconian skeleton (Crypt:4) An iron troll zombie (Vault:8) 4 orc sorcerers A cyclops (shapeshifter) (Vault:5) 6 giant amoebae A white draconian skeleton (Tar:1) 4 spiny worms Urug (D:14) 3 crystal golems (Crypt:5) A hydra zombie (D:22) An iron troll skeleton (Vault:8) 2 mimics 11 cyclopes 8 necromancers A wolf spider (Vault:5) 32 moths of wrath 2 draconians (shapeshifter) 2 hydra skeletons 4 elephant slugs A griffon zombie (Crypt:3) A guardian serpent (Snake:3) A slime creature (shapeshifter) (D:25) 18 black mambas A dragon zombie (Vault:1) 4 elf zombies 57 slime creatures A queen ant (Lair:6) 7 reapers 2 spectral warriors 3 trapdoor spiders A tormentor (Tar:1) 36 yaktaurs 2 red wasps 3 giant toad zombies A griffon skeleton (Vault:1) 2 polar bears (Lair:8) 2 alligator skeletons (Crypt:4) A spriggan zombie (Crypt:1) 3 hill giant zombies A black mamba skeleton (Crypt:1) 9 spiny frogs 6 rock trolls A mermaid (shapeshifter) (D:22) A giant toad skeleton (D:14) 21 naga magi An ice dragon skeleton (Crypt:4) 110 ugly things 8 mermaids A queen bee (Hive:2) A spriggan skeleton (Crypt:3) 2 iron devils (Hell) 2 smoke demons 8 two-headed ogres 5 komodo dragons An efreet (Crypt:3) 2 hill giant skeletons 2 large large abominations A rock troll zombie (Vault:1) 4 deep troll zombies A spriggan (shapeshifter) (Vault:3) 2 redbacks A giant snail zombie (D:17) 13 trolls An ettin (Vault:5) 5 elf skeletons A human skeleton (Vault:8) A wandering mushroom (Lair:1) A giant toad (shapeshifter) (Vault:5) 9 snapping turtles A spiny frog zombie (Crypt:2) A brown ooze (Slime:1) A rotting hulk (Crypt:2) 12 air elementals 14 blink frogs A deep troll skeleton (Crypt:4) A baby alligator skeleton (Crypt:1) A grizzly bear (shapeshifter) (Elf:5) A redback zombie (Crypt:2) 21 bumblebees 2 blue devils (Hell) A swamp dragon zombie (Crypt:2) 21 giant toads 3 wraiths 17 hippogriffs A giant firefly (shapeshifter) (D:21) 8 metal gargoyles (Hell) A dragon simulacrum (Vault:1) 2 sharks (Shoals:2) 33 yaks 3 clay golems (D:20) A fire drake (Lair:4) 2 shadow demons (Hell) 5 wyverns A viper zombie (Crypt:4) 25 deep elf conjurers 2 elephant skeletons 3 fire elementals (D:20) A blink frog skeleton (Crypt:5) 2 merfolk skeletons 60 deep elf fighters 2 giant blowfly zombies A wood golem (D:25) Gr |
He seeks His own love in all creatures, so He seeks His own rest.
Here Eckhart locates the source of all desires in God. It is therefore contrary to Eckhart’s understanding of human desire to locate its source in something other thanGod, or as seeking some object other than God. In our everyday thinking we locatedesire in our own minds or hearts or instincts and so we never review the universalground of desire as such. Eckhart, on the contrary, understands all desire as seekingrest, and rest lies only in God who has never moved from rest in Himself, because thatis His nature, and since God loves His own rest abundantly He desires that no creaturebe apart from that rest, and so all natural desires have rest in God as their true end.Thus the rest that all creatures seek is fullness of being. In so far as we have adifficulty with this understanding, that difficulty must lie somewhere in the notionthat our being is separate from pure being and exclusive to ourselves. This notionstands in opposition to Eckhart saying here ‘God loves Himself in all creatures. Thusas He seeks His own love in all creatures, so He seeks His own rest.’
The idea of God loving Himself, both in Himself and in all creatures, obviously runs counter to any worldly idea of self-love. But when we move into the realm of Eckhart’s ontology it makes perfect sense for pure being to hold absolutely to itself. In the realm of absolutes every principle holds to itself because there is nothing other than itself to hold to. Thus truth holds absolutely to truth, goodness to goodness, justice to justice, rest to rest, and unity to unity. It is only separate being that wouldbe false in holding to itself or loving itself in its separation from being as such. Or again, how could love not love itself? If love did not love itself it would depart from its nature, it would desire to become something else. It is inconceivable to imagine God desiring to become other than Himself, and if He did, then we could conceive of a higher God who had no deficiency of any kind and who therefore sought nothing other than Himself. So, in God, self-love is the principle of unity – unity already completely fulfilled.
But on the human side, so to speak, desire and love appear to seek something other. But Eckhart says that ‘a man could never feel love or desire for any creature, unless God’s likeness were in it’ (Walshe, 2008, sermon 45). Thus the attraction of love and desire has its origin in the likeness of God in creatures. This understanding of the nature of love and its true object can obviously be traced back to Plato’s understanding of love seeking absolute Beauty in the Symposium. However, Eckhart places a slightly different emphasis in his understanding of God as the ground of being in which every creature has its existence. While Plato represents the ascent of love through a series of more universal forms of beauty, until it arrives at absolute beauty itself, Eckhart represents the movement towards God as a retreat backwards into the ground of our own inmost being. For Plato the ascent of the soul is represented in the form of more refined perceptions of beauty, through a series of higher and higher visions, while for Eckhart it is represented in the form of a stripping off of all differences from God, of everything that makes the soul discrete from God, so that, the less it is something, the nearer it comes to God, so that finally it has nothing to distinguish itself from God, and so it can only be conformed to God. The two ways of describing the journey of the soul are not incompatible, but in Eckhart the emphasis is ontological while in Plato it is visionary. In both, however, it is a journey to that which truly is away from that which only partly is and which is always in the flux of becoming but never in being. In Plato’s Symposium beauty is selected as that which shines in all things and which draws us to them but which is actually beyond them and whose true nature is finally known through unmediated union, while in Eckhart the likeness of God is selected as that which is the true selfhood of every creature. For Eckhart, God is selfhood as such, or selfhood absolute. And so for Eckhart this journey is a journey back into the ground and origin of every creature into its true selfhood, which is God.
If we say that the true selfhood of every creature is God, does this not amount to a form of pantheism? And is this not the very thing which Eckhart was accused of by the Inquisition? Well, I think the word ‘pantheism’ introduces a confusion into Eckhart’s real ontology. To put that more boldly, pantheism is a muddled idea put forward by a form of thinking which does not grasp the real meaning of being as articulated in the Western tradition, or rather does not grasp the problem of the distinction between Being and beings, and beings and existence. There have always been Christian thinkers who cannot conceive the ontological relationship between God and His creation and who can only think of them as wholly separate from one another. This is not so surprising since the attempt to understand the ontological relations between God and creatures involves an abandonment of the everyday notions of relations between creatures Eckhart, however, never confuses God with the creation. Quite the contrary. He insists frequently that we leave behind all that is creaturely. Yet at the same time he insists that our inmost ground, should we be so bold as to return to it, involves ceasing to be a creature and thus, by becoming no distinct thing, approaching the likeness of God. And when every distinction is removed the word ‘I’ becomes said out of God. Or, more boldly, there is no ‘God’ over against ‘I’.
Here we must tread very carefully. This is not pantheism, nor is it hubris or a conflation of man into God. It is the language of mystical union – which I said earlier employs of human nature a language as symbolic as the language about God. We are in the region of primal language itself and are really called upon to abandon all ordinary notions of language in which it is regarded as an artificial invention of man. But that is perhaps a topic for another discussion altogether. Leaving that on one side, I would like to present us with a question which comes at this problem of the separation of creatures from God in another way. The question is a rhetorical one and so I ask you to simply take it that way. If God is infinitely good, infinitely abundant and infinitely loving, when He created the world do we suppose He would give all creatures less than He might give to them? Did God hold back something just for Himself? Did God think to Himself ‘I will keep for myself just one thing which will keep me distinct from all I have made and thus show to all my creatures that I am better than all of them and also that I am the big boss of the universe?’ Now if God thought like this, could we still regard Him as infinitely good? Or would we say there was a bit of meanness there? Consider further, what is the one thing He would most likely hold back for Himself if He thought such a thing? What is the one thing that he could deny to creatures which would make them less than they might be? One thing might be immortality, but I think there is something even more fundamental than that and that is absolute selfhood or pure being. Or, to put it another way, Himself. Suppose that God gave to creatures every possible thing but kept Himself back for Himself. Suppose that God gave to creatures a certain finite measure of being and autonomy but not all of it. What would a fragment of pure being or a fragment of autonomy amount to? I suggest it would amount to nothing at all. It would be a fraudulent being and a false autonomy, a mere illusion of either. There can be no such thing as a fragment of being any more than there can be a fragment of a Euclidean point. Now I can think of no reason at all for God to think and do this, apart from just being stingy.
Such is the rhetorical question. I realise it verges on blasphemy and mean no offence. But it makes us ponder because we know perfectly well that God could not possibly have held back something to Himself which out of infinite love He would have given to the creation. It drives us to consider what it says of God to hold that the creation is less than God might have made it, for if we say the creation is imperfect or impoverished we imply an imperfect and impoverished creator. If we speak dismissively of the created order, then we speak dismissively of the works of God. So it is very provocative to assume just for a moment the ontological position of the Middle Ages where God is taken as the first and most self-evident reality, or pure being is taken as the starting-point of thought about the created order. We are driven to consider anew the question of the difference between God and creation.
Let us grant then that God held nothing back from His creation. This is Eckhart’s position. Nevertheless the creation, as it stands forth as distinct in itself, is in no sense identical to God. And likewise with man. Insofar as he stands distinct as an existent being he is a creature just like all creatures. Yet God has withheld nothing of Himself from either man or creation, not even His selfhood. So how is this? The answer lies in the fact that, in creating all things, God has not become different in Himself or other than His original self. If God became created, then He would have suffered a modification of His selfhood. But also, if creation came forth after a time or condition in which it was not, then it must necessarily be distinct from God and bedeficient in being and in autonomy. So where lies the resolution to this? According to Eckhart it is this. The true being of the creation and of man lies not in their created distinctions but as totally indistinct in God. Eckhart says:
Here note that when we say that all things are in God [that means that] just as he is indistinct in his nature and nevertheless most distinct from all things, so in him all things in a most distinct way are also at the same time indistinct. The first reason is because man in God is God. Therefore, just as God is indistinct and completely distinct from a lion, so too man in God is indistinct and completely distinct from a lion, and likewise with other things. Second, because everything that is in something else is in it according to the nature of that in which it is. Third, because just as God is totally indistinct in himself according to his nature in that he is truly and most properly one and completely distinct from other things, so too man in God is indistinct from everything which is in God (‘All things are in him’), and at the same time completely distinct from everything else. Fourth, according to what has been said note that all things are in God as spirit without position and without boundary. Further, just as God is ineffable and incomprehensible, so all things are in him in an ineffable way. Again, every effect is always in the cause in a causal way and not otherwise. (Sermon IV, Latin Sermons: Teacher and Preacher)
It may help if we put this in the ontological terms we discussed earlier. If we think of the ‘indistinctness’ of God as pure or absolute being, then God is distinct from every existent thing – for to exist is to stand forth distinct as a particular nature and distinct from pure or absolute being. But since God in his pure being has never commenced any action so all things stand eternally within God and indistinct from pure being. Thus what we normally regard as the created order amounts to the coming forth into distinction all those things which are eternally indistinct within pure being or God. So we may infer a difference between the ‘created’ existence of man and the ‘eternal being’ of man within God. It is to this eternal being of man within God that Eckhart calls us when he speaks of him entering or returning to his inmost ground. His path back to God is through his own self-knowledge in the sense that his true self-knowledge is in his indistinct being in God. His knowledge of his creaturely nature is not, strictly speaking, self-knowledge but only creaturely knowledge or knowledge ofhis distinctness. This creaturely knowledge is not knowledge of selfhood. So the error of man, in considering his nature, lies in identifying his selfhood with his creatureliness, with his separateness from himself in God. And so man is not deprived of anything which God might have given to him, for he exists indistinct from God within God. According to Eckhart’s understanding of man, God has already from eternity wholly given Himself to man.
Thus, if we assume when we begin an enquiry into Eckhart’s understanding of human nature that our selfhood consists in a foundational separateness from God, or that it is finite or conditioned, or the product of material history, then we find that we are not really thinking of selfhood itself but of something else to which we would be erroneously attributing the word self. There is a kind of unspoken custom that supposes that religion reveals to us things of the spiritual realm and that the secular branches of knowledge inform us of the created realm, but we have seen in this brief enquiry into human nature that this custom is misguided, and that religious knowledge does not stand in a complimentary relation to natural knowledge but fundamentally challenges it presuppositions about the true ground of reality. One of the reasons for this, as I suggested earlier, is that religion - at least in the hands of a great mystic such as Meister Eckhart – holds the ontological order of things the opposite way up to natural knowledge. Thus, for example, in natural philosophy the One or the principle of unity remains a merely speculative concept, whilst for mystical theology it is the point of departure for all thought and wisdom and that to which all natural processes ultimately tend. For the Medieval mystics the One, or pure being, was not regarded as something far off, but rather as that which is so close and so immediate that it was hidden from view only so long as the soul remained distracted by outward objects and concerns.
It is perhaps a curious thing that, living in an age in which so much is said and written about human nature, in which we have new disciplines such as social anthropology and psychology, we know so little of what is most fundamental about selfhood. But all these disciplines seek only knowledge of man as an object, as an entity to be defined and measured in various ways. The immediacy of selfhood, its simple presence in itself, is put aside and dismissed as ‘merely subjective’, meaning by that phrase that it is arbitrary and ephemeral. The objective and the measurable alone is worthy of study. But for whom is all this objective knowledge of such value?Who is this being who seeks to know and understand everything that comes into sight? Such a question is not asked, or at least rarely asked. And so our minds never come to rest simply in that which we are and explore our own presence to ourselves, that which we each can know only for and within ourselves because no outside agency can disclose our own being to us. But Eckhart says ‘none can know God who does not first know himself, and this self knowledge is not a theoretical or conceptual knowledge but the action of ‘entering his own ground’. According to Eckhart, entering this realm is the gate to the presence of God, and so the human capacity to reflect back upon ourselves is the key to man’s spiritual potential, and where that capacity is pursued so also is the spiritual life. Therefore the question of human nature as we find it presented in the Christian mystics offers us a path towards a fuller understanding of many of the more difficult and subtle insights they have into God and the relation of the human essence to the pure being of God. By commencing here we have the advantage of beginning from that which is already closest to God.OTTAWA—For a guy who claims he rarely succeeds on the first try, Noah Richler has certainly planned an ambitious entrance into political life. The Toronto author hopes to carry the NDP’s banner in Toronto-St. Paul’s this October, hoping to unseat the popular and long-serving Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett.
Noah Richler doesn't try to hide the fact he lives in Cabbagetown, outside the Toronto-St. Paul’s riding he's running in, but says "major issues facing Toronto are true to the city at large." ( Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star )
It will be an uphill battle, and Richler knows it. But it’s a hill of his own choosing. “I was quite straightforward that I live in Cabbagetown, outside the riding. But the major issues facing Toronto are true to the city at large,” Richler told the Star. “So I feel I can represent the riding with integrity.” Richler, the son of late novelist Mordecai Richler, is one of the first star candidates to be rolled out in the GTA by the New Democrats. His announcement to contest the riding comes at a time when the NDP are trying to maintain the momentum that had them leading virtually every national poll for more than a month.
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Born in Montreal, Richler was brought up in Canada and England. His connections to Montreal, he’ll tell you, aren’t as pronounced as you might think. In his youth, he walked the Prairies with a seismic testing crew, spent time as a prospecting assistant in the Yukon, and worked an iron mine in Labrador. Living in England, Richler produced for the BBC for more than a decade before returning to Canada in the late 1990s. He settled in Cabbagetown and now considers himself a Torontonian. “I believe that Toronto is one of the few, if not the only, places in Canada that doesn’t blame anywhere else for its misfortunes,” Richler said. “I like this place, I think it’s a superb city, I love the people that are here.” Asked specifically what attracted him to the NDP, he admits that his family has traditionally had more of a Liberal bent. But he cited the NDP’s focus on Canada’s cities, their approach to child care, and their attention to the issue of precarious work specifically. “It’s not unlike publishing. They’re both such irrational businesses, so you want to have a boss you like,” Richler said. “Not much point in doing it otherwise. And I think (NDP Leader Thomas) Mulcair is a smart man.”
To say that the NDP have not done well, historically, in Toronto-St. Paul’s would be a bit of a mischaracterization. They haven’t even come in second place. In the last federal election, as the Liberals were collapsing all over the GTA, Carolyn Bennett still managed to win with more than 40 per cent of the vote. When times were good for the Liberals, Bennett was winning with as much as 58 per cent of the ballots cast.
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But before Bennett’s hegemony, the old district was considered a bit of a bellwether riding — one that would typically go with whatever party looked most likely to form government. For the first time in quite some time, a few months out before the election, most polls are suggesting that’s the NDP. Richler said the party has signalled they’ll put some resources towards his run — the all-important capital that ground campaigns depend on. He also seems to enjoy the approval of some high-profile New Democrats — Stephen Lewis has agreed to speak at his nomination, he says. But it appears he still has some work to do on the organizational side. Richler also seems a somewhat reluctant politician — he was concerned about sacrificing his credibility as a national affairs writer (he’s written unflattering things about Canada’s political class before), and says he isn’t a fan of the sort of “combative” politics that have become the norm in Ottawa. But Richler doesn’t seem concerned about his opponents digging up his more controversial positions as an author or his personal past, which includes an addiction to, and recovery from, heroin. “I always feel slightly hypocritical talking about that person because, in truth, I’m not him anymore,” Richler said. “I would never deny or suppress that moment, because I think it’s really important to stand as something of an example to people who are having problems for whatever reason.” So does the man who claims to frequently flub the first try think that he’ll find success in his first political race? “Nothing comes naturally, everything requires effort,” Richler said. “You’ve got to give it a go.”Here’s what the statistics tell us: There were 11,208 homicides and 21,175 suicides committed with firearms in the United States in 2013. Of the 275 murders reported last year in the St. Louis region, 234 were committed with guns. In 2010, Missouri had the fourth-highest rate of homicides with a firearm in the nation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that this year, for the first time, guns will kill more people than automobile accidents.
But the available data only tell part of the story; there’s still much more that we don’t know. How many guns are out there? What percentage are securely stored? How are they distributed among different regions, age groups and populations? What are the medical costs associated with shootings? What are the costs to the economy? Is gun violence getting worse or better? What are the best strategies for reducing harm?
In 2013, a report from the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council of The National Academies in Washington D.C., identified the lack of data about the public health aspects of gun violence as a serious national challenge. The report’s authors called upon researchers at public health organizations and universities to dedicate resources to studying the problem and contributing to a fuller base of information.
“Gun Violence: A Public Health Crisis,” a yearlong initiative at Washington University in St. Louis, will invite scholars, medical professionals, community leaders and citizens to take a hard look at the serious, tragic public health consequences of gun violence in America. Beginning this month, the university will host a series of events and discussions designed to explore three key themes: What we know, what we need to know, and what to do about this critical issue.
“Deaths and injuries by firearms represent a profound public health crisis,” Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said. “The statistics are alarming, and the situation only seems to be getting worse. It’s time for action and we, as a prominent research institution, have an important role to play in getting to the heart of the underlying issues, finding out what’s really going on, and helping to lay the foundation on which a solution can be built.”
The issue of gun violence became personal for Wrighton and his wife, Risa Zwerling Wrighton, late last year when 16-year old Chelsea Harris, who Zwerling Wrighton had mentored for many years, was shot to death in St. Louis. The tragedy inspired Zwerling Wrighton to begin thinking about ways to raise awareness and bring together people with the knowledge and expertise to make a difference.
“Chelsea’s death was extremely painful for her family and all who knew and loved her,” Zwerling Wrighton said. “As I’ve tried to make sense of the loss of a beautiful young person so full of life and brimming with potential, my grief has turned to resolve that we must do something to stop the epidemic of gun violence.
“The sad fact is there are many other ‘Chelseas’ out there, and unless institutions like Washington University stand up and do something to help find a solution, I fear there will be no end to the heartache and suffering,” she said.
The Washington University initiative, which will be presented under the leadership of the university’s Institute for Public Health and the Brown School, will begin Tuesday, April 21, with an opening event featuring a keynote address by Alan Leshner, PhD, chair of the 2013 study committee and CEO emeritus of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The event, which will be held at 5 p.m. in the Eric P. Newman Education Center at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, will also feature welcome remarks from St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and a panel discussion moderated by Edward F. Lawlor, PhD, dean of the Brown School and the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor.
Panelists are:
James Clark, vice president of community outreach for Better Family Life;
Robert “Bo” Kennedy, MD, professor of pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics Emergency Medicine at the School of Medicine;
Becky Morgan, Missouri chapter lead for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America; and
Nancy L. Staudt, JD, PhD, dean of the School of Law and the Howard and Caroline Cayne Professor of Law.
Building upon this initial discussion, a series of additional events will be held throughout the 2015-16 academic year, including three anchor events, each highlighting one of the three areas of focus:
October 2015: What we know — A tremendous amount of work has been done on issues related to gun use, as well as prevention and intervention to reduce gun violence. This event will provide an opportunity to consider the breadth of existing knowledge and allow participants to learn from others’ experience.
— A tremendous amount of work has been done on issues related to gun use, as well as prevention and intervention to reduce gun violence. This event will provide an opportunity to consider the breadth of existing knowledge and allow participants to learn from others’ experience. January 2016: What we need to know — Building off the base of existing knowledge – particularly in response to the call for additional research – this event will begin to work toward identifying areas in which additional effort is necessary, and consider how an institution like Washington University can help address gaps and broaden understanding.
— Building off the base of existing knowledge – particularly in response to the call for additional research – this event will begin to work toward identifying areas in which additional effort is necessary, and consider how an institution like Washington University can help address gaps and broaden understanding. April 2016: What to do — Based on available information and additional research, it will be possible to consider tangible steps that could be taken to address the public health implications of gun violence, with a goal of better informing the policymaking process and the public in an effort to reduce death and injury related to firearms.
“Historically, the public health perspective has been a powerful tool in raising awareness, mobilizing communities and enacting change on a number of critical issues,” said William G. Powderly, MD, the J. William Campbell Professor of Medicine, director of the Institute for Public Health, and co-director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the School of Medicine.
“By bringing together medical professionals, scholars and members of our community, we can begin an important conversation, with the ultimate goal of significantly improving the safety and well-being of our citizens,” he said.
The April 21 event is free and open to the Washington University community and the general public. More information is available online here.Wednesday, May 4th, 2016 (8:57 am) - Score 1,048
Earlier this year the city of Aberdeen in Scotland signed a major £250m City Deal with the Government (here) and we’re now starting to get the first details on what this could mean for digital connectivity, with free city centre wifi and fibre optic upgrades being high on the agenda.
The original announcement pledged to deliver, among other things, a “major investment in digital infrastructure” and the latest update states that the local authority has set aside around £300,000 from the council budget to focus on areas like laying new underground fibre optic cables or supporting the build of free city centre WiFi.
However £300k won’t get the council very far and thus another £20m will also be extracted from the new City Deal, which it’s hoped could then be more than matched by £30m from the private sector. As usual there’s still a lack of detail about precisely what the funding will do.
Simon Haston, Aberdeen Council’s Head of IT, said (Press and Journal): “We have already begun to upgrade the council network which is a six-year programme. Within the year, we will have upgraded the council’s network which could attract private sector investment of potentially £30million over the next six years. The city centre wireless we’re looking at is what is called a full concession. That’s where the private sector pay for the infrastructure and get their returns through advertising or footfall.”
Apparently the free city centre WiFi network should be ready by around the end of 2016 and it could then be extended outwards to additional areas. Otherwise most of the funding seems to be focused upon upgrading the council’s own public network connectivity and this may later be followed by improvements to local business connectivity.
At this point we should add that Cityfibre is still busy expanding their 1Gbps capable fibre optic broadband (FTTP) network in the area (Aberdeen Core). Elsewhere around 90% of premises in Aberdeen should already be able to access a superfast broadband (24Mbps+) connection, albeit mostly via BT’s hybrid-fibre FTTC (VDSL2) network (Virgin Media’s faster cable infrastructure has almost no presence in the city).Chrome OS is getting an new API that will allow extensions to access the location of the device. If you are an extension developer, you can excited now. If you are a normal user like me, wait a bit more and you will see exciting stuff.
Android has been doing this for ever. Now your Chromebook gets to do the same thing. Access your location and do stuff for you.
“All you need is to declare the “location” permission in your manifest and follow the example below. Moreover I’d recommend you take a look athttp://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/common/extensions/api/location.idl Obviously, this is still work in progress” says François Beaufort
Craig Tumblison found the API proposal document here which gives more details.
If the following comment found on the proposal document is true, this new Chrome API is being built because the HTML5 Geolocation API has some limitations
“Today, Chrome implements HTML5 geolocation API. This API cannot be used by event pages of Chrome extensions (see the bug) because its callbacks cannot wake up event pages. The functionality proposed here is generally similar to this Web API, but the proposed API is designed to work with event pages”
..and it lists the use cases that we all are familiar with…
Finding points of interest around. Finding your friends who happen to be nearby. Checking in at venues. Showing local information (weather etc.)
And of course the list can go on and on.
Did I mention that Google Now is coming to Chrome OS?Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
And I'm not talking about paper versus digital. I'm talking about curling up with a good book, for hours. Sitting in a hammock, or in a chair by the fire, just totally pulled into a book. Is the long, totally focused book-reading session a thing of the past — and does this mean we're getting less immersed in our stories?
Top image: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
We've never had more distractions keeping us from focusing totally on a book as we have today — in fact, sometimes it feels like half the non-fiction books published in a given week are bemoaning how distracted and overwhelmed with input we all are nowadays. But there are also plenty of signs that the way we're reading books is changing. Not because of e-books, per se — e-book readers do a good job of replicating the experience of reading a book on paper — but because our lives and relationships with technology are changing.
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Just this past weekend, every gadget and design blog was obsessed with a new app called Spritz, which lets you read way faster. (On Friday, all the articles were saying it would let you read 500 words per minute, but by today that was up to 1,000 words per minute.) Spritz works by giving you one word at a time, in a 13-character space, and carefully positions the words so that you never have to move your eyes at all. The notion is that eye-movement is a wasted activity that slows down your reading speed, and you ought to be able to read War and Peace in short order.
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People have been warning about the death of reading for decades — just check out this 1991 Los Angeles Times article that blames television and videogames for driving people away from books. In 2007, a study found half of young people weren't reading for pleasure any more.
But if anything, the past half-dozen years has seen an encouraging trend in terms of people reading books for pleasure. E-book readers have become more popular and widespread, and suddenly everybody was buying more books again. Especially among younger people, the ability to read a novel on your phone has meant a boom in book-buying and reading.
But how are people's reading habits changing? Now that we read on e-readers and phones, do we tend to read a few minutes at a time, instead of sitting in a chair for an hour or two? Also, as everybody works harder and also spends more time using the internet, is book-reading becoming just another "app" that we shuffle through, between Flappy Bird and Google Hangout?
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Is this changing the way we think about books? And more importantly, do we tend to get less immersed in books as a result?
Let's examine these questions one by one, looking at the evidence that's out there.
Are people spending less time reading?
Now that books have to compete with everything else on your phone or tablet, are people spending less time total reading them? There certainly seems to be some evidence to back that up — along with some evidence that e-readers are actually reversing this trend.
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A 2012 poll of British smartphone users found that 26 percent of them were spending less time reading books, now that they could browse the internet on their phones. Similarly, a recent Yomiuri Shimbun poll in Japan also found that the more people use smartphones, the less they read books.
And a 2013 HuffingtonPost poll found that 41 percent of respondents had not read a fiction book in the past year, while 28 percent had not read a book at all. But bear in mind all of those polls are based on self-reported data, from a self-selected group of respondents.
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But a recent Pew Internet survey found that the average ebook reader has read 24 books in the past year, compared with 15 books for non-ebook readers. And 21 percent of Americans had read an ebook in the previous 12 months, up from 17 percent a year earlier.
Here's a cool infographic showing hours per week spent reading around the world, via Russia Beyond the Headlines:
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Is the amount of time per reading session going down?
It certainly seems, based on anecdotal evidence, as though people read for shorter amounts of time per session than they used to. Instead of sitting in an easy chair and reading, most people seem to read on the bus, or on the toilet, or whatever. This is partly our more hectic lifestyles, but also the convenience of pulling up a book on your phone or e-reader.
The Wall Street Journal reported on a 2010 study that found Kindle owners were buying 3.3 times as many books as they had before owning the device — which is an amazing increase — and then adds this detail from the survey:
But because e-book gadgets are portable, people report they're reading more and at times when a book isn't normally an option: on a smartphone in the doctor's waiting room; through a Ziploc-bag-clad Kindle in a hot tub, or on a treadmill with a Sony Reader's fonts set to jumbo. Among commuters, e-readers are starting to catch up with BlackBerrys as the preferred companions on trains and buses.
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But that's not all — German firm Readmill did a study in the U.S. and Germany, and found people are actually reading books more often on smartphones than on dedicated e-book readers. And that's even more conducive to snatching a moment with a book here and there.
According to Readmill's research, people spend more time reading per book on their phones, and they tend to finish more books if they read them on their phones than on tablets. Most significantly, check out the bar for "use frequency" in the chart below — people pull up books much more often on phones than on e-readers, which suggests lots of brief reading sessions throughout the day.
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Meanwhile, the same 2007 study that claimed half of young people never read for pleasure any more (which predates the ebook boom in earnest) also found that young people are spending around 10 minutes per day reading books:
And that young people are more likely to read books while also watching TV, looking at websites or instant messaging:
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Also, one study found that people read a story by Ernest Hemingway 6.2 percent slower on the iPad and 10.7 percent slower on a Kindle than on the printed page — possibly due to lower text resolution on those devices. (Obviously, this won't be a problem, if people start using Spritz.)
Does it make any difference if people use audiobooks instead of text?
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the audiobook business — which seemed a relic of a bygone era at one point — has boomed in recent years, reaching $1.2 billion in sales as compared to $480 million in 1997. Sales of downloaded audiobooks grew nearly 30 percent in 2011 alone.
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But does listening to a story on an audiobook — especially while you drive or do chores — reduce your appreciation for the storytelling? There's some debate about that, according to the Wall Street Journal article:
The rapid rise of audio books has prompted some hand- wringing about how we consume literature. Print purists doubt that listening to a book while multitasking delivers the same experience as sitting down and silently reading. Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that for competent readers, there is virtually no difference between listening to a story and reading it. The format has little bearing on a reader's ability to understand and remember a text. Some scholars argue that listening to a text might even improve understanding, especially for difficult works like Shakespeare, where a narrator's interpretation of the text can help convey the meaning. Less is known about how well people absorb stories when they are also driving or lifting weights or chopping vegetables. Commuters still account for half of audio book buyers, according to a report from the research firm Bowker, which tracks the book business... Some writers worry that the practice of silent reading could be threatened, as impatient and busy readers no longer take time to concentrate on a text. "If we come to think reading is this secondary activity we do while doing other stuff, then we lose that deepest and most important kind of reading," said Nicholas Carr, author of 'The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.' "The broader danger is that technology will give us the illusion that everything can be done while multit |
about 40 percent of the California’s freshwater supply, but now, as California endures its fourth year of drought and as farmers have resorted to drilling for water, that number has leapt to more than 60 percent. The state recently implemented regulations to measure groundwater supply that will gradually be implemented over several years.
Measuring exactly how much groundwater remains around the world is both difficult and expensive, as it involves drilling, sometimes thousands of feet, into thick layers of bedrock. As a result, estimates of how much longer the existing groundwater will last often vary by orders of magnitude—from decades to millennia.
The researchers got around that problem by using data that shows subtle changes in the Earth’s gravity, which is affected by the weight of the aquifers. They acknowledge that this is just a start, and call for more local, detailed data.
“We know we’re taking more than we’re putting back in—how much do we have before we can’t do that anymore?” said lead author Alexandra Richey to the Los Angeles Times. “We don’t know, but we keep pumping. Which to me is terrifying.”Of all the recent headlines concerning sexual harassment in Hollywood and beyond, the revelations about comedian Louis C.K. sexually harassing women throughout his career have most strongly reignited the age-old debate on separating an artist from their art: whether you can, and whether you should.
Someone like C.K. is different than a typical Hollywood workhorse like Brett Ratner. He’s a celebrated comic whose material has often been hailed as progressive and provocative for how it grapples with what it means for boundaries to become warped beyond recognition; his fall from grace has therefore forced many of his fans to revisit that material through a new lens, one with a context that gives its more disturbing elements a horrifying new sheen.
But at the point when the allegations against C.K. became public, I had already been poring through stories about sexual harassment, assault, and abuse for weeks. And that’s why, after seeing so many people’s default response be to question whether it’s okay to retain their fondness for C.K.’s past work, I can safely say have zero interest in this debate.
All the stories I’ve read about a man who’s been accused of using his power to belittle, subdue, or assault people — no matter who it’s about, no matter which industry it happened in, no matter when the alleged incident(s) took place — have one thing in common. They all feature victims who were intimidated, bullied, or outright forced into leaving their dreams and ambitions behind while the men responsible moved forward. They all feature a graveyard of potential cut short by careless cruelty.
It’s true that a lot of great art will now forever be marred by disturbing subtext concerning its creators — subtext that might hinder your enjoyment of it. But what about the people they targeted, whose resulting trauma affected their chances or ability to advance their careers and pursue their dreams? What about the great art we lost?
Every story of sexual harassment and abuse contains a story of lost potential
The women who’ve come forward against C.K. are all comics or writers who met Louis through work. Dana Min Goodman and Julia Wolov, a Chicago comedy duo who recounted the time C.K. masturbated in front of them during a comedy festival, say that telling people what happened immediately made them radioactive within the comedy community. “Guys were backing away from us,” Wolov told the New York Times. “We could already feel the backlash.”
As they kept pursuing comedy, Wolov and Goodman felt they had to purposely avoid any project C.K. or his powerful manager Dave Becky were producing — which, unsurprisingly, eliminated a whole lot of opportunities right from the start. The day after their account was published, C.K. admitted that the stories “were true” and that he hadn’t realized the horrifying depth of his actions.
On this point, I believe him. Even if he remembered the specific instances described in the Times, he almost certainly didn’t realize these women — his victims — would spend the rest of their careers trying to navigate the lasting impact of his actions. After all, what other choice did they have?
If you look at any other recent story about sexual assault, harassment, and abuse, you’ll find a similar pattern. As the New York Times’s Amanda Hess puts it, “Men like Louis C.K. may be creators of art, but they are also destroyers of it. They have crushed the ambition of women and, in some cases, young men — boys — in the industry, robbing them of their own opportunities.”
Take BuzzFeed’s new exposé on DC Comics editor Eddie Berganza, who reportedly harassed and assaulted lower-level women employees for years without much consequence. “Among the women who reported Berganza to human resources, none still work for DC,” writes Jessica Testa. “None are even working at mainstream comics publishers anymore; they’ve largely put superheroes behind them.”
“We all left,” said former DC Comics editor Janelle Asselin, “and he’s still there.”
Or look at the litany of allegations against Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul who kickstarted this widespread reckoning. Some of his accusers, like Gwyneth Paltrow and Lupita Nyong’o, went on to become A-list actresses after experiencing harassment from Weinstein earlier in their careers. Many others — especially the assistants and fledgling actresses Weinstein is alleged to have targeted — faded from view, stymied by both Weinstein’s widespread influence in the industry and their own trauma.
Annabella Sciorra, who says Weinstein raped her in the early 1990s, says she couldn’t find work for years afterward. “I just kept getting this pushback of ‘We heard you were difficult; we heard this or that,’’ she told journalist Ronan Farrow. Rosie Perez, Sciorra’s peer and friend, recalled the confusion she’d felt over what was going on with Sciorra’s career before she learned about the attack. “It made no sense,” Perez said. “Why did this woman, who was so talented, and riding so high, doing hit after hit, then all of a sudden fall off the map?”
But in the context of how Sciorra responded to the attack, it makes all sorts of sense. She says she spent years dodging Weinstein and the many, many projects he backed, attempting to avoid her trauma lest it swallow her whole. Weinstein, meanwhile, allegedly spent the next couple decades harassing and assaulting dozens more women, women whose lives and careers were similarly changed by their encounters with him, forever attached to his inescapable shadow.
The list goes on and on. Assistants have quit rather than withstand workplace harassment; young actors have left entertainment rather than suffer the advances of predatory men; writers have packed away their dreams and turned to different industries.
Collectively, the common refrain of these stories is that victims had to rethink their entire lives, while perpetrators simply moved on.
It’s time to stop mourning the complicated legacies of terrible men and start mourning what we lost from the people they targeted
After reading the New York Times’s report on C.K., simmering with rage and exhaustion after months of poring over similar stories, and seeing so many people’s first reactions be that C.K.’s past work is now accompanied by an asterisk, I made a questionable decision: I tweeted.
stop mourning the work that's been tainted by shitty men and start mourning the work we lost from the people they targeted — Caroline Framke (@carolineframke) November 10, 2017
Judging by the way this tweet has taken off, it appears as though I’m not alone in this particular frustration. But I’ve also gotten some pushback on one point I’d like to address now, which is essentially, “Why can’t we do both?”
To be clear: You can. Many of the men accused of doing terrible things have made some meaningful art, or at least inspired others who did. It’s difficult to ignore those contributions, sometimes impossible when considering the larger canon.
But if you do want to mourn the loss of the esteem you had for a certain piece of work because its creator might be a horrible person, all I ask is that you also mourn what’s been lost as a result of his behavior, and fight to improve the broken system that let him get away with it.
Mourn the people whose lives and jobs were jeopardized. Mourn the contributions and commitment to his artistic vision by talented, passionate people who got accidentally swept up in his bullshit. Mourn the survivors who have yet to speak up, who may never feel safe to, who continue to navigate their pain in forced silence. Mourn the creators who never got a chance, the work that was never created, the potential that was crushed, all because too many people were too wrapped up in maintaining the status quo to call out those who abused it.A Republican-proposed House Resolution has quietly slipped past the public radar – proposing that the United States withdraw its membership from the United Nations, just as another bill was being concocted to cut US funding to the body.
The bill, proposed by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), entitled American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2017, seeks a complete US withdrawal from the UN, that the international body remove its headquarters from New York and that all participation be ceased with the World Health Organization as well.
Rogers and other prominent Republicans have repeatedly voiced the idea that US taxpayer money should not go to an organization that does not promote US interests – especially one that does not stick up for Israel together with the US. The new document is merely the latest manifestation of sentiment that has been brewing for some time.
The bill was quietly introduced on January 3 and was passed on to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. If approved, the bill would take two years to take effect. It would also repeal the United Nations Participation Act of 1945, signed in the aftermath of WWII.
“The President shall terminate all membership by the United States in the United Nations in any organ, specialized agency, commission, or other formally affiliated body of the United Nations...The United States Mission to the United Nations is closed. Any remaining functions of such office shall not be carried out,”according to the text of HR 193.
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The bill would also prohibit “the authorization of funds for the US assessed or voluntary contribution to the UN,” which would also include any military or peacekeeping expenditures, the use of the US military by the UN, and the loss of “diplomatic immunity for UN officers or employees” on US soil.
Rogers had tried to pass the same bill in 2015, albeit unsuccessfully.
“Why should the American taxpayer bankroll an international organization that works against America's interests around the world?” Rogers asked at the time in defense of his idea.
“The time is now to restore and protect American sovereignty and get out of the United Nations.”
Another supporter of HR 193, Rend Paul (R-KY) also put it like this in January 2015: “I dislike paying for something that two-bit Third World countries with no freedom attack us and complain about the United States… There’s a lot of reasons why I don’t like the UN, and I think I’d be happy to dissolve it,” added the Kentucky senator.
Later, in June 2015, Rogers had introduced his document – then named HR 1205, but essentially the same USExit idea he’s proposing now.
“The UN continues to prove it’s an inefficient bureaucracy and a complete waste of American tax dollars.” Rogers went on to name treaties and actions he believes “attack our rights as US citizens.” These included gun provisions, the imposition of international regulations on American fossil fuels – but more importantly, the UN attack on Israel, by voting to grant Palestine the non-member state ‘permanent observer’ status.
“Anyone who is not a friend to our ally Israel is not a friend to the United States.”
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That same logic was used this January when House Republicans prepared a legislation that would decrease – even potentially eliminate – US funding to the UN. According to calculations by the conservative Heritage Foundation, the US provides over 22 percent of all UN funding.
The bill to cut the funding was introduced shortly after the UNSC voted 14-0 to condemn the continued construction of illegal Israeli settlements – the resolution Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considered a backstab from the US, which declined to veto it, as per former President Barack Obama’s suddenly critical attitude to Israel at the end of his presidency.
Still, the resolution vote came the same year the Obama administration awarded Israel with its largest military aid package ever, signing a memorandum of understanding in September that would give it $38 billion over 10 years.
However, with Donald Trump now in power, many Republicans seem to be attacking the idea of participating in the UN or cutting funding with renewed fervor.
Each year, the US gives approximately $8 billion in mandatory payments and voluntary contributions to the international peace agency and its affiliated organizations. About $3 billion of that sum goes the UN’s regular peacekeeping budgets.FILE PHOTO - The new Canadian five and 10 dollar bills, made of polymer, are displayed with the previously released 20, 50 and 100 dollar notes following an unveiling ceremony at the Bank of Canada in Ottawa April 30, 2013. REUTERS/Chris Wattie
The Canadian dollar weakened slightly against a broadly stronger U.S. counterpart on Friday as data showed U.S. job growth increased at a strong clip in November, adding to the loonie’s sharpest weekly decline since late October.
The Canadian currency lost 1.3 percent over the course of the week, with losses accelerating after Wednesday, when the Bank of Canada held interest rates steady as expected but surprised some with a subdued reaction to Canada’s own strong November jobs report last Friday that tempered expectations for a rate hike in coming months.
“The Bank of Canada has clearly signaled they’re still cautious at this point,” said Eric Theoret, a currency strategist at Scotiabank, who said an appearance next Thursday by Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz would be a key opportunity to update the market on the central bank’s views.
“The story for this year has been this rapid shift from the Bank of Canada from cautious to aggressive to cautious again,” he said.
The central bank hiked rates twice earlier this year.
At 4 p.m. ET (2100 GMT), the Canadian dollar <CAD=D4> was trading at C$1.2867 to the greenback, or 77.72 U.S. cents, down 0.1 percent.
The currency’s strongest level of the session was C$1.2805, while it hit its weakest since Dec. 1 at C$1.2880.
Speculators had trimmed bullish bets on the Canadian dollar heading into the Bank of Canada rate decision, data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Reuters calculations showed. As of Dec. 5, net long positions had slipped to 42,466 contracts from 45,658 a week earlier.
The slip on the day for the Canadian currency came despite higher oil prices and firm domestic data.
Canada’s capacity utilization rose to 85.0 percent in the third quarter, marking a 10-year high, as gains in the construction sector offset lower extraction volumes in the oil and gas industry.
Separate data showed that Canadian housing starts rose sharply in November. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of starts climbed to 252,184 from October’s downwardly revised 222,695.
Canadian government bond prices were slightly lower across the yield curve, with the two-year <CA2YT=RR> price down 1 Canadian cent to yield 1.503 percent and the benchmark 10-year <CA10YT=RR> falling 4 Canadian cents to yield 1.861 percent.
(Additional reporting by Fergal Smith)Sightseeing tours & activities
In Iceland you can enjoy an incredible adventure in almost every part of the country, but you don’t have to go far to discover amazing nature and beautiful scenery. There are so many sights to see in Iceland… and so many things to do. These guided tours will make sure your sights are seen in a safe, fun and enlightening way. We also sell extreme activities with experienced guides. The tours and activities sold here are designed to enhance your stay in Iceland above and beyond your expectations.
Here we list a collection of sightseeing tours and nature activities from our partners. These are high quality tours by licensed Icelandic Tour operators. Each is well established in its field and employs quality staff for a professional sightseeing experience.– The St. Paul Winter Carnival announced its winners Sunday for the snow and ice sculpture competitions.
The snow sculpting competition took place at the Snow Park at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. The ice sculpting competition happened at Rice Park.
Carnival-goers will be able to see the snow sculptures, weather permitting, until Feb. 5. The winning team received $1,000, a trophy and earned the opportunity to represent Minnesota at a national competition at Lake Geneva, Wis.
First place went “When Nature Calls” by House of Thune. Second place went to “Under a Rest” by Shadow Men, third place went to “The Hummingbird” by The SnowKitects and the Artist’s Choice and Vulcans’ Choice went to “Focused on a Cure for MS” by MS Krackers.
The ice sculptures will also be available for viewing at Rice Park, weather permitting, until Feb. 5. In the multi-block category, first place went to “Something to Prove,” second place went to “Charlotte’s Web” and third place went to “From Sea to Sky.”
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For six years, former presidential hopeful Fred Thompson played Arthur Branch, the gruff, straight-shooting district attorney in the television series Law and Order. Thompson’s character had an unflinching commitment to the letter of the law. The same can’t be said for a firm that Thompson has been pitching for lately in TV ads: a mortgage company that’s landed in hot water in a half-dozen states for allegedly preying on elderly Americans and, in some cases, violating state law.
This spring, Thompson, a jowly ex-GOP senator from Tennessee, signed on to serve as the national spokesman for American Advisors Group (AAG). In an ad for the company, Thompson stands in front of a charming white house with an American flag flying out front and sings the praises of a lesser-known mortgage product called a reverse mortgage: “Join hundreds of thousands of other Americans who have used a reverse mortgage as a safe, effective financial tool,” he implores viewers.
Thompson’s new employer, however, has a troubled track record. Regulators in Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Washington State have cracked down on the firm for deceptive marketing and consumer fraud. In February, for instance, the Illinois attorney general, Lisa Madigan, sued AAG and its president for direct-mail solicitations that Madigan described as “extremely misleading.” That same month, the state of Massachusetts temporarily banned the company from doing business in the state.
A questionable company enlisting a popular public figure like Thompson to peddle its wares is nothing new. As Mother Jones recently reported, a company called Goldline International uses TV and radio host Glenn Beck to lure unwitting customers into dubious gold-buying deals. (AAG has also advertised on Beck’s Fox TV show.) Last month, JD Hayworth, a former Republican congressman who’s angling for Arizona senator John McCain’s seat, suffered a major embarrassment when an old infomercial resurfaced showing the conservative plugging $1,000 seminars on how to tap “free” government money.
In AAG’s case, putting a celebrity face on its mortgage products is at the core of the company’s marketing strategy. Before hiring Thompson, the company used the late veteran actor Peter Graves as its spokesman. And in August 2009, AAG president and CEO Reza Jahangiri explained that a large part of the company’s national marketing campaign would revolve around a “celebrity spokesperson” who “adds that credibility and gets borrowers a little more comfortable with the company.”
Reverse Mortgages: The New Subprime?
In AAG’s line of work, you need all the credibility you can get. The company peddles reverse mortgages, a variety of loan available to homeowners 62 or older, letting them tap the equity in their houses. Here’s how they work: In a typical mortgage, the lender advances the loan’s principal amount up front to finance the borrower’s purchase of a home, and then the borrower repays the lender in monthly installments. In a reverse mortgage, a lender like AAG pays a homeowner—either in monthly payments, a lump sum, or a line of credit—the amount of equity in the home. Then, as fees and interest accumulate over time on the loan, the borrower’s balance increases. That sum must be paid off when the borrower moves out, sells the home, or dies, at which point whoever inherits the house must pay off the loan.
More than 90 percent of reverse mortgages are federally insured. Conceived in the early 1980s, they were envisioned as a way for the elderly to pull money out of their homes to pay for medical costs or supplement diminished incomes. In recent years, as the aging boomer generation swells the ranks of elderly Americans, the market for reverse mortgages has skyrocketed. The total principal committed in federally backed reverse mortgages increased seventeen-fold between 2001 and 2008, from $1 billion to $17 billion. Heavyweight banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America, as well as lesser-known lenders like Financial Freedom, are all major players in the industry. And, like subprime mortgages, reverse mortgages have been securitized and traded, a practice that began for this lesser known industry in 1999.
As the reverse mortgage industry grows, so, too, do the cases of fraud and predatory practices. In fact, the reverse mortgage industry today looks a lot like the subprime mortgage industry five or six years ago. According to a report by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), senior citizens are often pushed into reverse mortgages they don’t want or need by overzealous brokers, some of whom worked as subprime mortgage brokers before that market imploded. The Senate Special Committee on Aging has held two hearings, in December 2007 and June 2009, on the risks of reverse mortgages. At a June 2009 banking conference, John Dugan, the Comptroller of the Currency, warned (PDF), “While reverse mortgages can provide real benefits, they also have some of the same characteristics as the riskiest types of subprime mortgages—and that should set off alarm bells.”
Lenders target seniors by advertising on TV, via the Internet, and through direct mail; in some cases, they disingenuously describe reverse mortgages as “free money,” and ply seniors with images of shopping sprees and dream vacations. In AAG’s case, the company’s marketing materials are at the heart of its run-ins with state regulators.
In September 2008, regulators with Massachusetts’ Division of Banks ordered AAG to stop sending “false or misleading” direct mailers to consumers, which strongly resembled official government mailings. The company agreed. Seven months later, though, state regulators again caught AAG using misleading mailers that suggested the company’s reverse mortgages were related to the Obama administration’s economic stimulus plan—which wasn’t true. Massachusetts regulators also said that the fine print on AAG’s offer was printed in a smaller font and a lighter color so that it was especially hard to read. In February 2010, the state banished AAG from doing business in Massachusetts for nearly two years.
AAG has had similar run-ins with regulators in Washington, Illinois, Virginia, Florida, and Maryland. Washington regulators found that AAG sent the deceptive mailers to approximately 72,000 state residents, violating state law. In Virginia, AAG settled with the state and paid a $7,500 as a result of its deceptive marketing materials, though the company admitted no wrongdoing. And in Wisconsin, the state’s banking division cited AAG for failing to fully disclose its conflicts with Massachusetts and Washington regulators while applying for a mortgage banking license, for which the company paid Wisconsin $2,000.
AAG says its deceptive mailers were the work of a third-party marketing company and not the company directly. Since running into trouble with state regulators, the company “realized the need to be in control of our marketing and the need to be very conservative in our approach,” CEO Jahangiri told ReverseMortgageDaily.com. The company has also pursued settlements and other compromises with state regulators in response to issues arising from its mailers, state regulatory records show. Jahangiri didn’t respond to questions submitted in writing by Mother Jones for this story.
Fred’s Spotty Spokesman Record
AAG announced Thompson’s new role as pitchman this spring, amidst the crackdown by state regulators. (Thompson, through the public speaking agency that represents him, did not respond to a request for comment.) Now, his face is plastered all over AAG’s website and marketing materials. His signature even adorns the company’s front page. “Find out how much cash you may qualify for,” Thompson says in his AAG ad. “Call AAG today.”
This isn’t the first time Thompson has lent his name to a questionable company. He is among conservative luminaries like Glenn Beck, conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee who’ve worked as paid spokespeople for Goldline, the gold company that’s been accused of scamming its customers.
In 2007, Thompson, then mulling his presidential run, appeared in radio ads for a fraud prevention company named LifeLock. That company’s owner, the Los Angeles Times reported, had previously been accused by the Federal Trade Commission of deceptive advertising and stealing money from customers’ bank accounts. (The owner, Robert Maynard Jr., settled both accusations without admitting wrongdoing, but was banned by the FTC from selling “credit-improvement services.”) A Thompson spokesman said at the time that Thompson hadn’t researched the company beforehand, and that the voice-over was part of Thompson’s contract as an ABC Radio commentator. “You can’t expect the individual on-air personality to do research on every company,” the spokesman, Mark Corallo, said.
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Read the State of Illinois Attorney General’s complaint against AAG:
People Illinois) v. American Advisors Group ComplaintAbout This Photograph The Great Orion Nebula is a vast region of intense star formation. Massive, hot young stars � destined to lead short lives due to the rate at which they are consuming their hydrogen fuel � are the illuminating sources for the clouds of gas and dust that we see. Their intense ultraviolet light excites individual atoms in the nebula, causing them to fluoresce: each chemical element re-emits light in its own specific color. In this image, special filters were used to isolate the light from three of these elements, and these exposures were then combined to form a color composite: red for sulphur, green for hydrogen, and blue for oxygen. In reality, both sulphur and hydrogen emit a deep red color, while oxygen emits a teal hue. The "mapped" color assignment in this image highlights the distribution of energized atoms in the nebula.Five years ago, Ben Lipkowitz, who is now 28, was living with some friends in Bloomington, Ind., and he found himself wondering how much time he spent doing one of his roommates’ dishes. Lipkowitz had a handheld electronic datebook that he purchased on a trip to Tokyo, and on May 11, 2005, at 2:20 p.m., he started using it to keep a record of his actions. Instead of entering his future appointments, he entered his past activities, creating a remarkably complete account of his life. In one sense this was just a normal personal journal, albeit in a digital format and unusually detailed. But the format and detail made all the difference. Lipkowitz eventually transferred the data to his computer, and now, using a few keyboard commands, he can call up his history. He knows how much he has eaten and how much he has spent. He knows what books he has read and what objects he has purchased. And of course, he knows the answer to his original question. “I was thinking I was spending an hour a day cleaning up after this person,” Lipkowitz says. He shrugs. “It turned out it was more like 20 minutes.”
Another person I’m friendly with, Mark Carranza — he also makes his living with computers — has been keeping a detailed, searchable archive of all the ideas he has had since he was 21. That was in 1984. I realize that this seems impossible. But I have seen his archive, with its million plus entries, and observed him using it. He navigates smoothly between an interaction with somebody in the present moment and his digital record, bringing in associations to conversations that took place years earlier. Most thoughts are tagged with date, time and location. What for other people is an inchoate flow of mental life is broken up into elements and cross-referenced.
These men all know that their behavior is abnormal. They are outliers. Geeks. But why does what they are doing seem so strange? In other contexts, it is normal to seek data. A fetish for numbers is the defining trait of the modern manager. Corporate executives facing down hostile shareholders load their pockets full of numbers. So do politicians on the hustings, doctors counseling patients and fans abusing their local sports franchise on talk radio. Charles Dickens was already making fun of this obsession in 1854, with his sketch of the fact-mad schoolmaster Gradgrind, who blasted his students with memorized trivia. But Dickens’s great caricature only proved the durability of the type. For another century and a half, it got worse.
Or, by another standard, you could say it got better. We tolerate the pathologies of quantification — a dry, abstract, mechanical type of knowledge — because the results are so powerful. Numbering things allows tests, comparisons, experiments. Numbers make problems less resonant emotionally but more tractable intellectually. In science, in business and in the more reasonable sectors of government, numbers have won fair and square.
For a long time, only one area of human activity appeared to be immune. In the cozy confines of personal life, we rarely used the power of numbers. The techniques of analysis that had proved so effective were left behind at the office at the end of the day and picked up again the next morning. The imposition, on oneself or one’s family, of a regime of objective record keeping seemed ridiculous. A journal was respectable. A spreadsheet was creepy.
And yet, almost imperceptibly, numbers are infiltrating the last redoubts of the personal. Sleep, exercise, sex, food, mood, location, alertness, productivity, even spiritual well-being are being tracked and measured, shared and displayed. On MedHelp, one of the largest Internet forums for health information, more than 30,000 new personal tracking projects are started by users every month. Foursquare, a geo-tracking application with about one million users, keeps a running tally of how many times players “check in” at every locale, automatically building a detailed diary of movements and habits; many users publish these data widely. Nintendo ’s Wii Fit, a device that allows players to stand on a platform, play physical games, measure their body weight and compare their stats, has sold more than 28 million units.
Two years ago, as I noticed that the daily habits of millions of people were starting to edge uncannily close to the experiments of the most extreme experimenters, I started a Web site called the Quantified Self with my colleague Kevin Kelly. We began holding regular meetings for people running interesting personal data projects. I had recently written a long article about a trend among Silicon Valley types who time their days in increments as small as two minutes, and I suspected that the self-tracking explosion was simply the logical outcome of this obsession with efficiency. We use numbers when we want to tune up a car, analyze a chemical reaction, predict the outcome of an election. We use numbers to optimize an assembly line. Why not use numbers on ourselves?
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But I soon realized that an emphasis on efficiency missed something important. Efficiency implies rapid progress toward a known goal. For many self-trackers, the goal is unknown. Although they may take up tracking with a specific question in mind, they continue because they believe their numbers hold secrets that they can’t afford to ignore, including answers to questions they have not yet thought to ask.
Ubiquitous self-tracking is a dream of engineers. For all their expertise at figuring out how things work, technical people are often painfully aware how much of human behavior is a mystery. People do things for unfathomable reasons. They are opaque even to themselves. A hundred years ago, a bold researcher fascinated by the riddle of human personality might have grabbed onto new psychoanalytic concepts like repression and the unconscious. These ideas were invented by people who loved language. Even as therapeutic concepts of the self spread widely in simplified, easily accessible form, they retained something of the prolix, literary humanism of their inventors. From the languor of the analyst’s couch to the chatty inquisitiveness of a self-help questionnaire, the dominant forms of self-exploration assume that the road to knowledge lies through words. Trackers are exploring an alternate route. Instead of interrogating their inner worlds through talking and writing, they are using numbers. They are constructing a quantified self.
UNTIL A FEW YEARS ago it would have been pointless to seek self-knowledge through numbers. Although sociologists could survey us in aggregate, and laboratory psychologists could do clever experiments with volunteer subjects, the real way we ate, played, talked and loved left only the faintest measurable trace. Our only method of tracking ourselves was to notice what we were doing and write it down. But even this written record couldn’t be analyzed objectively without laborious processing and analysis.
Then four things changed. First, electronic sensors got smaller and better. Second, people started carrying powerful computing devices, typically disguised as mobile phones. Third, social media made it seem normal to share everything. And fourth, we began to get an inkling of the rise of a global superintelligence known as the cloud.
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Millions of us track ourselves all the time. We step on a scale and record our weight. We balance a checkbook. We count calories. But when the familiar pen-and-paper methods of self-analysis are enhanced by sensors that monitor our behavior automatically, the process of self-tracking becomes both more alluring and more meaningful. Automated sensors do more than give us facts; they also remind us that our ordinary behavior contains obscure quantitative signals that can be used to inform our behavior, once we learn to read them.
“When you have small, distributed battery-powered sensors, you want to collect all biometric data,” says Ken Fyfe, one of the pioneers of wearable tracking devices. In the mid-’90s, Fyfe was teaching engineering at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where his specialty was acoustics and vibration. He was also a runner, in a family of runners. His sons were national competitors at 400 and 800 meters. At the time, runners who wanted to know more about the mechanics of their performance — their stride, their cadence, the way their motion changed as they grew tired — had to go into a lab and be filmed. “You would run in a room on a treadmill with reflective stickers on your hips, knees, ankles and feet,” Fyfe recalls.
Taking video of people in motion, and then analyzing the video, seemed like a roundabout way to get data. Why not use an accelerometer, which can directly measure changes in speed and direction? Accelerometers had long been used in industry and cost several hundred dollars each. Then accelerometers were developed to trigger the air bags in cars. Massive purchases in the automotive industry drove the cost down. The size and power demands shrank, too. Suddenly, it seemed less crazy to put an accelerometer on your body.
Fyfe guessed that there would be plenty of interest in something like a personal speedometer, a wearable instrument that displayed how far you’d gone and your average speed. So he tried to invent one. “I worked on it every weekend for three years,” Fyfe says. He put accelerometers into a molded plastic insert. The insert fit into a shoe, and data were transmitted wirelessly to a sports watch. But there was a problem. The numbers produced by a motion sensor don’t necessarily say anything about a runner’s pace and distance. They give you the acceleration of a runner’s foot — that’s all. Some method — a formula or algorithm — is needed to translate the data into the information you want, and the method must work for almost everybody under a wide range of conditions: stopping and starting, jumping over a curb, limping because of an injury. Developing these algorithms took up most of Fyfe’s time during the years he perfected his system.
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Thanks to faster computers and clever mathematical techniques, Fyfe and other inventors are turning messy data from cheap sensors into meaningful information. “The real expertise you need is signal processing and statistical analysis,” says James Park, the chief executive and co-founder of Fitbit, a company that makes a tracker released late last year. The Fitbit tracker is two inches long, half an inch wide and shaped like a thick paperclip. It tracks movement, and if you wear it in a little elastic wristband at night, it can also track your hours of sleep. (You are not completely still when sleeping. Your pattern of movement, however, can be correlated with sleeping and waking, just as the acceleration of a runner’s foot reveals speed.) Park and his partner, Eric Friedman, first showed their prototype at a San Francisco business conference in the summer of 2008. Five weeks later, Park and Friedman, who are both 33, had $2 million in venture capital, and they were flying back and forth to Singapore to arrange production. Last winter they shipped their first devices.
At nearly the same time, Philips, the consumer electronics company, began selling its own tiny accelerometer-based self-tracker, called DirectLife, which, like the Fitbit, is meant to be carried on the body at all times. Zeo, a company based in Newton, Mass., released a tracker contained in a small headband, which picks up electrical signals from the brain, and uses them to compile the kind of detailed record of light sleep, deep sleep and REM sleep that, until now, was available only if you spent the night in a sleep-research clinic. Lately I’ve been running into people who say they wear it every night. And Nike recently announced that its Nike+ system, one of the first personal speedometers, has been used by more than 2.5 million runners since its release in 2006.
Ken Fyfe’s accelerometer-based tracking system is used with sports watches by Adidas and Polar. In 2006 he sold his company, Dynastream, for $36 million to Garmin, which makes navigation equipment commonly used in cars and airplanes and which is now branching out into personal tracking. Fyfe’s former company stayed in Alberta, where it continues to sell tracking components. A low-power data-transmission protocol they invented is in new blood-pressure cuffs, glucose monitors, blood-oxygenation sensors, weight |
is expected of Detroit in a rebuilding year. Still, Detroit general manager Ken Holland is on the hot seat himself, and may end up throwing Blashill overboard in order to preserve his own job.
At the very least, Blashill needs to figure out how to get the Red Wings to play a more exciting brand of hockey as they enter their first year in Little Caesars Arena. Detroit ranked 23rd in the league in goals scored two years ago, then dipped to 26th last year. If we start seeing empty seats in a new rink, Blashill will probably be the scapegoat.
At first, it might seem ridiculous for the Blackhawks to consider firing the man who led them to three Stanley Cup championships this decade.
However, plenty of Cup-winning coaches have been fired in the past, and every coach has his shelf life. Before last season started, who would have expected the Blues to fire Ken Hitchcock midway through the year?
Chicago is coming off back-to-back first round playoff exits, including an embarrassing sweep at the hands of eighth-seeded Nashville last spring. Many expect the Blackhawks to regress a bit this season after losing Artemi Panarin, Scott Darling, Marian Hossa, and Niklas Hjalmarsson. Quenneville didn’t hide his disappointment about the Hjalmarsson trade, and he’s butted heads with general manager Stan Bowman before. Speaking of Bowman, he may have sent Quenneville a message by firing assistant coach Mike Kitchen – a close friend of Quenneville’s – in April.
With a career 413-203-83 record as Blackhawks coach, Quenneville has set the bar high in Chicago. Ironically, those high expectations could be precisely what does Coach Q in if the Hawks don’t live up to them this season.
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Embed from Getty ImagesVIDEO: Undoing a legacy of ‘harm, oppression and dominance’
Universities across the nation are taking steps to actively purge male students of what’s been labeled “toxic masculinity.”
Examples abound of campuses hosting training sessions, group meetings, lectures and other programs to effectively cleanse what many campus leaders and left-leaning scholars contend is an unhealthy masculinity in young men today.
For example, a class at Dartmouth College this semester, “The Orlando Syllabus,” identifies so-called toxic masculinity as playing a role in the mass murder spree at a Florida club during the summer. This despite the fact that the gunman, Omar Mateen, told police on the phone as he committed the massacre he did it on behalf of ISIS.
Other instances of combating toxic masculinity on campus can be found at both the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Duke University, which launched programs specifically designed for male students to delve into “violent masculinity” and “healthier masculinity” and discuss issues like gender fluidity.
“How has the concept of masculinity contributed to the perpetration of violence in our society?” asks the UNC Men’s Project website
Duke University started a similar program this semester for male students to reflect on topics such as patriarchy, male privilege, rape culture, pornography, machismo and “the language of dominance,” Fox News reported
At a mandatory freshmen orientation training at Gettysburg College in August, male students had to watch a documentary which stated in part that the “three most destructive words” a boy can hear growing up is “be a man.” The freshmen also went through breakout sessions in which they were told mass shooting sprees are rooted in toxic masculinity.
The “Thrive” club, part of the Claremont colleges consortium which meets as a “safe space” to talk about mental health, advertises that “masculinity can be extremely toxic to our mental health, both to the people who are pressured to preform it and the people who are inevitably influenced by it.”
The group refuses to disclose the contents of its discussions due to “confidentiality concerns,” but students who attended one of the sessions reported that there was “a common consensus that masculinity is harmful both to those who express it and those affected by it,” the Claremont Independent reported
Various promotional videos promoting health masculinity advocate challenging “the traditional norms of what we envision masculinity to be” by recognizing “male privilege.” Goals touted through the education include undoing a legacy of “harm, oppression and dominance.”
This trend did not emerge over night. Last year, Vanderbilt University hosted “ Healthy Masculinities Week,” led in part by Jackson Katz, the first man to minor in women studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Katz criticized actors such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone for their muscular physiques, which have gotten “larger” over the years. According to the presentation, “hyper-masculinized sporting culture” has also advanced unhealthy masculinity.
IMAGE: Shutterstock
VIDEO COMPILATION: Kayla SchierbeckerIt isn’t surprising that online discourse is so consistently toxic. Human speech enemies. It isn’t surprising that online discourse is so consistently toxic. Human speech may have evolved, in part, as a means of gossiping, and for thousands of years our species has exhibited a keen interest in yelling at, insulting, and spreading rumors about one another. The online world, as a result of both the anonymity and the various social and network incentives it offers to users, makes it easier than it has ever been to rant and rave at the evilness of one’senemies.
Some corners of the internet are more civil than others, of course — there isn’t perfect overlap between “internet communication” and “insane internet communication.” But in those communities most marked by paranoia, anger, and rumormongering — and there seem to be more of them each day — it’s worth peeking in and trying to unpack exactly what’s going on.
When you dive into these communities, certain patterns emerge. One I’m particularly interested in is the Irrelevant- GIF Outrage Cycle, or IGOC. It’s wreaking havoc on people’s abilities to have productive conversations with one another. It’s convincing people that everyone they disagree with is a mindless zealot. It’s never going to end.
raising the alarms over a supposed pro- ISIS rally by Dearborn, Michigan, Muslims is an example of an image that sparked an IGOC. As throughout]: This Facebook post raising the alarms over a supposed pro-rally by Dearborn, Michigan, Muslims is an example of an image that sparked an I wrote in December, the image comes with the text, “These are isis flags and isis supporters folks but the media has not reported because of politically correctness [sicthroughout]:
Here’s how IGOC works: First, someone posts a GIF making some sort of argument to an online community, whether Twitter, Reddit, or whatever else (technically it could be a JPEG or a PNG, but let’s not be nerds about it). The GIF ’s argument impugns some person or group. But that argument — and this is crucial — is irrelevant. Either it’s simply false, it reflects a fringe opinion on the part of a member of the group being attacked, it was created by a troll in the first place, or some combination of the three. In the case above, the GIF is irrelevant because it’s false — as I showed, the photo in question was from an anti - ISIS rally.
But because of how ideological communities work, many if not most of the image’s target recipients fail to grasp this. Instead, they are outraged: How could [feminists/liberals/the government/Bernie supporters/whatever] be so [dumb/evil/hateful/whatever]? So that’s the second stage of the IGOC : fury at what’s contained in the GIF and/or its accompanying text, often manifesting in the form of comments about the GIF in question.
Which leads us to the third stage: The hunt for more evidence that the group in question is dumb/evil/hateful/whatever. Pissed off at the GIF ’s horrors, more people get drawn into the crusade against feminists or liberals or the government or whatever. They head further down the rabbit hole of anti-whatever content. They marinate in their own juices. They “investigate” the targeted group to find more evidence of the horrors it has inflicted and/or posted to Tumblr. Meanwhile, trolls, naturally fans of drama, realize that they can simply create this sort of content to get a rise out of people.
Sometimes, an irrelevant image is so outrageous, and offers such stark proof of a group’s awfulness, that it gets multiple spins through the IGOC. Take the almost-certainly-troll “feminist” Tumblr called enabler.” Sometimes, an irrelevantis so outrageous, and offers such stark proof of a group’s awfulness, that it gets multiple spins through the. Take the almost-certainly-troll “feminist” Tumblr called “Destroy the Patriarchy” One post features a screencap of a real tweet from a woman named Karen Ingala Smith in which she writes that “Anybody pushing a gender neutral approach to domestic - or sexual - violence is just a male violenceenabler.”
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The author of the post then continues:
Domestic abuse requires one to have actual institutional power. Without that you cannot abuse someone.
The man can always leave the home. He may leave behind his money and his possessions, but being a man, he can always get all that back. A woman has no such privilege: if she tries to leave, she is eventually murdered.
Women strike men in self defense, men strike women to reassert control.
Most importantly, gender neutrality ignores the fact that women are not violent unless provoked. Women are nurturers and peacemakers, and in violence, they are defenders. Men are privileged and see women as their property, and in violence, they seek control. So women cannot be domestic abusers. Self defense against the Patriarchy is not abuse.
This isn’t a particularly compelling satire even of the most radical feminist argument. No one who matters, anywhere, is arguing that men can’t be abused or that “women cannot be domestic abusers.” This is almost certainly trolling.
Naturally, though, the angrier corners of the internet didn’t get the joke. Last week a screencap of the post was published on KotakuInAction, the Gamergate subreddit, with the headline NEVER violent for no reason, so they shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions, because they are oppressed and are just lashing out against the white cishet PatriarchyTM oppressing them. [ sic throughout ]” Naturally, though, the angrier corners of the internet didn’t get the joke. Last week a screencap of the post was published on KotakuInAction, the Gamergate subreddit, with the headline “The most dishonest and hateful against men post I’ve read this month.” In the comments, it’s clear that many readers believe what they’re seeing, and view the Tumblr post as confirming what they already knew about feminism: “I’m speechless… utterly speechless… First sentence, and… idk… Like, I want to make a quip or joke or something… but I can’t even fix this amount of stupid…,” wrote one. Another wrote: “‘Feminsts’ are dishonest as hell like that: any other day, women are empowering themselves and are proud stronk wymxn who don’t need no man, but when it comes to domestic violence, women are always the poor innocent victims, and they areviolent for no reason, so they shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions, because they are oppressed and are just lashing out against the white cishet PatriarchyTM oppressing them. []”
That wasn’t this particular Tumblr post’s first ride around the block. actual Tumblr dumbness. spittle-flecked inanity. That wasn’t this particular Tumblr post’s first ride around the block. Here it is six months ago on the Tumblrinaction subreddit, garnering 115 comments. It was eventually added to that subreddit’s tellingly lengthy list of known troll blogs which submitters are instructed to ignore, because the subreddit is interested inactualTumblr dumbness. Here it is garnering an angry retort from another Tumblr blog a ways back (the reblogger thinks the original poster is a “bitch”), with hundreds of likes, notes, and reblogs. This isn’t white-llama-black-llama-escaping-the-zoo virality, but a lot of people spent a lot of time getting mad about a blog post that was, in all likelihood, written specifically to piss people off rather than to make any sort of actual point about anything. And, along the way, they got convinced that “feminists” think men can’t be abused, nudging what is already a trash-fire internet discourse on that subject further intoinanity.
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Let’s not act like as though it’s only reactionaries who engage in IGOCs, though. Just earlier this week, Tim Robbins tweeted this out:
Suffice it to say there is IGOC commenced anyway: When a GIF announces to you what you already know — that dark corporatist forces are swirling around the Democratic primary with the goal of stealing it from its rightful winner, Bernie Sanders — the proper response is not to question, but to share. Suffice it to say there is no actual evidence of election fraud in this image And yet thecommenced anyway: When aannounces to you what you already know — that dark corporatist forces are swirling around the Democratic primary with the goal of stealing it from its rightful winner, Bernie Sanders — the proper response is not to question, but toshare.
Much of this, of course, goes to the weird credibility we lend GIFs, or screencaps in general. Whereas a link can break, or the text on the other side of it changed, an image is “permanent” in the sense that it can be rapidly circulated in a stable way. GIFs are a staple of “proof” in conspiracy-minded communities (at its peak, Gamergate produced some legendary IMGUR links “proving” a massive, far-reaching conspiracy on the part of games journalists to sully the gamer identity), and it makes perfect sense that they are often the preferred way of communicating information about one’s enemies: In most cases, they require little cognitive processing to absorb; they skirt Twitter’s character-length requirement; and they are more visually striking than regular text. Whether or not they’re true doesn’t matter, because of course they’re true.
More importantly, the structure and incentives of social media reinforce IGOC tendencies. Because it is so effortless to retweet or share, and because we are more likely to do so when we are emotionally aroused by content, these outrage cycles will percolate forever. When you’re a member of an online community committed to what you view as some social good, it feels good to participate in the identification and ridicule of your enemy, especially if all your online buddies are. There are zero factual standards for what does and doesn’t get published on social media. It’s all determined by how outraged the content in question makes people, and the extent to which it fits into deeply carved cognitive grooves.
In other words: The debunkers here don’t have a shot. They are a tiny whisper during an angry orchestra’s crescendo. Online, content telling an outrageous story — Hillary is stealing the election! Feminists don’t care if women beat the shit out of men! — will always, always, always win out, and usually win out exponentially, over people asking Wait, are you sure this makes sense?How to Style in Super Smash Bros. Melee Guide – Part 1
Written by Bizzarro Flame
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Acknowledgement
2. Introduction
3. Terminology
4. Your Mindset
5. Your Opponent’s Mindset
6. The Timing of the Match
7. Applying Advanced Techniques
8. Using Underused Moves
1. Acknowledgement
I would like to thank all of my subscribers for helping us reach 115 subs for this goal. For those who are not aware, I set a sub goal of 115 for our Twitch for writing this guide to styling. Again, without your help and enthusiasm, I would not be here today writing this guide or even streaming. Even for those who cannot afford a subscription to our channel, I thank you for your continued support and for following me. No matter the amount of subscription, I will always have fun with the viewers just as I have since the beginning of this stream. Special thanks to sdAshkon for helping me in every aspect, especially in public relations and streaming.
I would also like to thank Mango for being one of the stylish smashers while being one of the best players in SSBM. My dream to both win and style has been heavily influenced by examples set by Mango due to his stylish nature.
2. Introduction
Hello everyone including fellow SSBM players! I assume that you are reading this guide in order to learn the art of styling in order to impress as many spectators as possible while making your opponent not just salty, but feel disrespected. For those of you who do not know me, I am a professional Ganondorf main in Super Smash Bros. Melee (SSBM) who is known for styling on his opponents and for providing dank quality stream at twitch.tv/bizzarro_flame.
I cannot guarantee that you will win because of your path to style, but I can guarantee that you will be given a lot of brownie points by spectators and possibly the stream if you choose to opt in for the stylish options rather than the mundane, bread and butter (BnB) options.
Again, some of you may ask again: “Why would I want to style when I could be winning by choosing efficient options instead of reading this ultra DANK guide?” Well, my response is that you should learn how to give the people what they really want and, more importantly, to have even more fun with this game, depending on your goals and personality. Also, you may already know how to style well using your own creativity and hard work, but there is still deep layers of styling that you may not have thought about since there is a lack of guides on styling.. Therefore, I advise you to read this guide to figure out whether you are maximizing your style and, of course, disrespect.
Unlike my previous guide, I will cover more theories than execution, so bear with me and try your best to think critically. I really hope you get to appreciate how much work it takes to set up and execute styling by the time you read this, as well as learning how to style.
3. Terminology & Acronyms
I will order the terminology and acronyms under alphabetic order. I have used these terminologies in this guide in order to make it easier for both the readers and myself.
1. SH = Short Hop
2. N-air = Neutral Air
3. F-air = Forward Air
4. D-air = Down Air
5. B-air = Back Air
6. Up Air = Up Air
7. DJ = Double Jump
8. FF = Fast Fall
9. SHFFL = Short Hop, Fast Fall, L-cancelled Aerial
10. Collision Hitbox = Collision bubbles that describe the area of an object or character that the character interacts with.
11. Full Hop = Full Jump
12. Joystick = Control Stick
13. DI = Directional Influence
14. SSBM / Melee = Super Smash Bros. Melee
15. F-tilt = Forward Tilt
16. F-Smash = Forward Smash
17. D-Smash = Down Smash
18. Up Smash = Up Smash
19. D-tilt = Down Tilt
20. Up tilt = Up Tilt
4. Your Mindset
You have a choice right now: the red pill (Play to Win in Melee), the blue pill (Play Melee Casually), and the purple pill (Play to Win and Style in Melee). If you take the purple pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the style and disrespect hole goes.
If you have chosen to adopt styling into your gameplay, then I congratulate you. It is a very fun and challenging way of playing competitive SSBM, and not only will you possibly become favored among the crowd to win, but you will also have the possibility of gaining a great amount of fame on different online multi-media platforms (Reddit, Smashboards, Facebook, etc.).
But it’s not only the choice you must make in order to successfully and consistently style, but it’s also your mentality. You have to get into the mode of styling by turning your brain into a work of art. In other words, you must think of styling so much to the point where you think about styling during the stressful event of playing your tournament matches or even friendlies.
There are two methods of preparing to style, both of which you should apply: long-term preparation and short-term preparation. For the long-term preparation, this applies before you play any of your matches. Just imagine yourself in multiple scenarios and think to yourself “How do I want to style in this specific situation?” For the short-term preparation, this applies to when you are in the middle of a match, and you are quickly imagining what you can do to style in the immediate situation. Of course, the short-term preparation is a lot harder because you are in the heat of the moment and your stress level is higher than long-term preparation.
Further, do not forget that as much as you have to think about how you can style in a specific situation during the match, you also need to execute your moves correctly. The best way to achieve this is to put your style into use during friendlies against smash friends, when you have a lot of time to test out your stylish theories and execute them. Another way is to practice against computers in the 20XX pack because computers have random DI, but, of course, this is an inferior method of practicing because you want to read your opponent’s mind, as discussed in the next section.
Most importantly, you have to want to style! If you don’t feel the excitement come to you when you are about to style and/or when you finish styling, then perhaps a focus on style is not for you. It comes from deep within your heart, and when your heart really wishes, then what you desire usually comes true including styling. Therefore, your mind and heart should be the same in order to become a master of style.
5. Your Opponent’s Mindset
Just as important as your own mindset, understanding and exploiting your opponent’s mindset is crucial! You have to take many factors into account within a short amount of time.
For example, when you are in the middle of a match against your opponent, you need to recognize whether the momentum is in your favor or in his/her favor. By recognizing this, you can sense whether your opponent is likely focus enough or not in order to figure out when the perfect time to style is. In other words, the less your opponent is focused and nervous, the more your execution of your style is against your opponent. Another example is your opponent’s habits, especially DI habits, in order to execute flashy punishments and creative combos against your opponent.
I think the best method of understanding your opponent’s mindset, including feelings, would be to apply the popular saying: “put yourself into the shoes of another.” Either before the match or during the match, you would immediately have to ask yourself what you, yourself, would do in your opponent’s situation. If you guessed correctly, then you finished half of your job as styling, and all you have to do is to execute your style plan.
There is just so much about your opponent’s mindset that cannot be covered in this section, so it is up to you to train yourself to understand and exploit your opponent’s mindset in order to set up stylish moments for yourself!
6. The Timing of the Match
The timing of the match can make a huge difference, in general, depending on what type of opponent you are playing against such as cool or nervous under pressure. There are three different scenarios concerning the timing of the match: 1) When there are equal amount of stocks, 2) When you have less stock(s) than your opponent, and 3) When you have more stock(s) than your opponent.
The general rule is that during the second scenario, your opponent will be more confident, so your opponent is more likely to not fall for your tricks and apply Combo DI (usually DI away in order to avoid getting combo’d) more efficiently. During the third scenario, your opponent will be less confident and more nervous, so your opponent is more likely to commit error in his or her spacing and apply Survival DI (usually DI up and towards in order to reduce knockback as much as possible).
So, what does this mean? This means that, in general, you are more likely to be able to style during the third scenario (when you have more stock(s) than your opponent) because you are able to use less efficient moves in order to punish your opponent’s neutral game and/or apply unconventional combos in order to punish your opponent’s Survival DI. And, of course, you will be generally more comfortable in choosing riskier moves when you are ahead of your opponent.
Therefore, be aware and mindful of the timing of your match in order to have a better idea of when to style on your opponent.
7. Applying Highly Advanced Techniques
It should be apparent that at this point of the competitive scene, general advanced techniques such as Teching, L-Cancelling, and Wavedash should be BnB. However, it is possible for highly advanced techniques to be considered stylish when executed correctly due to its high level of difficulty to pull off, especially in the middle of a tournament match.
Applying a highly advanced technique for either a set-up for a punishment or a punishment can be very exciting for the audience to watch and your opponent to appreciate. One good example is multi-shining an opponent’s shield when up to the point where his or her shield breaks. Another good example is executing a platform-cancelled b-air during a combo that leads into another hit.
Westballz Applying Multi-Shine Shield Pressure
TAS Mario with Platform-cancelled N-air into a F-Smash
Of course, I cannot practically cover every highly advanced technique in this guide. Just experiment with different highly advanced technique and apply them at different scenarios to see how stylish people would perceive them to be.
8. Using Underused Moves
This is probably the most important section of the entire guide. Usually, the most style points come from the use of underused moves for either comboing or the neutral game.
In general, the amount of style for executing a certain underused move depends on two general factors: 1) startup lag time of the move and 2) hitbox size of the move (or specific hitbox of the move). The startup lag time often denotes how difficult it is to land the move itself. Ganondorf’s Up-tilt and Roy’s Fully Charged Neutral B are prime examples of this. This means that charging your smashes leads to more style points, especially fully charged smashes. The hitbox size of the move (or specific hitbox of the move) also often denotes how difficult it is to connect the hitbox. Sheik’s sweet spot for her Charged Up-Smash is a great example of this.
Of course, there are a lot of other factors that add even more style points such as whether the move looks flashy itself (i.e. Captain Falcon’s knee), whether it has meteor smash or spike capabilities (i.e. Ganondorf’s Down-B), and a lot more.
For this section, the best way to train yourself to use these underused moves is to apply these moves in different scenarios as much as possible whether in training mode or training against your friends. Remember to experiment!
Continue to Part 2!Chapter 6 - Sir Edmund Plowden and New Albion
CHAPTER VI
SIR EDMUND PLOWDEN AND NEW ALBION
Before the grant of the Province of Maryland to Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, in 1632, Sir Edmund Plowden, an Englishman of distinguished ancestry, with Sir John Lawrence and others, petitioned Charles the First for a grant of Long Island and thirty miles square, to be called Syon. This was modified in another petition to the king, asking permission to occupy "an habitable and fruitful Island named Isle Plowden, otherwise Long Isle," "near the continent of Virginia, about sixty leagues northwards from James City, without the Bay of Chesapeake," and "forty leagues square of the adjoining continent, as in the nature of a County Palatine or body politick, by the name of New Albion, to be held of your Majesty's Crown of Ireland, exempted from all appeal and subjection to the Governor and Company of Virginia." One month after the Province of Maryland was given to Cecilius Calvert, King Charles ordered his secretary, John Coke, to request the Lords Justices of Ireland to grant to the petitioners the island "between thirty-nine and forty degrees of latitude," and forty leagues adjacent on the adjoining continent, with the name of New Albion. This grant, which was enrolled in the city of Dublin, where Sir Edmund Plowden close to have it registered, being a Peer of Ireland,* conveyed to him the following uncertain-bounded territory:
"Our south bound is Maryland north bound, and beginneth at Aquats or the southermost or first cape of Delaware Bay in thirty-eight and forty minutes, and so runneth by, or through, or including Kent Isle, through Chesapeake Bay to Pascataway; including the fals of Pawtomecke river to the head or northermost branch of that river, being three hundred miles due west, and thence northward to the head of Hudson's river fifty leagues, and so down Hudson's river to the Ocean, sixty leagues; and, thence of the Ocean and Isles acrosse Delaware Bay to the South Cape fifty leagues; in all seven hundred and eighty miles. Then all Hudson's river, Isles, Long Isle, or Pamunke, and all Isles within ten leagues of the said Province."**
Shortly after New Albion was granted to Sir Edmund Plowden, Captain Thomas Young, a son of Gregory Young, of York, received a special commission from the king, which is printed in Rymer's "Foedera," and dated September 23, 1633, authorizing him to fit out armed vessels for the voyage to Virginia and adjacent parts; to take possession in the king's name of all territory discovered, not yet inhabited by any Christian people; to establish trading posts with sole right of trade, and to make such regulations and to appoint such officers as were necessary to establish civil government.
In the spring of 1634 the exploring expedition departed, the lieutenant of which was Robert Evelyn, a nephew of Young; Evelyn's father, of Godstone, Surrey, having married Susan, the captain's sister. Among other officers was a surgeon named Scott, and the cosmographer was Alexander Baker, of St. Holborn's Parish, Middlesex, described by Young as "skilful in mines and trying of metals." The great object of Captain Young was to ascend the Delaware River, which he called Charles, in compliment to the king, until he found a great lake, which was said to be its source, and then to find a Mediterranean Sea, which the Indians reported to be four days journey beyond the mountains. He entered Delaware Bay on the 25th of July, 1634, and on the 29th of August had reached the Falls of the Delaware River. On the first of September Lieutenant Robert Evelyn was sent in the shallop "up to the rocks both to sound the water as he went and likewise to try whether the boats would pass the rocks or no." Meeting a trading vessel there from Manhattan, Young ordered Evelyn to see the Hollanders outside of Delaware Bay and then to go and discover along the Atlantic coast. He was sent as far as Hudson's River, and then returned to Young on the Delaware. Captain Young writes: "As soon as he was returned I sent him presently once more up to the falls, to try whether he could pass those rocks at a spring-tide, which before he could not do at a neap-tide; but it was then also impossible with any great boats, whereupon he returned back to me agayne."***
After this expedition Young, still being in the Delaware River, where he traded with the Indians at Fort Eriwoneck, Robert Evelyn was sent with dispatches to England, where he remained until the fall of 1636, when he returned to Virginia and the next year was one of the councillors and surveyors of that colony. At this time George, his brother, came to Kent Island, in Maryland, as the agent of the London partners of William Clayborne.
When Robert Evelyn again returned to England he was induced, in 1641, to write a small quarto with the title "Direction for Adventurers, and true Description of the healthiest, pleasantest, richest plantation of New Albion, in North Virginia, in a letter from Master Robert Eveline, who lived there many years." The description was in the form of a letter and addressed to Plowden's wife.(4*)
Sir Edmund Plowden's first visit to America was in 1642. Robert Evelyn, who had also returned on the 23d of June of the same year, was commissioned by the authorities of Maryland "to take charge, and command, of all or any of the English in, or near about, Piscataway, and levy, train and master them."
During the year 1642 Plowden appears to have sailed up the Delaware and visited "the fort given over by Captain Young and Master Evelyn," which seems to have been in or near the Schuylkill. His residence was chiefly in Northampton County, Virginia,(5*) and he brought some servants of his family from England.(6*)
John Printz, the third governor of New Sweden, arrived on the 15th of February, 1643, at Fort Christina on the Delaware. He appears to have resisted the claims of Plowden. In the "Remonstrance of New Netherlands," published in 1650, is the following:
"We cannot omit to say that there has been here, both in the time of Director Kieft and in that of General Stuyvesant, a certain Englishman who called himself Sir Edmund Plowden, and, styling himself Earl Palatinate of New Albion, pretended that the country on the west side of the North River as far as Virginia, was his property under a grant from James, (Charles I.) King of England; but he remarked that he would have no misunderstanding with the Dutch, but was much offended with, and bore a grudge against, John Prins, the Swedish Governor in the South River, in consequence of receiving some affronts which were too long to record, but which he would take an opportunity of resenting and possessing himself of the South River."(7*)
It appears by the statement of Charles Varlo (8*) that Sir Edmund Plowden, with his wife and two children, came over to New Albion to enjoy his property. Finding that it was occupied, and claimed by the Swedes and Dutch, he took up his residence for six years in Northampton County, Virginia, and on Kent Island and other portions of Maryland, which he claimed were included in his grant. He brought over with him numerous servants and settlers, and went to great expense and labor, in endeavoring to establish his claims. He leased to Lord Mason 5,000 acres, who was to settle it with 50 men; to Lord Sherrard he leased 1000 acres, who was to settle it with 100 men; to Sir T. Dandy he leased 1000 acres, who was to settle it with 100 men; to Mr. Heltonhead 5000 acres, who was to settle it with 50 men; to Mr. Heltonhead's brother 5000 acres, who was to settle it with 50 men; to Mr. Bowls 4000 acres, who was to settle it with 40 men; to Captain Wm. Clayborne 5000 acres, who was to settle it with 50 men, and to Mr. Muskery 5000 acres, who was to settle it with 50 men.
According to Evelyn's account of New Albion, a splendid palatinate was projected the banks of the Delaware were set off into manors all the earl's children received titles, and a chivalric order was instituted under the imposing name of The Albion Knights of the Conversion of the twenty-three Kings. His grant as we have shown, embraced all of the territory now comprised within New Jersey, regardless of the prior grant of a large portion thereof, to the New England Company, all of Delaware, and parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. By the liberal grant which Plowden procured from his sympathetic monarch, he was invested with the title of Earl Palatine, which drew after it very great privileges to the grantee; for Bracton, "the ancientest of lawyers," as Plantagenet calls him, defines an Earl Palatine to be one who has regal power in all things, save allegiance to the king. The first of the manors, called Watcessit, the earl reserved for himself. It was situated about the site of Salem, N.J., at the southern end of what Plantagenet calls "the mountless plain, which Master Evelin voucheth to be twenty miles broad and thirty long, and fifty miles washed by two fair navigable rivers; of three hundred thousand acres fit to plow and sow all corn, tobacco and flax and rice, the four staples of Albion." Three miles as was estimated from Watcessit, lay the domain of "Lady Barbara, Baroness of Richneck, the mirror of wit and beauty," adjoining Cotton River (now Alloway's Creek), "so named of six hundred pounds of cotton wilde on tree growing," says our historian; who further sets forth the value of the seat awarded to the Earl's favorite daughter, by adding that it was of "twenty-four miles compasse, of wood, huge timber trees, and two feet black mould, much desired by the Virginians to plant tobacco." The manor of Kildorpy, at the falls of Trenton, was unappropriated. Bolalmanack, or Belvedere, on the Chesapeake shore of Delaware State, was given to Plantagenet under the lord's seal, as a reward for his pains in exploring the country.
How far this scheme was realized we cannot tell. It is said that the New Haven settlers at Salem were visited by Master Miles, who swore their officers to fealty to the Palatine before their expulsion by the Dutch and Swedes. When the Earl himself came to New Albion, in 1643, it is said he "marched, lodged and cabinned together among the Indians."
The Knights of the Conversion, composed originally of Sir Edmund Plowden, and the seven persons with whom he conferred, partook strongly of the fantastic spirit which marked the Hudibrastic age. Whatever selfish motive might have influenced them in reality in their organization, they professed to have at heart only a desire for the conversion of |
2012 Republican losses that recommended making minority outreach a pillar of the party’s future.
Michael Steele, who served as the first black RNC chairman from 2009 to 2011, said Trump could affect the party’s standing with groups beyond those that are the subjects of his controversial comments, including white women. “It’s not just, ‘Oh well he said that about black folks it doesn’t apply to me.’ Other voters see that as being about how you treat people, how you talk about people. Other people see that as an indication of your character.”
Long before he ran for president, Trump was sued for housing discrimination by black would-be tenants and has made a number of controversial statements about blacks, including tweeting in April, “Our great African American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore.” From the start of his campaign, his sweeping depictions of undocumented Mexican immigrants as criminals have made him a villain to millions of Hispanics.
More recently, his insistence that he had no responsibility to correct a questioner at a New Hampshire town hall who insisted President Obama is a Muslim and not an American has stirred further controversy.
Many Republicans see this as a far cry from the vision of the 2013 report, which counseled “the importance of a welcoming, inclusive message in particular when discussing issues that relate directly to a minority group.”
“I’m of the school of politics that addition and multiplication is how you grow a party, not division and subtraction, and Trump is really of the division and subtraction camp, and it’s not good for the party,” said Mississippi Republican strategist Henry Barbour, another co-author of the 2013 Republican autopsy report and nephew of the state’s former governor Haley Barbour.
“He’s disgusted so many people and he has said such terrible things about so many people it’s hard to know who he hasn’t taken a shot at, and I think it’s an act that’s getting old, I think he’s reached his political apex,” said Barbour, a supporter of removing Confederate symbols from the Mississippi state flag and an adviser to Rick Perry’s recently ended presidential bid.
Perry gave a much-lauded speech on race and the GOP in July, in which he said, “For too long, we Republicans have been content to lose the black vote because we found that we could win elections without it. But when we gave up on trying to win the support of African-Americans, we lost our moral legitimacy as the party of Lincoln.”
Trump, for his part, has said of Muslims that “most are fabulous.” He’s also said “I have great respect for Mexico and love their people” and “I have a great relationship with African-Americans. … I just have great respect for them and you know they like me.” A Trump spokeswoman declined to comment.
During the business leader event on Wednesday — which was hosted by the Greater Charleston Business Alliance, of which the African American Chamber of Commerce is part — Trump made scant reference to race, instead sharpening his attacks on his rivals and lodging another complaint about the format of last week's Republican presidential debate. He did, however, say he would like more minorities on his team. "I want a couple of really good African-American negotiators. I'll take you right now... I'll take you right now," Trump said.
In South Carolina, Republican leaders are more optimistic that the party’s image can withstand Trump’s candidacy.
Glenn McCall, South Carolina Republicans’ first black national committeeman, said he believe the state’s voters do not identify Trump with the Republican brand. “Of course you don’t want to hear those things from a candidate running on your ticket, but I don’t think African-Americans and other people see this and stereotype this as how our party thinks about people of color.”
He said of his extended family, which is black and with the exception of him leans Democratic, “They see [Trump] and this whole process as comedic.”
Former Gov. David Beasley, who lost reelection in 1998 after angering white voters with his support for removing the Confederate flag from the State House dome, said Trump’s trip could offer him a chance to clear the air on race-related issues.
“I think the people in South Carolina will give him a chance to be heard and explain some of these statements,” said Beasley. “I think it will give him the opportunity to clarify and to explain.”
Fleischer said that despite the setbacks he attributes to Trump, the mogul’s candidacy could prove an opportunity for the Republican party, too — if it nominates a candidate who draws a contrast with him on matters of race. “If another Republican beats Donald Trump in the primary speaking the language of inclusion, they’ll have a powerful message to take to the general electorate.”We managed to get some time with MSI’s motherboard Guru Joran. He gave us a run down of some of the new features on their Intel Kaby Lake motherboards, as well as a sneak preview of a pair of upcoming AMD chipset motherboards.
Single button settings for a DDR4 boost is one thing, but the idea that a relative novice can go inside the latest version of OC Genie, ‘press a button’ and have a Kaby Lake processor running smoothly at 5.2GHz, is certainly interesting. The idea of automatic overclocking is not new to MSI (or other board manufacturers), but the interface now sports a dial that goes to ’11’ which is a clear sign that MSI have a sense of humour – linking it to legendary comedy rock film Spinal Tap (HERE). Not sure I would want to be running my new processor 24/7 at just over 1.5 volts however! (see video for more on this).
If you want to see more on the new MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard then read Luke’s full anaysis published last week, over HERE. You can also see Luke’s in depth testing and his views of manual and automatic overclocking of this particular MSI board on THIS page, when paired up with an i7 7700k.
How stable a 5.2GHz Kaby Lake chip will be is something that will need plenty of testing – the same goes for how much you’ll need to spend on an after market cooler, but – for now – the demo is impressive.
Also on show were a pair of AMD chipset boards, although no demos were allowed and information was limited – see for yourself.
Watch via our VIMEO Channel (Below) or over on YouTube at 1080p HERE.
KitGuru says: The ease and size of the overclocks being made available with Kaby Lake (be it Turbo Boost or through a 3rd party tool) has us wondering how much damage specialist system builders like Overclockers and Armari have inflicted on Dell and HP’s high margin workstation business models.We got the chance to talk to CCP's David Reid about DUST 514 and the final few weeks of development and testing before launch. David was eager to talk a lot about the game, but we focused on a few topics that really impacted the EVE community, namely, the integration between EVE and DUST. CCP is taking some major steps to link the two games and are truly breaking new ground. There's a huge update coming to the DUST beta later this month, and we talked about how the team's changing the game leading up to launch.
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David first explained that EVE and DUST are now geared up for testing on their Singularity Server. As EVE players know this is basically their version of a public test server. With both games running and being stressed on this server the devs will get a clear picture on what will happen on the Tranquility Server, which is the live game. Yes we both laughed that it is called Tranquility. David said that everything running on Singularity now is the full dress rehearsal to bring the game up to speed. If the game plays well on Singularity then it is a clear path to launch. There is still a lot of refining and integration to go through while testing. Also, Singularity testing allows CCP to make sure disaster scenarios get attention before the game goes live.
With all of these software elements being integrated, I asked David about the Matchmaking system being put into the game. David said that CCP wants to make sure DUST is friendly to FPS players and matchmaking gives them a familiar system to work with to get a feel for the game. We agreed that EVE players have a much more in depth approach to game play. MMOs in general have a deep curve when it comes to getting a feel for the high levels of game play. So Matchmaking will help FPS players get up to speed on the EVE game and universe in DUST. It will also allow for game play before they start making major economic decisions about their character, corporation, and all important economic aspects of the EVE universe. David did not want to take anything away from hardcore FPS players, knowing that they learn quickly, but also the matchmaking is for MMO players alike who just want to find quick battles with their friends.
One of the cool sounding game mechanics in DUST is the idea of the "orbital strike." We loved that term and asked David to give us some inside info on how this game element will come into play. Basically, orbital strikes are a great tool to further link EVE with DUST. On top of the normal battlefield where a character calls in an airstrike, the strike also cost money and resources. Someone has to pay for this devastation. Therefore, this type of transaction will be done through corporations and politicking in EVE and DUST. Mercs may decide to make an orbital strike attack as part of their contract with a major corporation. Or, corps will use orbital strikes strategically to get planets or districts under their control for valuable resources. David was very excited about how many different things this one game tool could mean to players, not to mention how awesome it will look on the DUST screen.
One of the best parts about the new update, at least for PC gamers like ourselves, is that you'll be able to put a Mouse and Keyboard to use in the PS3 game when the patch hits. Just plug them into the USB ports on your console, and you'll be good to go. Should the M&KB players have too much of an advantage, the match-making filters will eventually be able to keep dual-shock players separate from M&KB players, so there's no need to worry about "fairness".
Another game mechanic that we talked about was the Galaxy System. This system allows for players to fight over strategic planets in DUST. With such a hectic political climate among the corporations, DUST players will know where the strategic battle lines will be drawn. It also maps out the galaxy with different types of planets. Just like our own galaxy there will be gas giants and water planets. David was open to the idea of all types of Sci-Fi elements coming to the game in this way. For now DUST is launching with terrestrial planets only. However, there are endless possibilities ahead with the galaxy system tying everything together.
David summed up our chat about the post launch plans for DUST 514. He said that more than anything CCP wants to create a good honest MMO for players in an open universe shared between the two games. DUST is definitely being viewed internally as a "service game" taking player feedback into account and making changes as they go. However, once that live service is running successfully, then the team can add onto DUST and EVE together. They do have a roadmap of features already planned for the game, but having a successful launch is first on the priority list. Dave summed up his thoughts by saying that EVE and DUST really are the beginning for what CCP can do with this universe. The team is super focused on DUST right now heading into launch, but CCP continues to look at ways to bring more to the EVE universe (and both games) in the future.Dear Lennard,
I’ve never quite understood how fork angle, fork offset, and the resulting trail affect the way a road bike feels and steers. In my life, I’ve had three racing bikes with these three very different front ends, and I thought if you could tell me what the numbers mean to you, it might help me and your other readers understand bike geometry a little better.
1. 73-degree fork angle with a 40mm offset and a 110mm stem.
2. 74-degree fork angle with a 45mm offset and a 90mm stem.
3. 72.5-degree fork angle with a 49mm offset and a 90mm stem.
All three felt solid at speed. No. 1 felt good until I got No. 2. With No. 2, I felt like I could just lean the bike and it would turn itself, which No. 1 did not. No. 3, my latest bike, doesn’t feel quite as intuitive going into the turns, but once in the turn, it feels the most rock-solid of them all. (It’s laterally the stiffest by far, which may be factor.) The only other comment I have is that the steering for No. 3, which is rock-solid at high speed, feels surprisingly loose at low speeds. I can’t recall feeling that with my first two bikes.
When you look at numbers like that, what do you see in terms of the design? Does any of what I felt make sense? My impression is that steeper angles, more offset, and longer stems all increase the “quickness” of the steering, but I’m sure it’s much more complex and interesting than that.
— Steve
Dear Steve,
This is a complicated question with lots of variables involved, some of which you’ve identified. I have an entire chapter devoted to this subject in my Zinn’s Cycling Primer book. In it, I have a way that you can demonstrate to yourself with your own bike what happens when you change its head tube angle (what you refer to as “fork angle”).
To answer your questions, we have to first define some terms. Fork rake (a.k.a. “fork offset”), “R,” is the perpendicular distance from the center of the front hub to the steering axis. Fork trail, “T,” is the horizontal distance between the center of the tire contact patch on the ground and the intersection of the steering axis with the ground. Head angle, “Ø,” is the acute angle between the steering axis and the horizontal. The wheel radius is “r.”
On most bikes, the steering axis intersects the ground ahead of the tire’s contact with the ground, hence, the tire contact “trails” the steering axis, even though it’s out in front of the bike. This is the same situation as a shopping cart caster, in which the “trailing” of the wheel is more obvious. In that case, when you pull one cart out of the stack of shopping carts, the little front casters flip around away from you so that their little forks are pointed forward. Then when you push the cart forward, those little forks flip around and point backward, toward your feet. The steering axis, or the axis about which each caster’s fork spins, is vertical; if it were not, the front end of the cart would go up and down whenever the fork flipped around one way or the other.
Whether you are pushing or pulling the shopping cart, its little front forks flip around so that the contact point of each caster is behind the steering axis relative to the direction of travel of the shopping cart. In other words, the front casters always “trail” the cart in its direction of motion, which allows you to easily steer it. Each caster’s trail, T, is the distance the center of the caster’s contact patch is behind the intersection of the vertical steering axis.
I like to think of a bicycle’s fork trail as the lever that rights the bike; one way to increase a bike’s stability is to increase the fork trail. Trail, T, is related to the above variables by this expression:
T = (r cosØ – R)/sinØ
You can see from this equation, as well as from looking at a bike, that increasing fork rake (offset) without changing head angle or wheel radius results in a decrease in fork trail (and, hence, reduced stability). You can also see that increasing the head angle (i.e., making the head tube steeper) without changing fork rake (offset) or wheel radius also results in a decrease in fork trail (and, hence, reduced stability). Finally, you can see that increasing the wheel radius without changing fork rake (offset) or head angle results in increased fork trail (and, hence, increased stability).
I’m assuming that the wheel radius is constant on your three bikes, so they have the following amounts of fork trail:
1. 73-degree head angle/40mm offset = 63mm trail
2. 74-degree head angle/45mm offset = 51mm trail
3. 72.5-degree head angle/49mm offset = 57mm trail
My interpretation of your description of your riding impression is that bike No. 2 has quicker-steering than bike No. 1. That is quite obvious from its much smaller-magnitude fork trail.
Good bike design requires balancing steering quickness with stability. An example of a bike that is very stable would be a Harley motorcycle, which has a super long fork with the wheel way out in front, because the head angle is so low. That low head angle, coupled with low fork rake (offset), gives it an enormous amount of fork trail and enormous stability. But it is very much lacking in maneuverability. Similarly, you can make a bicycle super stable by turning the fork around backward (like on a stayer’s bike on the track, where the speeds behind the motorcycle are high, and the banking eliminates the need for maneuverability), but its handling would be sluggish, because its super-high fork trail would make it too stable to be steered easily.
Your bike No. 3 would again be more stable than your bike No. 2, as it has higher fork trail. And its “loose” feeling at low speeds is related to its higher “wheel flop.” In other words, a bicycle’s front wheel flops further into the lean based on the above variables. To see it, stand next to your stationary bicycle and lean it over to one side; the wheel will not stay in the same plane as the bike. Rather, it will flop further into the lean.
The greater the fork trail, the more it will flop into the lean. Conversely, if the fork trail is negative, which can be achieved with a steep head angle and a huge amount of fork rake (bikes don’t exist with negative trail; you would have to make one), when you lean the bike over, with weight on it, the front wheel will instead turn the opposite direction — out of the direction of the lean. This is the definition of an unstable bike!
It may surprise you that the wheel of a more stable (higher-fork-trail) bike would flop over more, into the turn, than the front wheel of a quick-steering (less stable, lower-fork-trail) bike would. You may assume that the wheel flops further into the lean to make the bike turn faster, but that is not the case. The front wheel of the more stable bike flops over more quickly to get the tire contact patch back under the rider’s center of mass more quickly and hence, bring the leaning rider back out of the lean and back to upright more quickly.
The amount of wheel flop is given by this equation:
Wheel flop = cosØ * sinØ * T
Here is the magnitude of wheel flop of your three bikes:
1. 73-degree head angle/40mm offset/63mm trail = 18mm wheel flop
2. 74-degree head angle/45mm offset/51mm trail = 14mm wheel flop
3. 72.5-degree head angle/49mm offset/57mm trail = 16mm wheel flop
The greater wheel flop of bike No. 3 relative to bike No. 2 gives it the more “loose” feeling you describe at low speeds. This is the reason that I would make a bike with less wheel flop for an elderly rider who rides very slowly. It would seem counter-intuitive, because in order to do it, I would be making the bike less stable at speed by virtue of its reduced fork trail. But elderly riders tend to ride slowly, they don’t tend to counter-steer (see below), and they don’t like the feeling of the bike zigging back and forth quickly as they lean from one side to the other that a stable (high-trail) bike would tend to provide.
The way to turn a stable bike (i.e., one with high fork trail, like your bike No. 1) quickly and powerfully on a road with good traction is by counter-steering, which takes advantage of the inherent stability of the bike — the tendency of the front wheel to try to get back under the rider’s center of mass. Everybody counter-steers unconsciously to a certain extent, but few understand it well enough to take advantage of its tremendous power. I also have a chapter on counter-steering in Zinn’s Cycling Primer, and I have written about it in the print version of VeloNews and in this online column over the years.
If you watch cornering motorcycle road racers, who are riding stable bikes at high speed on road surfaces with good traction, you will see that the inside arm is much straighter than the outside arm as they counter-steer and push the bike down into the lean by pushing forward (and down) with their inside hand (and even may be pulling back with their outside hand). You dive into a sharp lean in a corner by pushing the contact patch of the front tire out from under your center of mass with this counter-steering pressure; the inherent stability of the high-trail bike will constantly work against your counter-steering pressure by trying to turn the fork further into the lean to get the tire contact patches back under your center of mass.
As for your comment about stem length, there are more variables there than you may be considering, like your weight distribution over the wheels, particularly the amount of mass supported on the front wheel. A longer stem actually deadens responsiveness a bit, because the same movement at the handlebar results in less angular rotation of the fork. The fact that your most stable bike (bike No. 1) had the longest stem would tend to be another variable resulting in reduced responsiveness, which I think is what you are describing with respect to this bike.
That should answer your questions. It’s probably more than you expected, but that’s what it took to fully answer them!
― LennardAURORA | The highly anticipated R Line, which will bring 10.5 miles of new light rail to Aurora, remains without an opening date, officials connected to the Regional Transportation District recently confirmed.
Weeks of delays have quickly morphed into months for a project that was originally supposed to be wrapped up last year.
Now, the earliest the project could be theoretically completed is March, though even that seems to be a stretch, according to Tom Tobiassen, former RTD District F Board Member.
Former Aurora City Councilman Bob Broom replaced Tobiassen on the RTD Board Jan. 10.
Tobiassen said Kiewit, the contractor building the light rail line, has yet to hand the project over to RTD for additional testing. Once that power transfer occurs, RTD will need to conduct at least an additional 45 days of daytime testing, according to Tobiassen.
Officials from RTD and Kiewit did not immediately return requests for comment.
Tobiassen said the reason for the delays with Kiewit could be tied to paperwork, as well as certifying the many at-grade crossings along the Interstate 225 line with the Public Utility Commission.
“It’s like building a house … 90 percent of it looks like it goes up pretty quick, but that last 10 percent is when all that finish work comes in, and it’s just a time consuming process,” he said.
The crossings along the R Line should encounter fewer issues than those that have sprung up along the beleaguered University of Colorado A Line, according to Tobiassen. He said the systems controlling the A Line crossings, which are commuter rail, are more complex than those that control the crossings along the R Line, which is light rail.
As reported by The Denver Post, RTD officials told the Wheat Ridge City Council earlier this week that the new commuter rail line expected to connect Wheat Ridge with Downtown Denver, the G Line, will be further delayed due to continued issues with the at-grade crossings. The G Line is also a commuter rail line.
The new R Line will connect the East Rail Line through Aurora to Nine Mile Station and metro Denver’s Southeast Corridor Light Rail. The project will bring eight new train stations and four new Park-n-Rides to the city, according to the RTD website.There are a lot of anime out there! Literally thousands, with over a hundred more being released every year. There are new hits every season, and old favorites that have slowly lost their topical sheen. Given all those shows, it can be understandably hard to pick what to watch next – anime, like every other medium, is full of stuff that will disappoint you, and everyone’s tastes are different.
My own tastes in particular are a little weird – I like arthouse stuff and intimate character studies and occasional cathartic message-focused shows. But fortunately, there is indeed such a thing as “normal” taste in anime, or at least the most common preferences shared by fans outside of Japan. And today, I’m hoping to help that audience – or more specifically, hopefully, You.
You like action-adventure shows, most likely – you were possibly dragged into anime through one of the big shounen hits (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc), or maybe through one of the more recent action blockbusters (Attack on Titan, One Punch Man). There’s also a fair chance you’ve seen some anime on Toonami or Adult Swim, be it Cowboy Bebop or Kill la Kill. Regardless of your entry point, anime offers something many other mediums don’t – consistently thrilling adventures in fantastical settings, full of engaging characters and terrific visual wonders. And you want more of that!
Whatever your starting point, I’m fairly sure there’s at least a few shows on this list you’ll really like. All of these shows are widely loved, and all of them fall somewhere along that thriller-adventure-action spectrum. There is a lot to dig into here – and if you’re wondering where to watch them, nearly all of these shows are available streaming legally and often for free (check out because.moe to find where something might be streaming).
Incidentally, I won’t be ranking these shows from best to worst – that’s kind of silly in my mind, since the goal is more to find something you’ll enjoy than to argue over largely incomparable stories. Instead, I’ll be grouping them by categories, to hopefully help you find the sort of show you’ll enjoy best – along with offering explanations of what specifically makes each show unique, and even some secondary recommendations if that seems like exactly what you’re looking for. You can start off by either hanging around the subgenre you started with, or branching out to some other segment of this anime feast. And we’ll start off right at the beginning, with the shows that brought by far the most foreign fans into this big anime tent:
The Long-Running Epics
Naruto
Naruto is the show everyone’s heard of, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth watching. Naruto is the story of an orphan ninja-to-be who’s scorned by his village for an unwanted curse, but who will eventually rise to be a great hero. The appeal of Naruto in large part comes down to the broad cast and their many powers – if you want to see characters cleverly apply tactics like doubling techniques or control of sand to battle, Naruto is full of engaging fights that bring those hypothetical clashes to life. The show eventually gets bogged down by filler and slower arcs, but that’s pretty normal for shounen (Japanese for “boy,” and here used to refer to the demographic-defined “shounen manga”) – if you want to see what an archetypal shounen is like, this is a very safe place to start. And if the show ends up feeling too slow for you, an easy fix is to switch to the manga – something that applies to basically every show in this category.
For a spirit-themed take on the classic shounen adventure, try Inuyasha. For samurai, try Rurouni Kenshin.
One Piece
While Naruto’s conceit is a ninja world, One Piece envisions a world of pirates crossing swords on the high seas. Its protagonist Luffy aspires to be the Pirate King, and is gifted with the ability to stretch his body like rubber, making for all sorts of powerful, goofy attacks. One Piece has an initially lighter tone than Naruto (it feels almost like a carnival), but is bolstered by an extremely strong main cast, and eventually builds into incredibly powerful major arcs. One Piece’s mixture of cartoonish visual styling and epic storytelling makes it little surprise that this is the most popular shounen in Japan.
For one more long-term fantasy shounen with a focus on community, try out Fairy Tail.
Bleach
Bleach’s star has somewhat faded in recent years, as the manga’s slow walk towards its conclusion has left a lot of fans hanging. But the show’s early material still presents a compelling adventure, where hero Ichigo must work to send tormented souls to the afterlife. Assisted by former soul reaper Rukia, Ichigo fights to exorcise the demons haunting the people he loves – but when Rukia’s brother comes to collect her, he’ll have to fight through all the champions of the Soul Society to bring her back. The show gets a little wibbly-wobbly after that, but it still offers a fine soul reaper-focused accompaniment to Naruto’s ninjas and One Piece’s pirates.
For a somewhat goofier shounen that hews closer to the “gods of death” premise, try out Soul Eater.
Dragonball Z
It’d be a little odd to start with a segment on major shounens and not include the grandfather of the modern style, Dragonball Z. Dragonball Z is certainly a little more long in the tooth than most of these shows, but if you go with the more recent Kai version, it still features some of the most iconic battles of anime history. From going Super Saiyan to beam spam to the wholesale destruction of planets, Dragonball Z offers plenty of classic moments and epic battles for any fans of huge explosions.
For a brief condensation of Dragonball Z’s style, try out One Punch Man.
Hunter x Hunter (2011)
And finally, we’ve got my personal favorite of the long shounens. Hunter x Hunter is nearly unique in its ability to mess with the battle show formula – its stars are quickly thrust into conflicts that require their wits and creativity just as much as raw power, and it eventually spills over into genres like crime thriller and war drama on top of its regular action scenes. Like Naruto, it’s also full of very unique powers, but its clever application of those powers goes beyond anything Naruto attempts. Hunter x Hunter has something for everyone to enjoy.
For more by HxH’s author, try out Yuu Yuu Hakusho.
The Hot-Blooded Fist Pumpers
Gurren Lagann
Gurren Lagann is about a boy named Simon, a digger trapped in an underground home. Simon’s friend Kamina dreams of reaching the surface – and when a giant beastman crashes through the ceiling of their home, he gets his wish in the strangest way possible. Gurren Lagann is rife with crazy battles and wild animation, always trying to one-up itself, always astonishing with new visual spectacles and special attacks. It’s the kind of show where the protagonist will suddenly decide two robots should combine, and so he’ll slam one robot into the shoulders of another one. It’s a wild ride.
For a classic take on the giant robot formula, try Giant Robo or G Gundam. Or you could just continue on to the Gurren director’s followup, Kill la Kill.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
JoJo is the essence of hot blood – detailing the long legacy of the Joestar family across many generations, it’s the place to be if you want to watch vampires with laser eyes summon zombies named after Led Zeppelin, or see two men with crazy spirit avatars fight against superpowered rats. The recent anime lifts JoJo’s inherently thrilling material with beautiful visual execution, making for an often campy but always engaging adventure. Whether JoJo’s heroes are scouring Egypt for undying vampires or hunting down serial killers in suburban Japan, it’s sure to impress with some new fight even crazier than the last.
For another silly, hot-blooded adventure starring a great cast, try out Symphogear. Or you could take a chance on the recent not-quite-anime Thunderbolt Fantasy.
Kill la Kill
Kill la Kill is essentially the spiritual successor to Gurren Lagann, featuring the same director (the talented Hiroyuki Imaishi) and writer and standing as the flagship show for his new studio TRIGGER. Kill la Kill is Imaishi all over – expect frantic action, lots of yelling, and more than a little fanservice. Starring Ryuuko Matoi, a girl determined to find out who killed her dad and maybe also topple a fascist school regime in the process, it matches consistent duels with surprisingly strong comedy, making for an entertaining (if uneven) ride.
If you’d like to take a chance on the works that inspired Kill la Kill, you could try Mazinger Z. Or if you’d like the original “girl takes on her oppressive school” epic, there’s always Revolutionary Girl Utena.
The High-Octane Thrillers
Code Geass
Code Geass is another one of those shows with something for everyone – superpowered mind games, giant robot battles, even a dash of romance. It stars Lelouch Lamperouge, a disgraced member of Britannian royalty now seething in Area 11, the Britannian name for what was once Japan. Lelouch is determined to get revenge on Britannia, and his chance comes when he’s gifted with the mysterious Geass power, which allows him to issue exactly one undeniable command to anyone he wishes. Using this power, Lelouch will stage a bloody revolution, forming a guerrilla group and ultimately threatening Britannia itself.
One of Code Geass’s writers returned for Valvrave the Liberator, while the other worked on the messier Guilty Crown.
Death Note
Like Code Geass, Death Note also starts with a boy with one impossible power. Light Yagami is just an ordinary high schooler until he stumbles across the Death Note, which gives him the power to kill anyone whose name he writes in its pages. Light quickly uses this power to begin establishing a new world order, where all criminals he deems beyond saving are swiftly murdered – until his actions catch the attention of master sleuth L, and a game of cat and mouse between Light Yagami and the forces of the Japanese police begins. Death Note is all chess games and melodrama, a classic page-turner with a strong and thoroughly explored hook.
For more death games, check out Future Diary – or if the director’s style appealed to you, check out his catalog.
Monster
Monster stars ace doctor Kenzo Tenma, a man whose personal integrity demands he save a poor boy who arrived at his hospital first at the expense of an important politician. But while Tenma’s choice certainly doesn’t help his career, he doesn’t begin to appreciate its full consequences until years later, when a series of mysterious killings lead back to the faceless boy he once saved. Monster is a gripping historical thriller that tethers the sins of the past into a manhunt crossing the whole of Europe, as Tenma must fight to destroy the demon he has created. Originally written by master mangaka Naoki Urusawa, it’s a subdued thriller that really deserves a broader audience.
For another thoughtful take on the modern thriller, check out Paranoia Agent.
The Stylish Capers
Cowboy Bebop
Cowboy Bebop has a large and well-earned reputation among anime fans. Starring a ragtag crew of bounty hunters in a wild west-styled future, its “heroes” roam from planet to planet, hoping for big rewards or at least something to eat. Mixing stellar direction with great episodic vignettes and a wonderfully jazzy soundtrack, it’s equal parts revenge drama, action-adventure spectacle, and poignant character story. Whether its heroes are hunting down a rogue data dog or being hunted themselves by a cyber-enhanced killing machine, it’s always ready to impress with a new trick.
For a solid show with a very similar premise, you could try Outlaw Star, or the scifi/gunslinger combo Trigun. Or if the overall style is what you liked, try out the other works of director Shinichiro Watanabe!
Baccano!
Baccano! is about as close as anime has come to a Guy Ritchie movie. Packed with a wide variety of criminal hooligans, flying gleefully through different time periods, and seasoned with a dash of ultraviolence, it centers on a prohibition-era train ride shared by an unlikely cast. Some of this train’s passengers are mafia thugs; others are vigilantes even further from the law. Some of them are actually immortal – others see this as a benefit, as it just means they can be murdered multiple times. Zooming backwards and forwards through time, Baccano! details the stories of all these unsavory passengers, as they fight to survive all the way to New York and beyond.
For a somewhat more superpowered Americana thriller, check out Blood Blockade Battlefront. Or for more by this one’s original author, you could try Durarara!!
Samurai Champloo
Conceived and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, the same man behind Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo envisions a totally different world – a world of the distant past, where samurais live in strange harmony with beat boxers and graffiti artists. In contrast to Bebop’s “scifi plus western plus jazz,” Champloo mixes samurai dramas with hip-hop style, resulting in one more set of uniquely stylish adventure vignettes. It is its own very unique kind of cool.
For a more classic samurai shounen, you could try Rurouni Kenshin. For another rambling, stylish road trip, try Michiko and Hatchin.
Death Parade
When two souls die at the same time, they are sent to a special limbo to decide their fate – Decim’s bar, where parlor games like bowling or darts will decide their ultimate fate. Death Parade takes that simple premise and runs with it, offering a regularly morbid, sometimes funny, and always engaging series of last dances for a rotating set of unfortunate souls. The first series by Yuzuru Tachikawa (now director of the excellent Mob Psycho 100), it’s a powerful debut that offers a wide variety of exciting episodic dramas.
If you enjoyed this one, definitely check |
k. (Applause.)
So for those Americans who don't speak Burmese as well as I do -- (laughter) -- that means, "Dive until you reach the sand, climb until you reach the top. Keep persevering."
And America is committed to helping the young people of this nation and this region climb until you reach the top. We believe in this nation. That's why I've come and visited twice in the last few years, because we see a future where democratic institutions can be accountable and responsive; where political activists are free; where elections are fair; where journalists can pursue the truth; where ethnic minorities can live without fear.
So we're betting on this country, but we're also betting on this region, because we see young people of different nations and religions and ethnicities who are eager to come together and address all the challenges that are out there: environmental protection; human rights; improving education; combating poverty; advocating for a greater role for women in business, in government and in society; increasing resilience in the face of natural disasters; spurring economic progress so more young people can follow in your footsteps and get a good education and have opportunity.
We see young leaders who embrace the diversity of this region not as a weakness, but as a strength, and who realize that even though we are all individually different and come from different traditions and different communities, we're stronger when we work together.
So the future of this region, your region, is not going to be determined by dictators or by armies, it's going to be determined by entrepreneurs and inventors and dreamers and people who are doing things in the community. And you're going to be the leaders who make that happen. Your generation has greater potential to shape society than any generation that's come before because you have the power to get knowledge from everywhere, and you have more sophistication and experiences than your parents or your grandparents. And you have now the chance to share knowledge and experiences with other young people all across this region and around the world. And that wasn't true 20 years ago or 50 years ago.
La Min Oo uses his power to tell the story of his fellow Burmese. He studied at Gettysburg College in the United States. The transformation that he watched unfold through Facebook inspired him to return home and make an award-winning documentary about the plight of Burmese farmers. And he says, "My country has been closed so long, there are a lot of stories to be told." So you young people have the chance to say -- to tell those stories. You have the power to improve institutions that are very important for democratic governance, like civil society, and an impartial judicial, and a free press, and private enterprise. And there's so much to build here.
In countries like this, it's critical that you get involved in that way. I'll give you an example. Ryan Louis Madrid dreamt of being a journalist. But as he stood surrounded by the wreckage of a typhoon in his beloved Philippines, he made himself into an instrument for his fellow citizens rebuilding. Today the organization he co-founded puts solar rooftops in developing and recovering communities. And he wants to use his skills to encourage other enterprising young people in developing countries to say in their countries and help their own people, to think globally and act locally. You have the power to remind us all that human dignity is not just a universal aspiration, but a human right.
So Wai Wai Nu spent seven years of her youth behind bars as a political prisoner. And she called it her "university about life." Today she uses that hard-earned degree to advocate for tolerance and acceptance, saying, "We too sacrificed many things for the same cause, that that is democracy."
You have the chance to overcome hatred and make sure that freedom rather than repression, hope rather than fear is governing your country. You have the power to set your own countries on a new and different path.
And in all of this, America wants to be your partner. We want to help any way that we can to help you shape your future. We want you to have the tools and the connections and the resources that you need to change the world.
So one way that we can do this, I'm announcing a significant expansion of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Fellowship, an exchange program that will bring 500 Southeast Asian leaders to the United States every year. And these fellows will have the chance to strengthen their professional leadership skills, network with one another, share experiences and ideas, and then come back home better prepared to lead your region and change the world.
So some of these fellows will benefit from five-week instruction at some of the best universities in America on issues like entrepreneurship and environmental stewardship and civil society and human rights. Others will have the chance to work in professional fellowships at state and local governments and NGOs across the United States. And, by the way, through this program that I hope some of you will be able to take advantage of, when you spend time in the United States our people learn from you. So it's not just you learning from us.
And when these fellows then return home with these new ideas and new experiences, our embassies and USAID missions will reach out and offer the support and resources to help make your dreams a reality. So today I'm proud to announce that America will convene a young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Summit in this region every year, giving fellows the chance to share their successes with each other and strengthen their network to accomplish even more.
So I hope some of you will take advantage of this. I expect many of you will take up the mantle of reform from student activists like Aung San Suu Kyi and Min Ko Naing; take your rightful place as leaders in a stable and prosperous and progressive Southeast Asia. And as you do, I promise you will have no better friend and partner than the United States of America.
So thank you very much. Kyeizu tin ba de. I now want to take your questions. (Applause.)
And I hope you don't mind, because it's a little warm in Myanmar, I'm going to take off my jacket. (Laughter.)
Okay, so there should be -- I've got a microphone, and there should be mics in the audience. And I'll take as many questions as I can before I have to go to Australia.
All right, who wants to go first? This young man right here.
Q I'm (inaudible.) I'm a third-year student, majoring in English at Sittwe University, Rakhine state, or as you would say, Rakhine state.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I'm still working on my pronunciation. (Laughter.)
Q I've experienced some sectarian and racial balance firsthand in my region. So the question I would like to ask you to answer is: How can I be part of educating my generation to promote tolerance and respect cultural differences, and most of all, eradicate extremism among different ethnic groups?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: That's a great question. Thank you so much. I had a chance to meet with some civil society groups, and I had a press conference earlier today. Yesterday, I had a chance to meet with parliamentarians, including the speaker -- the two speakers, as well as Aung San Suu Kyi, and then spoke with the President. And to all of them, I said this: There is no example of a country that is successful if its people are divided based on religion or ethnicity. If you look at the Middle East right now and the chaos that’s taking place in a place like Syria, so much of that is based on religious differences. Even though they’re all Muslim, Shia and Sunni are fighting each other. If you look in Northern Ireland, then Catholics and Protestants fought for decades and only now have arrived at peace.
So in this globalized world where people of different faiths and cultures and races are going to meet each other inevitably -- because nobody just lives in a village anymore; people are constantly getting information from different places and new ideas and meeting people who are different from them –- it is critical for any country to abide by the basic principle that all people are equal, all people are deserving of respect, all people are equal under the law, all people can participate in the life of their country, all people should be able to express their views without fear of being repressed. And those attitudes start with each of us individually. It’s important that government play a role in making sure that it applies laws fairly, not arbitrarily, not on the basis of preferring one group over another.
But what’s also true is that each of us have to cultivate an attitude of tolerance and mutual respect. And for young people, we have to try to encourage each other to be tolerant and respectful. So in the United States, obviously one of the biggest problems historically has been the issue of racial discrimination. And part of our efforts to overcome racial discrimination involve passing laws like the Civil Rights Law and the Voting Rights Law, and that required marches and protests and Dr. King. But part of the effort was also people changing the hearts and minds, and realizing that just because somebody doesn’t look like me doesn’t mean that they’re not worthy of respect.
And when you’re growing up and you saw a friend of yours call somebody by a derogatory name, a rude name because they were different, it’s your job to say to that person, actually, that’s not the right way to think. If you are Christian and you have a friend who says I hate Muslims, then it’s up to you to say to that friend, you know what, I don’t believe in that; I think that’s the wrong attitude, I think we have to be respectful of the Muslim population. If you’re Buddhist and you say -- you hear somebody in your group say I want to treat a Hindu differently, it’s your job to speak out. So the most important thing I think is for you to, in whatever circle of influence you have, speak out on behalf of tolerance and diversity and respect.
If you are quiet, then the people who are intolerant, they’ll own the stage and they’ll set the terms of the debate. And one of the things that leadership requires is saying things even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s unpopular -- especially when it’s unpopular. So I hope that as you get more influence, you’ll continue to speak out on behalf of these values.
All right, who’s next?
Okay, I’m going to go –- now, the one thing I’m going to do is I’m going to go boy, girl, boy, girl to make sure that it’s fair, because one thing I didn’t say in my initial speech is societies that are most successful also treat their women and girls with respect. Otherwise, they won’t be successful. (Applause.)
The young lady in the yellow, right there, who had her hand up. Okay, hold on so we can get a microphone.
Q I am (inaudible). I am Kachin and Burmese. I would like to ask about the ASEAN affair. So my question is, there are different political system and different level of democratic freedom in ASEAN. Do you think those differences will cost challenges to ASEAN integration? And do you believe it is the right time to push for ASEAN integration? Thank you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Of the 10 countries in ASEAN, I just had a chance to meet with all their leaders at the U.S.-ASEAN Summit. And the good news is that ASEAN has become more ambitious over the last several years in trying to promote integration, to work together on issues like disaster relief or public health or maritime security or improved education. And I think it’s inevitable that integration is going to happen more and more.
And my hope is that by encouraging integration, that the countries who are doing better on issues like democracy and human rights have a positive influence in bringing up those countries that don’t have such a good record. And we’ve actually I think seen that happen. Listen, when I first came into office, Myanmar was still very much a dictatorship. And there was some controversy about me participating in an ASEAN Summit because there was still no freedom in Myanmar. And I think that President Thein Sein, because he was with leaders like SBY of Indonesia -- (applause) -- see there, all right, the Indonesians started cheering -- who had traveled the path of democracy, I think President Thein Sein began to see how more open societies were becoming more successful, and I think had a positive influence on -- I think his participation in ASEAN had a positive influence in providing an opening to begin the process of transition here in Myanmar.
But it’s important I think that even as we engage with countries that are less open or less democratic, that we also continue to apply constructive criticism where they fall backwards, where they fall short. And sometimes that’s hard to do. I think a lot of the leaders of ASEAN don’t like to criticize each other because they think that it’s not respectful. And no country is perfect, so they worry that if we criticize one country then somebody will criticize us.
But I think the goal should be for all of us to try to improve what we do on behalf of our people every single day. I’m very proud of the United States. I believe that the United States is a force for good around the world. But I wouldn’t be a good President if I don’t listen to criticism of our policies and stay open to what other countries say about us. Sometimes I think those criticisms are unfair. Sometimes I think people like to complain about the United States because we’re doing too much. Sometimes they complain because they’re doing too little. Every problem around the world, why isn’t the United States doing something about it. Sometimes there are countries that don’t take responsibility for themselves and they want us to fix it. And then when we do try to fix it, they say why are you meddling in our affairs. Yes, it’s kind of frustrating sometimes.
But the fact that we are getting these criticisms means that we’re constantly thinking, okay, is this how we should apply this policy? Are we doing the right thing when we provide aid to a country, but the country is still ruled by a small elite and maybe it’s not getting down to the people? Are we doing the right thing when we engage in training a military to become more professional, but maybe the military is still engaging in repressive activity? If we’re not open to those criticisms, then we won’t get better, we won’t improve.
And I think all of us should be interested in trying to get better, because none of us are perfect and no country is perfect. So I do think ASEAN has an opportunity to play a very important role. But integration is inevitable just because of the nature of economies today. There’s too much travel, there’s too much Internet, there are too many smartphones. When I was driving through here, everybody had a smartphone. I saw a bunch of people -- they didn’t have any shirt, but they had a smartphone. So what that means is -- and most manufacturing today of various products, the parts are made in, like, five different countries, and then they become integrated in some fashion. And then they’re sold all around the world. So integration is going to happen no matter what. The question is, do we integrate at a high level that improves freedom and improves opportunity, or are we integrating at a low level, where there’s less freedom and less opportunity. And I believe integrating at a high level, and I hope most members of ASEAN do also.
All right, it’s a guy’s turn now. I don’t want to discriminate against the men. This gentleman right here. Yes, with the mustache and the beard. There you go. There’s a microphone coming right here. You can just stay where you are. Careful. Hold on to her, so she doesn’t fall.
Q Hello, Mr. President Obama. My name is (inaudible) and I am studying law. My question is, now we are in the democratic transition, so our country is facing so many challenges in every sector. So if you were the President of Myanmar -- (laughter and applause) -- which sector you will focus on first? And how you will make our country develop? Thank you. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, let me just say, you’re always popular in somebody else’s country. (Laughter.) When you’re in your own country, everybody is complaining. I think you’re right, Myanmar has so many challenges. I think the most important challenge right now is completing the transition to democracy. And so my first focus is I think the focus that many people have already talked about.
Number one, there needs to be an election next year. It shouldn’t be delayed. Number two, there should be constitutional amendments that ensure a transition over time to a fully civilian government. Number three, there needs to be laws put in place to protect freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom to politically organize.
And I think that if that process is fixed and institutionalized and made permanent, and you now have the tools to deal with all the other challenges, and I think that inevitably what would happen if you had a genuine democracy in Myanmar is the focus next would then be on providing economic opportunity, because Myanmar is still a very poor country. And what we know in the 21st century is, is that the most important tools for economic opportunity are making sure that young people are getting a good education. And my understanding is, is that the education system in Myanmar is still under-developed. I think all of you represent the best of Myanmar’s students. But my understanding is there are many villages you go to where there’s really no schools, as a practical matter, and many of the schools still teach just how to memorize certain things rather than how to think critically about problems.
And every country at this point, if it wants to succeed, needs to put in place free, compulsory education for its young people -- because they just can’t succeed unless they have some basic skills. They have to be able to read. They have to be able to do mathematics. They have to have some familiarity with computers. They have to be able to understand basic principles of science. If you don’t have those basic tools, then it’s very hard to find a decent job in today’s economy.
Now, because Myanmar is still very agricultural, I think issues of land reform and trying to increase productivity in the agricultural sector is also a very immediate and urgent problem. This is true not just in Myanmar; this is true in many relatively poor countries. In Africa, for example, we initiated something called Feed the Future, and the whole goal is to improve the productivity of farmers. And farmers in many poor countries, they still use the same techniques that they used 200 years ago. They’re still using a buffalo or an ox, and waiting on the rains. And sometimes the new techniques, they're not necessarily expensive; it's just a matter of applying them scientifically.
And if you double yields for a farm and double income for farmers in a country like Myanmar, suddenly you have increased wealth, which means that some people now can start businesses. Maybe now somebody can take some of the profits they made and invest in a tractor, or they can start processing the rice that they produce so that they can gain more value. Or they may be able to buy a smartphone so they know what the prices are in the market, and not get taken advantage of. So just small changes are really important.
Now, my understanding, and I'm not expert, is that some of that will also require some reforms in terms of land ownership and leasing so that people can keep the products of their labor, as opposed to just being essentially what we call sharecroppers in the United States, where you're working the land, but you're giving it over to somebody else and never getting ahead.
So those are just two examples of things that I think will happen naturally if you've got a democratic system in place.
All right, it's a young lady's turn. So this young lady in the glasses right here. She's waving very hard, so she must have an excellent question.
Q Good morning. My name is (inaudible).
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It's afternoon, though. (Laughter.) Maybe you've been waiting here since morning. (Laughter.) But now it's the afternoon.
Q But you can call me Amy (ph). I want to ask one question. My question is, now we are working on IT, so America is already doubled up in IT. So can you provide any development center of IT and job opportunity for youth?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I was just talking to the civil society groups, and there was one person there who mentioned that Internet penetration in Myanmar is still only about 9 percent, which means there's enormous room for growth. The issue for IT in a country like Myanmar is, first of all, setting up the infrastructure -- whether it's wireless or other methods -- so that people can start communicating. And once the hardware is in place, then where the real development happens is in the software. And that's where it's really a matter of education, training, and developing a homegrown capacity.
And so what we'll do is we'll work with both civil society groups, as well as the government, to find opportunities where we can promote the building of the infrastructure that's required. But what's really required is also making sure that young people are trained.
And part of what's going to have to happen is, in the United States most of the IT development happened through the private sector. Government invested in research, and so the idea of the Internet was developed with the help of government funding. But what became then the World Wide Web and then all the applications and social media and all that was really developed through the private sector. So part of what has to happen once democracy is installed in Myanmar is then also looking at how are you structuring laws to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.
So, for example, one of the debates that we're having in trade negotiations with Asian countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the big trade initiative that we're moving forward, is the need to protect intellectual property. If you invent a better tractor, then in the United States, you go to a patent office and you register your patent. You show that this is a new invention. And if anybody then wants to produce this new tractor, they have to pay you for using your idea. The same is true for intellectual property. If you come up with the idea of Facebook, then you need to be able to get a benefit from this idea.
And one of the problems I think that you still have in many countries in Southeast Asia and around the world is weak intellectual property protections, which means that if you're an entrepreneur with a good idea, you don't want to start your business here, because next thing you know somebody steals your idea and they just start their business. So you'd rather start the idea in the United States where you know that it will be protected. And then maybe you will lease to other countries, but the jobs and the opportunities will have been created someplace else.
So setting up regulatory structures, protections for intellectual property, all those things are also going to be very important in order to get a strong IT culture and an innovation culture here in Myanmar and throughout the region.
Okay, it's a man's turn. Let's see. I'm going to go with this guy right here. Hold on a second. Now, you're not going to read that whole thing, are you? (Laughter.) Because --
Q I read you a question --
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think you have to summarize it quickly because we don't want --
Q Yes, yes, just want to give you a kind of sheet, cheat sheet.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes, I'll take the sheet. (Laughter.)
Q Okay.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: There you go. All right.
Q I have only one question.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: There are like -- there are 20 questions on here. (Laughter.)
Q Just want you to know --
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Why don't you just ask me one of them? I'll read the rest.
Q My question, as you know -- may I know your opinion about like how to create national identity, or like Myanmar identity -- different, strong identity in our country?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes. That's a great question. Yes, I was talking about this with the civil society groups because we are very supportive of the efforts to get a ceasefire and a peace process with the ethnic groups that have been engaged in armed conflict for a long time. And we've already talked about some of the problems that the Muslim populations have faced in Rakhine state.
But what I said to the civil society groups is, yes, it is important to protect specific ethnic groups from discrimination. And it is natural in a democracy that ethnic groups organize among themselves to be heard in the halls of power. So in the United States, for example, as its democracy developed, the Irish in big cities, they came together and they built organizations, and they were able to promote the interests of Irish Americans. And African Americans, when they were seeking their freedom, you had organizations like the NAACP that promoted the interests of African Americans. So there's nothing wrong with groups organizing around ethnic identity, or around economic interests, or around regional concerns. That's how a democracy naturally works. You get with people who agree with you or who are like you to make sure that your concerns are heard.
But what I said is that it is important for a democracy that people's identities are also a national identity. If you walk down the streets of New York City, you will see people looking more different than this group right here. You'll see blue-eyed, blonde people. You'll see dark-skinned, black people. You'll see Asians. You'll see Muslims. You'll see -- but if you ask any of those people, “What are you?” -- I'm American.
Now I may be an African American or an Asian American or an Irish American, but the first thing I'll say is, I'm an American.
And if you don't have that sense of national unity, then it's very hard for a country to succeed -- particularly a small country like Myanmar.
If people think in terms of ethnic identity before national identity, then I think over time the country will start breaking apart and democracy will not work. So there has to be a sense of common purpose.
But that's not an excuse then for majority groups to say, don’t complain, to ethnic minorities -- because the ethnic minorities may have some real complaints. And part of what is important for the majority groups to do -- if, in fact, you have a national identity, that means that you've got to be concerned with a minority also because it reflects badly on your country if somebody from a minority group is not being treated fairly.
America could not live up to its potential until it treated its black citizens fairly. That's just a fact, that that was a stain on America when an entire group of people couldn't vote, or didn't have legal protections. Because it made all the Declarations of Independence and Constitution and rule of law, it made that seem like an illusion.
And so when the Civil Rights Movement happened in the United States, that wasn't just a victory for African Americans, that was a victory for America because what it showed was that the whole country was going to be concerned about everybody, not just about some people. And it was a victory for America's national identity that it was treating minorities fairly.
And that's I think how every country in ASEAN, including Myanmar, needs to think about these problems. You need to respect people's differences. You need to be attentive to the grievances of minorities that may be discriminated against. But both the majority and the minority, the powerful and the powerless, also have to have a sense of national identity in order to be successful.
I got time for two more questions. Two more. He said one, but I'm going to take two.
See, it's going to be one of you three. What do you think? Who should -- out of the three of you, who should I call on? Are you friends? Okay, so why don't you decide? (Laughter.) What do you think? Okay, yes, rock, paper, scissors. Let's see. (Laughter.) Who won? Okay, go on. There you go. (Applause.)
What did you win with? Were you scissors or rock? Were you rock or scissors or paper?
Q Rock.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Rock.
Q I rock!
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You rock?
Q Yes.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes.
Q Mingalaba, Mr. President. I am from Burma from (inaudible) in American Center. Right now we're working on a documentary on Yangon University, Congregation Hall where you spoke the last time you came.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes, last time I was here.
Q Yes. So as you know, Yangon University has reopened last year, 2013. So do think it is a good start to rebuild the higher education system in Burma?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think it's a great start. But I think -- as I said before, one of the biggest challenges Myanmar is going to face is rebuilding its education system. And I think it has to start early. It has to start from the youngest ages.
One of the things that we've learned from science is that the most that you will ever learn in your entire life happens from the time you're born until you're three years old. Between your birth and the age of three, that's when your brain is developing the most. And what we've learned, for example, is that when you read -- when parents read to young children even before the children know how to read, the children are building a vocabulary that will put them in a strong position then to learn how to read later on because they've heard the words over and over again.
And so I just make that point because it shows that if you're only worried about university education, but you're not worrying about what happens to children when they're three, four, five, six years old, then you're missing the foundation for a good education system.
And this is true in the United States, as well. We've got the best university system in the world. Obviously I'm biased because I'm the President of the United States, so I think everything in the United States is the best in the world.
But I think anybody objectively would say that we have a system of universities and colleges that is unequaled anyplace else. But we still have problems. And one of the things that I'm spending a lot of time on reform is the elementary, secondary school levels. And also, even earlier having what we call early childhood education to get children off to a good start so that by the time they go to school, they already know their alphabet and they can already start reading at an early age. And I hope that that ends up being a basic emphasis here in Myanmar.
But I also think that from what I've heard, one of the reforms that will need to take place in universities here is to make sure that in all the departments there is the ability for universities and students to shape curriculums and to have access to information from everywhere around the world, and that it's not just a narrow process of indoctrination. Because the best universities are ones that teach you how to think not what to think, right? A good education is not just knowing facts, although you need to know facts. You need to know that two plus two is four; it's not five. That's an important fact. But you also need to know how to ask questions, and how to critically analyze a problem, and how to be able to distinguish between fact and opinion, and how to compare two different ideas.
And I think there's a danger sometimes in countries that are -- don't have a long tradition of higher education to try to narrow the learning process, as opposed to open it up. And I think that that's something that I'm sure university students here in Myanmar will want to express during the course of this transition period and the reforms that are taking place.
All right, I've got time for one more question. Wait, wait, wait. No point in yelling. First of all, all the women have to put their hands down because I told you it was going to be boy, girl, boy, girl. And the second thing is, how many students are there from countries other than Myanmar who are here? Okay, so I think that in the interest of ASEAN unity, and because this is a Young Southeast Asian Leaders Forum, I've got to ask --
Q (Inaudible.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: No, no, no, first of all, you can't -- I told you already that women aren't going to get a chance to ask the next question. Where are you from?
Q (Inaudible.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, you're still in Burma. All right. Where you from? (Laughter.) Sit down. Where you from? All right, let me -- I'm going to ask this guy, guy from the Philippines right here. Come on. (Applause.) You just started yelling. I didn't even call on you. (Laughter.)
Q Good afternoon, Mr. President. My name is Ryan Louis Madrid. I'm from the Philippines. I'm one of the person you --
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I was just talking about you.
Q Yes. And, yes, it gave me a little tear in my eyes. I thank you so much for putting us -- making me as, like, one of the models maybe for what youth can do for change.
But my question really is, I just learned recently that the U.S. and ASEAN will be making a climate change statement. I'd like to know if you could tell us what this is all about, and how this would be different from the Kyoto Protocol and other climate change efforts in making real efforts towards curbing climate change. Thank you. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good. So first of all, let's just establish the science and the facts. The planet is getting warmer. The reason the planet is getting warmer is because human activity is releasing greenhouse gases that is trapping heat and increasing temperatures. And because you start getting a negative feedback loop, as it gets hotter, ice melts. The permafrost in places like Siberia start releasing methane gases. Ice packs in Greenland start melting. That then makes it even warmer. And we're on a trajectory in which the temperatures could rise so high that it would have catastrophic impacts around the world because temperatures start changing, weather patterns shift. Traditional monsoon seasons might completely reverse themselves. Areas that once used to have arable land suddenly now have long droughts. Areas that used to be temperate suddenly get floods. We're seeing the impacts in developed countries. We see it in my own country. And we're seeing impacts in poor countries. And we're seeing impacts, obviously, in island nations where if the temperatures continue to rise, we'll end up with oceans that are two feet or three feet higher, and it could swallow up entire countries.
So this is perhaps the central challenge, the most important challenge facing humanity in the 21st century, is getting control of this.
Now, the good news is that we can begin to slow down that process so that the temperatures only go up a certain level, and although we'll have to make some adaptations, it doesn't become catastrophic. But in order to do that, we have to start transitioning our economies to clean energy rather than dirty energy. It means that we have to start developing wind power and solar power. It means that societies have to use energy more efficiently. It means that we have to find ways to use safe nuclear power because they don't -- that doesn’t emit greenhouse gases. So there's no single answer. There's a group of answers to the problem.
And some of you may be aware that the United States and China are the two biggest emitters in the world. The United States had been the biggest emitter; China overtook us. In fairness to China, each individual Chinese person probably uses less energy and emits less greenhouse gases than an individual American. But there are a lot more Chinese than there are Americans.
And if, as China continues to develop, they start matching the United States in how much carbon they release, we'll never survive. None of us. Same is true with India -- just because of the size of its population. And the same is true with Southeast Asia, which, as I said before, contains one out of every 10 people in the world.
So all of us are going to have to be a part of this. And the United States and China -- in a meeting with President Xi -- we announced that we are both going to set bold targets for greenhouse gas reductions from 2020 forward.
What we're encouraging ASEAN to do, individual ASEAN countries, is also to come up with goals for how they are going to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. And if all countries around the world put forward ambitious goals at a Paris conference that we're going to be having in 2015, then this can serve at the basis for collective action in reducing greenhouse gases.
But although we know what we need to do, the transition will be difficult because -- just to give you one example -- Indonesia.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah!
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You might not want to cheer about this -- has been cutting down its forests at a very high rate in order to accommodate the palm oil industry. Now the palm oil industry is very lucrative, and you have some very big landholders and big companies who are making a lot of money from the palm oil industry. And they create some jobs. But when you just deforest entire sections of Sumatra or Borneo, that can end up having a devastating effect on the climate.
There are countries in ASEAN that subsidize energy. Now, oftentimes this is with the best of intentions. The idea would be we want to make gasoline cheaper or electricity cheaper so that poor people can afford it. The problem is that when you subsidize energy, there's no incentive to use less energy. So typically when you have a lot of fuel subsidies, those economies are very inefficient in how they use energy, and they generate more pollution.
The countries that are most efficient in energy use, not only do they not subsidize energy -- in fact, they tax energy use. So you look like -- in a country like Norway, which produces a lot of oil, but gasoline there is still $6 or $7 a gallon, which in liters -- who wants to do a liter conversion for me? Anyway, it's very expensive.
So part of what we hope each country in ASEAN commits to is to take the steps that will be required to reduce or at least slow the growth of its carbon emissions, and then slowly start reducing them. And it doesn't have to be overnight, but the transition has to begin.
So if you look at a country like Indonesia, making a commitment to reduce deforestation, reduce and eventually end fuel subsidies, those two things alone could probably help Indonesia meet a very bold carbon reduction goal.
In the United States, |
every feature. Her hair caught briefly on her petite nose as she tilted her head the other way before cascading free. Looking back I should have known she was trouble, she looked a total mess but there was something about her that I just found impossible to pull myself away from. Maybe it was the eyes.
I smiled and paid the barkeep as he placed the fresh drinks on the table before finishing off my first one with a gulp.
“Sorry,” I began as the barman headed back to the bar with our empty glasses. “I’m a commander, my name is -“ I continued before being interrupted by the girl’s fits of laughter.
“Why do you think your name matters, Mr Commander?” she said between fits of laughter. “In the grand, terrifying scale of the void. Of *Him*. Who are we, really?”
The interruption and strange question threw me completely. Sure, the galaxy was a big place but that was just something you dealt with, mostly by not thinking about it. I decided to try a different approach.
“So you aren’t a big fan of names then. No problem. What can you tell me? How did you get here? What you flying?”
“I didn’t fly here, was on patrol in my kite but got lost. No idea where the rest of my patrol are. In witch space. The purple mist…”
“Wait, what? Patrol?” I leaned forward and tugged the shoulder of her jumpsuit towards me, far enough that I could see the badge on her bicep. It was an SDF logo overlaid onto a silhouette of her rated ship. “A Viper?! You are all the way out of here in a goddam Viper?! I have heard of people going to great lengths to get out of service but damn, girl! That’s something! It must have taken you months!”
I was genuinely impressed! A Viper! And a shitty combat fit SDF Viper at that has about the same jump range as a frog with one leg. How she managed to get one fit with a fuel scoop was beyond me. Getting it all the way out here? Talk about creative navigation.
Still it would have taken months. Longer, even. This would explain her demeanour; that much time in space could do things to the mind. Would also explain why she was so desperate for drinks. People on the run were rarely flush with cash.
“Holy shit, you must have seen some things! How about another drink?”
Her head snapped up as the words left my mouth, a devilish grin on her full lips.
“I did see things. Do you want to see?” She stood and walked around the table before taking my hand, not waiting for my response.
It didn’t take me long to decide. Standing up the flight suit looked even better on her and the soft touch of her hand easily overrode the alarm bells that this woman seemed more than just a little space crazy.
No sooner did we get through the main hatchway into my AspX then she was on me. Our flight suits hit the deck followed shortly by our bodies. She wasn’t interested in any foreplay at all. She was animalistic and predatory.
I have no idea when we passed out, but I was awoken at around eleven AM local time by a thudding on the hull loud enough to invalidate my warranty. I opened my eyes to find the woman from the night before already awake and sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the wall.
“You expecting visitors?” I asked with a cough as I pulled on a loose pair of cargo pants and stretched out.
“None welcome,” she answered, not taking her eyes off of a single spot on the cabin wall.
Her hand shot out as I went to walk past her, her vice-like grip worlds apart from the gentle touch in the bar the night before.
“Listen, I’m sorry.” She said, looking up at me with her beautiful blue eyes. “About last night I-“
“It’s all good.” I said, cutting her off before she could finish her needless apology. “Now let me get rid of whatever bureaucrat is messing up my livery and we can find us some breakfast.”
Breakfast never came, at least not for both of us. No sooner had I opened the door to give the intruder an earful I was staring down the barrel of half a dozen nasty-looking rifles.
Whatever government she had fled from had finally found their missing Viper and had come for the space jockey that had stolen it.
“Where is Saffron?” their officer demanded the moment my hands were over my head. When I didn’t answer he nodded with annoyance before ordering his men to search my ship.
Uniformed soldiers stormed my beloved Asp and quickly found my companion who apparently went by Saffron. They never gave me a surname.
I waited at gunpoint in the corridor, my own wrists bound in cuffs while I listened to my ship’s interior being torn apart. It was hard to tell if Saffron was fighting back against the soldiers or if they were just vandalising my Asp for the sheer fun of it, either way it sounded fairly expensive. I looked at the officer standing not a couple of feet away from me, who was listening to the cacophony with some amusement.
“I’ll take your name,” I said in as confident a voice as I could manage with the cold metal cuffs biting into my wrists and a rifle barrel at my chest. “If anything is seriously damaged your superiors will be receiving a bill.”
“Adams. Captain Adams.” The bastard replied with annoyingly little worry in his voice. “And write to whoever you want, you’ll be lucky if they don’t bring you in for harbouring her.”
I shot him a look but knew that he spoke the truth. Really I was lucky that they weren’t taking me in with her, I wasn’t entirely sure at the time why they weren’t.
Now, of course I know only too well.
Finally Saffron was walked out of the ship. The friendly yet apologetic mood I had woken up to seemed to had disappeared, replaced with the downcast, distant state I had found her in at the bar the night before. Apparently glad they had their girl my guard and the captain wandered off to chat to the men trailing behind Saffron’s escort, many of which seemed to be sporting fresh bruises on their faces.
It seemed her demeanor was all a decoy. As she passed me she threw a wide head butt at the guard holding onto her cuffs and body slammed the other into the cold metal of the corridor wall. She dashed at me amid shouts coming from the other soldiers and heavy footfalls on the plated landing pad that told me that whatever she had planned, she didn’t have long to do it.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered in my ear, leaning in as close as was possible with her hands bound behind her back. “It’s all my fault! He will bring you. Purple Mist! You must not fight!”
I pulled back, at looked in her eyes. There were so many questions. Purple mist? Who is He? And why would I fight? The soldiers weren’t going to-
The thought was interrupted by a scream of pain that broke from Saffron’s lips as the butt of a rifle struck her kidneys. A heartbeat later a second strike landed on her temple and she went limp, collapsing in an awkward heap on the cold floor with a thud.
“What the fuck!” I yelled, enraged at their brutality. “She’s one of yours, you can’t just-”
I never reached the end of the sentence. A sudden, intense pain shot through my skull as a hard, heavy object hit my head in much the same was as it had struck Saffron. I hit the deck a moment later and used the last few seconds of consciousness I studied her face as a rivulet of blood trickled from a fresh wound beneath her hairline.
It had just reached the bridge of her nose when the darkness swallowed me.
#
I awoke with a headache that could put a rhino out of service as well as a fairly unpleasant welt on the side of head. I had been dumped back inside the airlock of my Asp which was an unexpected blessing. Still, I figured if you’re supposed to be the law yet you go around butt-striking the public it doesn’t pay to advertise.
I spent the next few hours sleeping off the most powerful painkillers I could find in my med kits and wondering what I should do next. I had an amazing night with Saffron then she was gone, that wasn’t unusual. I am used to women being gone by morning; believe it or I don’t have the kind of face you want to introduce to the folks back home.
Leaving is one thing. A girl being taken from me though? That was new, and it didn’t sit right.
Once I regained my senses and the painkillers had done their job I searched for her, as best I could. I checked the medbays, all the dives and hovels that I could think of. I even asked a woman I knew in traffic control about any foreign SDF ship that might have been or gone over the last few days. Either she didn’t know, or she didn’t want to tell me. The effect was same no matter which it was. She was gone, and there was nothing I could do to find her.
I know. It sucks. Doesn’t it?
Eventually my money began to run out. Buying drinks for dock workers and engineers takes its toll, even on a commander’s wallet. But I still had enough for a box of rations, enough to last me a few months at the least. And refuel? There were ways to get fuel.
My mind was made up; maybe the distance would do me some good. There were still corners of the galaxy just waiting to be explored with some juicy bonuses for whatever commander scanned them first.
I set out the next day.
As soon as I sat back on my throne and grasped the controls I began to feel better. I went through my pre-flight checks pretty much on autopilot. Traffic gave me the all clear to launch but clear the letterbox quickly as there was a Type-9 on its way.
I inhaled deeply as I felt the clamps release. I was free once again. I threw on the vertical thrust until I was in line with the channel, then before my landing gear had even completed its retracting action I punched the boost and opened the forward throttle. A smile crept across my face as I was gently pressed against the leather of my seat and the worn material creaked in complaint. I knew the g-forces were fraction of what they would have been if my stabilisers hadn’t been there to stop me becoming a small bowl of human soup, but the feeling was still as exhilarating as the first time I took my first solo flight.
This was mankind as it was meant to be. Free. Free to go where I pleased and do what I wanted. How ironic that not five second after the thought entered my head did the first of the SDF forces outside the port begin scanning me for contraband.
Well, free to go and do almost anything that I pleased.
I never got into smuggling. The deck seemed far too heavily stacked against the smuggler, and I never liked to lose to the house.
I heard the familiar, warming sound of my frame shift drive spooling up as I waved to Viper Mk IV that pulled up alongside me, no doubt running a kill warrant scan on my little ship. Possibly hoping that it will give him a reason to light me up and add a little excitement to what I could only imagine must have been a very dull existence. All this space and doomed to patrol just a tiny portion of it.
I swallowed hard, aimed my Asp at the first system on my long trek out to Sag A and closed my eyes as the FSD kicked in.
#
I wasn’t long into my trip when I began to get the dreams.
Nightmares.
It was always the same, but different. She got brought out of my ship, arms cuffed tightly behind her back. I watch proudly as she expertly incapacitates her two guards and runs to me. Suddenly she is free and I am free. But the guards are still there. Only they have changed.
The once clean limbed soldiers have become twisted and diseased monsters. They charge at us swinging oozing, sore-covered claws that were once hands. From nowhere we are armed and fighting.
Shells erupt from the rifle that appeared in my hands and bullets lance into the closest of the charging abominations. Grotesque blisters on his body burst with every impact, the rounds tearing through his twisted torso with ease. He drops to the floor as a twitching, gore-soaked mess.
The next target followed suit, and then the next. My fourth target fell to a good tight grouping of rounds to the forehead. It has been almost a decade since I went through basic and learned to fire a rifle yet in this dream it was as though I had become a marine.
The rifle, too miraculously never ran dry of ammunition.
But even so it wasn’t enough. As my fifth target folds onto the deck I stare in horror as my first victim regains his feet and begins staggering towards me, ragged flaps of flesh hang from his chest and abdomen as his clawed arms flail at me. I am just taking a step back when my second target lets out a rasping breath and begins clawing across the floor towards me.
“We can’t do this alone, we need help!” Saffron screams from behind me. I turn just in time for her to be brought down by what was once the soldiers’ officer. Her weapon clatters across the floor towards me. I stare at it, taken aback.
A sword? Who fights with a sword anymore? Modern armour can stop fairly high calibre bullets and laser burns. What use is a sword? Then I look at her victims. Where the sword has struck the abominations that attacked her rot had taken hold, deep purple growths spread even as I looked at them. The creatures themselves lay there completely paralysed as their twisted bodies are eaten alive by the mysterious affliction until they are completely consumed. Once they had expired the broken and barely recognisable corpses burst into a foul-smelling purple vapour.
I look back at the weapon. Unreadable characters glow menacingly along its blackened blade while thick brown leather clung to a purple hilt that pulsed with an unnatural glow. The entire weapon radiates terrible power and fills me full of dread.
I put all thought of the eldritch weapon from my mind and raised my rifle, dropping the monster that crawled towards me. A three round burst into the face ended the existence of the creature attacking Saffron. The abomination went limp, pinning my compatriot to the deck.
“The sword! We need *His* help!” She repeats, struggling to free herself from beneath the cadaver.
I turn to see yet more of the creatures flooding the deck; it is as though the entire population of the station has been transformed into the disgusting violations of flesh and bone. These ones are faster though, too fast. I glance back at the sword laying on the floor but instead turn to face the oncoming horde with my rifle, felling dozens of the former station residents before they even reach the first gantry.
A blood-curdling scream interrupts my killing spree and I turn just in time to see the once-fallen officer tear Saffron’s throat out with jagged teeth. Her blood flows freely onto the diamond-pattern deck and creates a myriad of tiny rivers that reach out towards me like clasping fingers.
“We need… Him” she managed to croak one last time before her eyes glassed over, still staring at me. A heartbeat later a long serrated talon bursts from my chest.
Then I would wake up, bathed in sweat and struggling to breathe.
Alone in my little ship in the vast callousness of space, where I felt most safe.
It was after one such dream that I had woken up after barely four hours sleep. Saffron’s death had been particularly harrowing this time and succumbing to my fatigue only to relive it all over again filled me with more dread than I had ever felt before. I resolved to run a check on my systems and get back into the big black, continue my journey out to the rim and try to make a little more bank.
I don’t know how long after that decision it was until it happened. I was pumping myself full of caffeine and whatever uppers I could find in my cupboards to keep myself on an even keel, as it were.
Great thing about space is there aren’t really any days or nights.
Terrible thing about space is that it’s pretty much all night.
Of course there is light, every time you come screaming out of witch space you catch a face full of some star or another. But it’s not the same. This is not the same warming sun you find a calm afternoon on a temperate planet during shore leave. This is the raw, unbridled apocalyptic fury of the universe made fiery, burning flesh. It cooks your instrument panels and blinds unshielded eyes.
Your sensors scream at you to turn tail and flee before this primordial dragon consumes you, and all but the insane and explorers looking for an easy ride do just that.
Despite its inherent terror it was also a comforting one. It marked your exit from an FSD jump. You had survived another brush with the void and this most ancient of sentinels was here to greet you, albeit with open arms that would turn you to ash given the chance.
As fearsome as it was to come face to face with a star – even the neutron variety that us outer rim-jockeys love so much – there was only one thing that seemed worse, never completing that jump and finding yourself deep within dead space. That special kind of void between star systems that seemed to stare into your very soul as you willed your drives to spool up faster.
At least that’s what I thought.
My FSD spooled up fine, ever since I had that shady engineer mod it for longer jumps it sounded slightly different but so far it hadn’t failed on me. Then there was the countdown and the stomach-churning kick into witch space.
Familiar and unfamiliar nebula flitted past my canopy as my Asp ripped its way across the galaxy. The next star in my route – I don’t even remember what it was called – glowed softly at the centre of my reticule, inviting me in like the warm flicker of a fire on a cold winter’s morning.
That was when I first realised things had begun to go wrong.
The star moved.
It was subtle at first, as though something was tugging at my ship, pulling me off course. But my ship was fighting back, struggling to keep me flying true.
It soon appeared the strange force had merely been toying with my drives as moments later I was wrenched off course. More nebulae flew past the reinforced canopy, ones I didn’t know at all. They grew large and dark, some a menacing green and others a deep, barely visible purple against the blackness of the void.
The largest of these became the focal point of my reticule and before I knew it I was flying through the purple gaseous monstrosity. But this was not the almost two dimensional coloured clouds there were momentary flickers past my canopy. Even at FSD speeds the gasses surrounding my Asp seemed to go on for an eternity.
I sat and prayed that I would exit the nebula soon, or wake up from whatever horrifying dream it was that had me in its grasp.
But my prayers were in vain, they were directed to the wrong god.
My eyes were closed when the FSD shut down. There was no star, and I was shocked to find that I had not come out of the jump spinning aimlessly through the void. It was a few moments before I got my bearings and realised that I was still inside the nebula.
My navigation screens only read UNKNOWN.
Systems all came up clean after a diagnostic and I was a heartbeat away from spooling the FSD again and bugging out of that creepy-ass nebula when the faintest shimmer at the furthest edges of my sight invoked my curiosity.
The gas that surrounded me appeared harmless, and no warnings sounded on my sensors to state otherwise. The explorer in me overpowered my common sense as he so often did. I pointed my nose towards the distant glimmer and opened the throttle. Sensors were still intermittent and the distance was difficult to judge so I sat back and listened to the reassuring growl of my Lakon engines and waited.
It was a ship, this much was certain. But who built it and for what purpose was anybody’s guess. It’s hull was huge, I hazarded a guess at around eight hundred meters from the tip of its hooked bow to its stern where I counted around five exhausts for whatever gargantuan power plants moved this leviathan between the stars. The truly remarkable feat though was that the entire ships outer hull, from its beak-like bow all along its slender spine was a glorious golden colour. I remember wondering as I gazed at the warped reflection of my AspX in the gleaming hull whether this had once been a flagship of some kind. It definitely had the size and majesty.
As I vectored around the hulk, partly out of curiosity and partly to see if there was anything I could permanently borrow I began to notice blemished parts of the otherwise flawless skin. The gasses of the nebula seemed denser here, as though the anomaly itself was taking the grandiose vessel apart, yet another quick glance at my own hull reassured me that I was sitting pretty at 100%.
Eventually my curiosity with the other glimmers became too much to bear and I took leave of the golden monstrosity. As I ventured deeper into the abyss and watched the heavy gas roil around me I couldn’t help but remember Saffron’s cryptic warnings about the purple mists before she was dragged off.
The wrecks and derelicts grew closer together as I progressed. Each one looked increasingly dissimilar to the last and I was quickly becoming aware that whatever had brought them to this place and laid waste to them was nothing if not indiscriminate. I also noted that as I progressed each vessel grew increasingly decayed, as though the gasses here were more concentrated or the ships had simply been here for a longer amount of time.
I faltered a little when I passed the decaying remains of a once-proud Federal Corvette, the sleek black hull now pock-marked and missing much of the forward section entirely. Two massive multi-cannon hung loosely to its rear, evidence that perhaps at the very least this brutish lion of the space lanes went down fighting.
I was about to flee for the second time when a new glimmer caught my eye. This wasn’t a golden sheen or a metallic glint. This was a sequence of lights. Ship lights. Navigation lights.
The prospect of finding another living soul in this place was both exhilarating and terrifying, but I just had to find out. As I drew closer the ship lights gave away the shadowy outline of the ship that approached me, and as its sharp angular lines and two-pronged prow came together my blood ran cold. I was staring a Viper Mk3.
I tried desperately to open comms with the phantom ship, hoping against hope that it was her. For the moment I was completely ignorant of the dark nebula that surrounded us. If she was here she was okay, she was free and she was with me.
Even flashing my ship lights and waggling from side to side drew no response from the Viper and I quickly found my burst of adrenaline dying like a flame trapped under a glass. When I got up to spitting distance I was suddenly aware of why there had been no response. The canopy was shattered. I managed to pick out a slumped form in a Remlock suit sat at the controls.
I pushed closer, until mine and the Viper’s canopy were practically touching. I stared, pressed up against my own glass trying to find anything that would tell me if this was Saffron or not.
I was so close that when the figure twisted its neck at an unnatural angle to look up at me I could see my horrified reflection in the cracked visor. I was truly able to appreciate the terrified look etched into my features as I threw myself back into my seat and wrenched the throttle into reverse.
I had managed to pull a few meters away when the apparition disappeared into a cloud of smoke which circled the hull like a malfunctioning missile before heading right for me. I held my breath, no sure what I could do to keep the unnatural vison away from me.
My shields barely flickered as the mist punched through it, and my last line of defence – my canopy that was built to withstand the heat and radiation of stars offered less opposition than the air I was breathing as it shot past my seat into the walkway behind me.
In less than a few heartbeats this thing defeated every one of my ships defences and I froze in my chair as I began to hear the crumple of a jumpsuit behind me. I didn’t have to turn, I could see the monster’s reflection in the cockpit window.
It looked human, and sure enough the intruder looked as though they wore some manner of Remlock. The surface of the suit had turned inky black and now looked almost liquid in that no pocket, zips or seams of the suit could be seen. In their place the being was now covered in tiny points of light, as though it were a wishful reflection of the space outside the nebula. Their height, weight and even gender were all but impossible to discern too as their form did not seem to want to stay human and continued to shift in twisting, undulating mutations. It gave the overall impression of an oil-covered ocean reflecting a night sky. This coupled with the creature’s hunched, limp gait was incredibly unsettling.
I was just getting up to try and flee into the ship when a black malformed hand landed on my shoulder with a dull thud. The hand was ice, the creature’s unnatural cold passing easily through a suit designed to withstand the rigors of open space.
The thought was a fleeting one as the creature’s touch seemed to open my eyes to what was really going on around me.
Ethereal tendrils, deep purple in colour speared every one of the wrecks I could see, their strange translucent forms pulsating and glowing as they stripped metal and components from the derelict hulks. Where they intersected with the ships higher concentrations of the purple mists could be seen, the only indication I had been able to see of their existence with my altogether too human eyes.
The mist seemed to be disintegrated metals and components, stripped from the ships hulls and tainted by whatever foulness inhabited this place. I scanned and searched the ruins, desperately searching for the source of the tendrils, the architect of my being brought here and presumably the slayer of whatever creatures once inhabited these ships. The starred man that stood behind me did not seem to be connected to the tentacles in any way I could see.
I looked around my domed cockpit but in all directions all I could see were more derelicts being gradually digested by the twisted nebula. My eyes fell to a particularly large tentacle and followed its pulsating length as far as I could from where I sat. That was when I saw it.
As my eyes lost track of the limb I saw further into the nubula, at first I saw just gas until the mass shifted in a mind-bending, unnatural way. Suddenly, like a magic eye image snapping into focus I saw not a formless cloud of gas but a creature larger and more terrible than I ever thought possible.
It appeared almost ethereal in nature, as the dull pin-pricks of stars could be seen through its hazy purple form. It’s body appeared to be a carapace, like that of legless beetle. If there was a head, I could not discern it. In fact the only appendages that I could make out where two arms like those of a crustacean, each tipped with jagged claws large enough to halve a planet with one snip. The underside of the monstrosity was legless but not bare as from its belly came the tendrils that created and terrorised the nebula in which I now sat, quietly awaiting my fate.
“OPMUNEGU GATHERS,” a rasping, soulless voice hissed into my ear, dragging me from my hiding place in the darkest recesses of my mind. “You… Will… Serve…”
I turned my head to look at my shipboard visitor assuming he was the source of the terrifying words. The Starman now appeared human, at least once human. He no longer wore a battered Remlock suit, but the shredded remains of a thick padded white suit with what appeared to be a failed power supply at its chest. A shattered domed visor failed to obscure my view of his pale, cracked face or eyes red with burst vessels.
If he realised I was looking at him, he did not react. His features remained still and lifeless as the shattered lunar surface they resembled, and since he did not seem to notice me staring the knot of tendrils that laced their way through his broken body did not either.
“OPMUNEGU GATHERS.” The voice repeated, each word sounding as though it were being forced out with the Starman’s every dying breath. “SERVE!”
The final word came with such force and unrelenting rage that it seemed to echo in my mind and pushed out any notions I may have had for answering the apparition back or asking any questions of my own. How do I serve? I have no idea how I got here! How do I even leave this place?
All these questions bubbled to the surface but never made it past my throat. Despite the adrenaline pumping through me I was still completely powerless to speak.
With unnatural speed a huge tendril detached itself from a nearby hulk and swiftly engulfed my ship with its ethereal coils. Every alarm on my unsuspecting AspX screamed as I was hurled out of the nebula and into a kind of witch space that I had never seen. In my folly I tried to keep track of the mind-bending view through the canopy.
Stars flew past like motes of dust in a sandstorm, some occasionally snapped into view as though I had dropped out of the jump only to vanish a few moments later. I flew past planets I had never before seen nor would I ever again, and as I gazed out into that roiling mass of cosmic uncertainty the edges of my vision became blurred, then dark until it engulfed me entirely and I succumbed to will of this ancient creature.
As if I ever had a choice.
#
I awoke to a strangely familiar voice.
“Lakon Mike-Uniform-November, do you copy?”
My head pounded. I was vaguely aware of voices, though at that moment I didn’t want to hear them. I didn’t want to have to exist.
“Lakon Mike-Uniform-November, respond.”
My cockpit coalesced in front of me as my eyes remembered what their job was and got back to it. I managed to pull myself to my feet and stagger over to the console before slumping down in my command chair and forcing my drunken brain to make sense of the readouts in front of me.
The board looked good. Hull integrity was maxed, as were shields – weak though they were. Radar showed several green blips, one of them pretty large. Green meant friendly, and friendly would be a nice change of pace after the terrors of the nebula.
Finally I swung my foggy head over to the navigation panel just as a ship lat-thrusted into my field of view, barely meters from the canopy.
“Lakon Mike-Uniform-November, this is System Defence Force Condor at your 12 o’clock.” The pilot announced over a direct channel, the small ship gleamed in the glow from the nearest star and I was happy to see that thus far its weapons hard points remained retracted. “Are you in need of assistance?”
Shaking my head to clear out the last of the cobwebs I reached over and keyed the comms to transmit.
“Ah, Negative SDF Condor,” I said as I fired a few lateral thrusters to ensure that I had helm control. “Just a gremlin in the old comm system, think my girl had a rough time out in the big black.”
“I’ll say,” she replied as her condor did a slow circle-strafe around my hull. “She looks like she’s been through hell. Follow correct docking procedure before approaching the mail slot and welcome to Sothis, Commander.”
“Copy that, good to be back.” I replied as my mind raced.
Sothis? How have I got all the way back to Sothis in one jump? Saffron’s incredible journey here from the central bubble was becoming all too clear.
I got within range and requested a bay, after waiting sometime in the holding pattern for data runners and shit-haulers to do their thing I put my girl down onto the designated landing pad and took a step outside to see just what the SDF pilot had meant.
It wasn’t pretty. Purple scorch marks ran around almost the entirety of the hull like the striations you find on a burnt-out CPU, a half dozen navigation lights had been smashed along with the daft spoiler that I won in a poker game with an onionhead. Worst of all, the right engine nacelle was obliterated beyond repair, somehow crushed by the apparently spectral appendage that flung me uncounted light years through space.
I wondered where to go once I set down, I must have wandered for at least a few hours before I found myself at the place where it all began. Slavern’s Tavern.
I lost track of the hours there in the bar. Turns out the data they pulled from my scanner would just about pay for repairs plus a little liver damage and I was loathe to pass up the opportunity. It took a while, but eventually she walked in.
Not Saffron, though she was the only human I wanted to see. This was somebody else. She had blonde hair, where Saffron’s had been black. There were other differences too, but as she walked towards me all I focussed on was the glass of whiskey she cradled in her hand.
“Hi, I’m Dani,” she said as she slid the glass across the table to my waiting hand, not that I had any control over it. “What’s your name?”
“Name’s not important,” I replied quite sincerely, taking a stiff sip from the glass and savouring the golden-brown liquid as it burned its way down my oesophagus. I returned the wet bottom of the glass to the ring-stained table top and looked up into her ocean blu- no, brown eyes.
Not Saffron.
“Fair enough, what you doing out here? I’m hauling a bunch of tourists who wanted to see the back of beyond. Sothis it was.”
“Exploring, this was the first place I came across on my way home.”
“First pla? This is Sothis! No one comes here unless the expressly mean to come here sweetie… Hang on. Was that the remains of your Asp that I saw smouldering on pad six when I came in to dock?”
I nodded my head, eyes fixed on the table. Suddenly aware of the fact that I wasn’t entirely in control of my own actions. I wanted to do what I was doing and say the things I was saying, but I didn’t know why.
“Holy- what the hell happened out there? You must have seen some things…” She replied with a gasp, reaching across the table and taking my hand in hers.
I looked up, now completely unable to fight my own-
END OF READABLE DATA.
LOG ENTRY INCOMPLETE.Kim Doyeon will be leading her first drama!
On November 8, it was confirmed that the Weki Meki member will be playing the female lead in upcoming web drama “Short.” The male lead will be played by Kang Tae Oh.
Although Kim Doyeon made a special appearance in SURPRISE U’s debut web drama “Idol Fever,” this is her first official role in a drama.
Kim Doyeon will be playing the role of Yoo Ji Na, a girl with beauty, intelligence, and athletic talent. She quit figure skating due to an injury and went to study abroad, but she has returned to Korea for a girl group audition.
Kang Tae Oh’s character Kang Ho Young is a carefree troublemaker. He begins short track speed skating due to a suggestion from a prestigious short track coach.
“Short” shows the process of a short track rookie rising to become an international top star. Supported by the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning, Korea Radio Promotion Association, and Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Winter Games Organizing Committee, “Short” is set to begin airing in January 2018.
Source (1) (2)Areas of Interest: My research and writing over the past years have focused on women's mental health and relationships with a specific focus on (1) sexual orientation, (2) the stigma of weight and (3) academic procrastination. All articles and book chapters are accessible in pdf format on my interactive c.v.
Sexual Orientation
My research has focused on methodological issues, including factors unique to lesbians as well as ways that gender and sexual orientation intersect. I like to do projects that compare lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGBs) to their heterosexual siblings. There has been little research on sexual orientation that uses appropriate comparison groups, and I began this methodology in order to study the feasibility of using siblings for demographic and mental health comparisons.
An ongoing longitudinal project compares lesbian and gay couples who were united in a civil union during the first year this legislation was available in Vermont (July 2000 to July 2001) with their same-sex friends who did not have civil unions, and with their married heterosexual siblings. Our research team focused on demographic and relationship information, presence of children, social support from friends and family, and gender roles (e.g., division of housework and finances).
I am also interested in ways that lesbians connect with each other in non-sexual ways. I have published an edited book on lesbian ex-lovers and an edited book on lesbian communities, and investigated ways that lesbians, bisexual women, and heterosexual sisters define their communities. I am currently studying asexuality.
Fat Studies
I have conducted research on weight and employment discrimination, women’s weight in an international context, and the ways in which fat women cope with the stigma of weight.
Procrastination
A former research area of mine focused on academic procrastination, fear of failure, and risk-taking. I am still receiving many reprint requests for this research.
Click here for a copy of the PASS (Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students)
Click here for PASS scoring instructionsby
Today please welcome Shirley from Gluten Free Easily!
If memory serves me correctly, Shirley is one of the very first bloggers I met in the GF community (or maybe it’s just that it feels as if |
sexual orientation. Everyone defines these terms -- gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, bi-curious, heteroflexible (that was a new one on me!), questioning, queer, "basically straight but wouldn't kick Jon Stewart out of bed," whatever -- in subtly different ways. Or not so subtly different ways.
So ultimately, it doesn't really make sense to talk about whether someone is "really bisexual." There is no such thing as "really bisexual." Within reason (and please don't ask me to define what "within reason" means), we get to decide for ourselves what sexual orientation we are, and what language we use to describe it.
But what does that mean for someone who's closeted?
I mean, one of the things about being closeted is that the willingness and ability to honestly self-define one's sexuality is shot to hell. That isn't necessarily true with the "I know I'm a big queer but I'm pretending not to be for pragmatic reasons" sort of closeting (the way a lot of LGBT celebrities are: think Melissa Etheridge or George Takei before they came out). But it sure as hell is true with the self-loathing, totally in denial, "Homosexuals are disgusting, and the fact that I suck cock in airport bathrooms has no bearing on that assessment" sort of closeting we see with so many right-wing closet cases. If someone is having that much repression and rationalization about their sexuality, the rest of us have to suspend the "Everyone gets to define their own sexual identity" rule -- since we're not going to get an honest answer out of them. (Larry Craig, for instance, is not saying, "According to the standard tropes of sexual identity, most people would identify me as a gay man -- but I'm not an essentialist, I'm a constructionist, and I'm constructing a sexual identity that frames me as a culturally heterosexual man who sometimes has sex with other men." Larry Craig is sticking his fingers in his ears and saying, "La la la la la, I'm not a faggot.")
We also have to remember that the ability to function sexually with a person of the opposite sex does not automatically drop someone into the Bisexual slot. Plenty of gay men and lesbians are capable of functioning sexually with people of the opposite sex. It's just not a very high level of functioning. If you only ever fantasize about people of the same sex; if the only people who make your head turn on the street are people of the same sex; if the only porn you're interested in is same-sex porn -- but you can manage to perform rote, joyless sex acts with an opposite-sex partner as long as you close your eyes and think of Hugh Jackman (or Tilda Swinton) -- that's not a very useful definition of "Bisexual."
And when I read the stories about right-wing closet cases, that seems to be the most common story. These stories never read like "reasonably happy marriage of someone with a genuine erotic and romantic connection to their spouse, but who's also leading a double life with same-sex partners." They always read like "marriage of convenience -- which their spouse may or may not have known was a marriage of convenience." It's hard to put my finger on what exactly makes me think that... and the abovementioned fact that these guys aren't being blazingly honest about their sexuality, with themselves or with anyone else, isn't helping me figure it out. But there's something about the intensity of these guys' professed revulsion with homosexuality, the "lady doth protest too much" quality of their impassioned defenses of heterosexual marriage, that makes me smell a rat. A rat in the form of sham marriages, with no sincere romantic or sexual component.
Now. I do think that media coverage of outed politicians does play into bisexual invisibility in some ways. When these stories get written about, there is an assumption of a sexual orientation binary; an assumption that the world is divided into Gay and Straight, and that anyone having sex with same-sex partners must by default fall into the Gay category. That's the assumption that gets made in almost every media story written about sexual orientation; it's no surprise that it gets made in stories about right-wing homophobic politicians who turn out to be closet cases. And it's a troubling and fucked-up assumption, which does perpetuate the idea that there's no such thing as bisexuals.
But I think this question of how we name the sexual identity of someone in the closet is profoundly tricky. If we accept that sexual orientations don't have clear definitions, and we accept that people have the right to define their sexual identities for themselves... then how do we apply that principle to people who aren't willing or able to be honest about who they are?
So it's occurring to me that it might make more sense to talk about right-wing homophobic politicians who are secretly having sex with same-sex partners... instead of talking about right-wing homophobic politicians who are secretly gay. It's occurring to me that it makes no more sense to say that these closeted politicians are "really" gay than it does to say that they're "really" bisexual.
I mean, do we really want to say that "bisexual" is a deeply personal identity that people can only claim for themselves... but that "gay" is a culturally- defined identity that society gets to pin on other people?
I sure don't.The shores of Scotland’s Orkney Islands are dotted with ruins that date to the Stone Age. But after enduring for millennia, these archaeological sites – along with many others from Easter Island to Jamestown – are facing an existential threat from climate change.
Perched on the breathtaking Atlantic coast of Mainland, the largest island in Scotland’s Orkney archipelago, are the remains of the Stone Age settlement of Skara Brae, dating back 5,000 years. Just feet from the sea, Skara Brae is one of the best preserved Stone Age villages in the world — a complex of ancient stone house foundations, walls, and sunken corridors carved out of the dunes by the shore of the Bay of Skaill. Fulmars and kittiwakes from the vast seabird colonies on Orkney’s high cliffs wheel above the coastal grassland of this rugged island, 15 miles from the northern coast of the Scottish mainland. On a sunny day, the surrounding bays and inlets take on a sparkling aquamarine hue.
Older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge, Skara Brae is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site that also includes two iconic circles of standing stones — the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness — and Maeshowe, an exquisitely structured chambered tomb famous for its Viking graffiti and the way its Stone Age architects aligned the entrance to catch the sun’s rays at the winter solstice. These sites, situated just a few miles from Skara Brae, are part of an elaborate ceremonial landscape built by Orkney’s earliest farmers.
Skara Brae and the neighboring sites have weathered thousands of years of Orkney’s wild winters and ferocious storms, but they may not outlive the changing climate of our modern era. As seas rise, storms intensify, and wave heights in this part of the world increase, the threat grows to Skara Brae, where land at each end of its protective sea wall — erected in the 1920s — is being eaten away. Today, as a result of climate change, Skara Brae is regarded by Historic Environment Scotland, the government agency responsible for its preservation, as among Scotland’s most vulnerable historic sites.
Like the rest of Scotland, Orkney’s climate is changing faster now than at any time since instrumental measurements began.
A global crisis for cultural heritage is unfolding along our coasts, but it’s one that only a handful of archaeologists, preservationists, and climate scientists are yet paying attention to. In 2014, for example, a study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research found 136 World Heritage sites vulnerable to sea level rise, including the Statue of Liberty and the Sydney Opera House. The U.S. National Park Service has identified erosion threats to archaeology at many of its properties, including Historic Jamestown in Virginia. Recent research shows that some of the magnificent moai statues of Easter Island are in danger of collapsing into the sea as a consequence of coastal erosion. The threat is also severe in the Arctic, where protective winter sea ice is disappearing and permafrost is thawing. Storms tear away the shoreline and wash out irreplaceable remains of settlements, hunting camps, and artifacts. Archaeologists are racing to excavate the rapidly disappearing site of Walakpa near Barrow, Alaska, with its evidence spanning 4,000 years of human occupation. Other coastal archaeology is critically endangered at Arctic sites in Canada, Siberia, and Greenland. Resources to investigate and excavate are meager. Because of Orkney’s weathered coast and the sheer density and richness of its ancient remains, many see the archipelago as the world capital of eroding archaeology. Hazel Moore, an archaeologist who has been monitoring erosion impacts in Orkney and the even more northerly Shetland Islands since the early 1990s, says, “In terms of coastal erosion and direct threat, within Orkney and Shetland there are thousands of sites at risk, and probably many we don’t know about that we’re not even recording.”
Remains of the Stone Age settlement of Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands, threatened by sea level rise. ADAM MARKHAM
Moore leads one of Orkney’s several active “rescue digs” in a fast-eroding dune system called the Links of Noltland on the island of Westray, a 90-minute ferry ride from Mainland. Remains of at least 35 stone structures dating from 3300 BC to roughly 1000 BC have been found there so far. In one of those, archaeologists discovered in 2009 the Orkney Venus, Scotland’s earliest known representation of a human. Neolithic settlement sites are rare, and the state of preservation at Noltland is comparable to Skara Brae, although Noltland’s area is considerably larger. Each summer, the excavation team returns not knowing what condition the site will be in after being battered by winter storms.
Like the rest of Scotland, Orkney’s climate is changing faster now than at any time since instrumental measurements began. Average temperatures have risen by about 1.8 degrees F since 1961, and heavy rainfall events and severe storms have become more common. Meanwhile, sea level rise has accelerated during the last 20 years, driving an increase in severe coastal flooding events on Scottish coasts, according to Jim Hansom, a coastal geomorphologist at the University of Glasgow.
Until the 1980s Noltland’s dunes were largely covered in grass, but storms have hammered them, allowing wind erosion to take hold. (Sand quarrying and rabbit damage also have taken a toll.) Intensifying winter winds have scoured away sand and soil so that in some places the dunes have collapsed nearly 20 feet. An ancient midden, or garbage pile, has been exposed to the elements for the first time in thousands of years, with shellfish and snail shells, fish bones, cereal grains, and charred fragments of animal bones discarded by Bronze Age farmers lying directly on the surface. Some of the most exposed portions of the site are no more than 100 yards from the sea and just a few feet above beach level. Moore says that speed of excavation is paramount because “nature is uncovering the site so rapidly.” The evidence for human occupation in Orkney dates back at least 9,000 years, and although we think of the islands as remote today, for several millennia they were a maritime and cultural crossroads, with close links at various times to Ireland, Scandinavia, Greenland, and mainland Europe. In the medieval period, Orkney was only two or three days’ sail by longboat from Norse harbors in Scandinavia. Orkney’s earliest inhabitants had to adapt to climate changes, including post-glacial sea level rise. Seas around Orkney didn’t reach their current level until about 4,000 years ago, perhaps 500 years after Skara Brae was abandoned. It is likely that encroaching sands and increasing salt-spray blown in from the sea eventually made agriculture too difficult so close to the ocean.
Archeologist Julie Gibson on Rousay Island, which has archeological finds dating back more than 5,500 years. ADAM MARKHAM
By roughly 3500 BC, most of Orkney’s forests had been felled, and stone, easily quarried from the islands’ laminated red sandstone deposits, became the building material of choice. Because stone was used, the islands hold an extraordinarily rich repository of archaeological information from the Neolithic period through to the Vikings and beyond. At other archaeological sites in Europe, where wood was used, the organic material has decayed and little is left of buildings, but in Orkney, preservation of ancient structures is remarkable, offering vivid insights into Neolithic life. For example, the houses of Skara Brae contain stone beds, dressers, shelves, and fish storage tanks. “The buildings at Skara Brae indicated a pattern for how people lived,” said Julie Gibson, the Orkney County archaeologist and a lecturer at the University of the Highlands and Islands. “When archaeologists were digging near Stonehenge, they were dealing with houses which had been built in wood, but to the same pattern as in Orkney. They wouldn’t have been able to so rapidly understand how people lived near Stonehenge if they hadn’t been able to draw on the 3-D evidence from Skara Brae.” As at Skara Brae, most of Orkney’s archaeological sites are on or close to the shoreline, just a few feet above sea level. Accelerating sea level rise is already having an impact, according to Gibson. Sixty years ago, local children played inside beautifully preserved Iron Age buildings at Hodgalee on Westray. Since then, seas that have risen five to eight inches have entered and damaged these ancient remains. It’s an “archaeological disaster,” says Gibson, and just a matter of time until all are lost to the water and waves.
The medieval church of St. Mary's Kirk on Rousay Island, another example of Orkney coastal archeology at risk because of climate change. ADAM MARKHAM
The 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report projected a range for global average sea level rise of 1.7 feet to 3.2 feet by 2100, but the latest science suggests that estimate is conservative. The U.K. government has projected a possible rise in sea level of up to 6.2 feet by 2100. On the Orkney Islands, huge waves roll in unimpeded from the deep water of the Atlantic and batter the shore. Most studies show that storm activity in the northern North Atlantic has intensified, and almost all climate change analyses agree that storm intensity will continue to increase. Waves, too, are becoming more damaging. “In the Northeast Atlantic, the significant wave height (the average of the highest third of all waves) has been increasing over the last 40 years at about 0.8 inches per year,” says Hansom. But it’s not the average waves that do the most damage, it’s the biggest ones. Extreme waves up to 56 feet have been recorded off the west coast of Mainland. Storms also appear to be clustering together more often, according to Hansom. “The damage that storms do has a lot to do with the impacts of the previous storm,” he says. “If you have a beach that has been depleted by a storm and then it’s hit by another within a couple of weeks, then the second storm is much more destructive.” The 2017 National Coastal Change Assessment found that Scotland’s coastal erosion rates have doubled since the 1970s. All this could prove disastrous for Orkney’s coastal archaeology.
An international team is rushing to learn as much as it can about a newly discovered Stone Age site before it is swallowed by the sea.
Exemplifying what’s at risk is an extraordinary strip of archaeology on the southwest coast of Rousay Island. Gibson has lived close by since she moved here in the late 1970s to study Viking archaeology. In just a few hundred yards you can hike the entire settled history of Orkney from 3500 BC to the 20th century, including one of the biggest chambered tombs in Scotland, several Iron Age roundhouses (brochs), remnants of a Norse hall, Viking boat ramps, and the ruins of St. Mary’s Kirk, once the heart of medieval Rousay.
Just down the beach from St. Mary’s, an international team is rushing to learn as much as it can about a newly discovered site at Swandro Bay — which includes a chambered tomb that may contain the burials of many Stone Age people — before it is swallowed by the sea. The project also seeks to better understand the mechanisms of erosion on coastal archaeological resources. At Skara Brae too, cutting-edge efforts are underway to record and understand the rate of erosion. A team from Historic Environment Scotland used laser scanners for a detailed 3D digital survey of Skara Brae and its shoreline. Gibson looks at climate impacts both as a threat and an opportunity. She authored the 2008 book, “Rising Tides Revisited: The Loss of Coastal Heritage in Orkney,” in which she suggested that half the known sites in Orkney are at risk from climate change. But she sees a silver lining: “This is an opportunity for people to focus enquiries on eroding archaeology rather than going to look for new sites.”Advertisement
Video: Ian Chant and Celia Gorman; Footage: iRobot
The human hand is one of nature’s marvels—and a stupendous challenge to engineers who would replicate it. It’s an intricate assemblage with 29 flexible joints and thousands of specialized nerve endings, overseen by a control system so sensitive that it can instantly indicate how hot an object is, how smooth its surface is, and even how firmly it should be grasped.
No wonder, then, that creating robot hands with even a fraction of human capabilities has proved an elusive goal. But increasingly, researchers are concluding that copying nature is not the right approach in this case. The better idea is to decide which of the hand’s critical functions are to be emulated and how this can best be accomplished with the technologies now available.
Industrial robots have, of course, been manipulating objects for decades. But these generally employ simple parallel-jaw grippers that open and close on command to grasp, hold, or move a single type of object that they’ve been specifically programmed to handle. That inflexibility isn’t a problem on the assembly line, but it won’t suffice for future robots designed to interact with people in a much less structured environment.
Photos: iRobot Nailed It: Thin metal fingernails let the iHY hand capture and lift tiny objects like this ball bearing.
Like many robotics researchers, we envision a new generation of robots roaming around residences, nursing homes, factories, and the like. These machines will be called on to brew coffee, deliver medications, and shuttle components around a shop floor. These functions will in turn demand many smaller capabilities. For example, opening a jar will require a robot to identify the size and shape of the object, grasp it effectively on the first try, and then apply enoughpressure and torque to open it—but not enough pressure to break it. To meet those needs, robot hands will need the flexibility to adapt to a huge variety of situations on the fly, as well as a gentler touch.
The quest for a versatile robot hand has produced designs that precisely mimic the human hand and others that look more like metal clamps. Two of us—Dollar at Yale and Howe at Harvard—have been working for almost a decade on a compromise between these two methods: hands that have some of the dexterity of human appendages but without their great complexity. The hands we’ve developed don’t look human, but they have proved adept at gripping and manipulating a wide variety of objects in many different settings and tasks.
Photos: iRobot Starting From Scratch: To develop a robotic gripper that can handle objects large and small, researchers at Harvard, Yale, and iRobot abandoned the familiar human hand, aiming to re-create its functions with a simpler design.
We got a chance to find out just how adept at a competition sponsored by the Defense Advanced ResearchProjects Agency (DARPA) not long ago—the Autonomous Robotic Manipulation program. Inspired by the success of the agency’s Grand Challenge, which helped to spur innovation in the field of self-driving cars, DARPA asked teams to develop multifingered robotic hands that could complete a variety of tasks, like picking up a telephone handset or operating a power drill. After years of work, it was a chance for us, along with our colleagues at iRobot, to see how our design approach stacked up against those of other researchers.
Since the 1980s, researchers have been able to produce robotic hands with three or four fingers and an opposable thumb, replicating the structure of the human hand. These hands had a futuristic, sci-fi look, and they attracted lots of attention, but most of them weren’t very effective. Re-creating the many joints of the human hand increased the complexity and cost of anthropomorphic hands. It also introduced more chances for something to go wrong. Some examples had more than 30 motors, each of which powered a single joint and each of which could potentially fail. And having tactile sensors with limited sensitivity on every finger made it harder to coordinate a response between all the points of contact.
Underactuated hands are an alternative approach to robotic manipulation. They’re called underactuated because they have fewer motors than joints. They use springs or mechanical linkages to connect rigid parts—such as the sections of a finger—and couple their motions. Careful design of these connections can allow the hand to automatically adapt to object shapes. This means the fingers can, for example, wrap themselves around an object without the need for active sensing and control.
We were pleased with our previous underactuated hand designs, but we knew we had plenty of work to do before our design could meet DARPA’s specifications. And we had just 18 months to do it. The newly formed team took a fresh look at underactuated hand design with the specific challenges posed by DARPA in mind. How would we lift a thin object like a key off a tabletop? What would we need to do to turn on a flashlight? We reconsidered such fundamental aspects as the number of fingers, their placement around the base of the hand, and the grip the fingertips could provide.
We settled on a design that used two fingers and an opposable thumb. Those three digits were driven by a set of five motors, so the overall number of moving parts in the hand was relatively low. We dubbed our entry the iHY (pronounced “eye-high”) hand, representing the three organizations involved in developing it: iRobot, based in Bedford, Mass., which oversaw the project as a whole, and Harvard and Yale universities, whose students and professors brought additional years of expertise in underactuated hand design.
Each digit of the iHY hand consisted of two links—a proximal link that connected the finger to the base of the hand and a distal link that extended to the fingertip. Those links were connected by a heavy-duty elastic joint that made the finger unit flexible, letting it bend on contact to match the shape of an object and form a grip around it, a technique known as passive adaptation.
Illustrations: James Provost Flexing to Fit: The rubber-jointed fingers of the iHY hand bend to match the shape of objects, gripping them without software controls. They also move into different configurations, depending on the size and shape of the object being held.
To give that grip power, we used cable “tendons” that ran from the tip of each finger to a motor in the base of the hand. When that motor pulled the tendons tight, the fingers went from being wrapped around an object to clutching it firmly. And because the initial grip was passive, nothing had to run in reverse to loosen it—letting the tendons go slack released our hand’s grasp as its rubbery joints moved back into place on their own.
Photos: iRobot To Build A Finger: The iHY hand’s flexible fingers evolved considerably during the design process.
Because passive adaptation let the fingers of the iHY hand conform to the shape of the object it was grasping, we didn’t need to control how they bent in the middle. One of the hand’s three digits, though, not only had to grip objects but also manipulate them—to push the button on a flashlight, for example. To accomplish that, we needed to be able to control that digit at both joints.
We decided to give the thumb two independently controllable joints. We did that by connecting both the upper and lower parts of the thumb to individual tendons, each driven by a separate motor. That way, we could manipulate the bottom part of the finger to place it above a button and then control the fingertip to make it push the button. That was a level of control not available in the two other fingers, where a single tendon was connected to a single motor, allowing the digit to apply pressure and form a tight grip around objects.
While four motors drove the three digits, a final motor allowed the fingers to move quickly between two configurations for different kinds of grasping motions. For a powerful “wrap grasp,” the two fingers were set in parallel on one side of the hand with the thumb opposite them, interlacing to close the grip. This grasp, in effect, arranged all three digits into a cage around target objects before pulling tight around them. We could also perform “power grasps” by using all three fingers in a triangular formation to grip an object. This configuration enabled the iHY hand to grip large objects, like a basketball, firmly in its palm. Facing one another on either side of the hand, the two fingers closed in a “pinch grasp,” which could pick up small items.
These different grasping motions helped us meet all the requirements of the DARPA competition. In its pinching configuration, the iHY hand could lift a key off a tabletop during the DARPA challenge. One of our Yale team members, Lael Odhner, developed a technique that let the hand squeeze objects into its grasp. For example, the hand put one finger behind the key, while the opposite finger moved toward it, flipping the object into its grip. To facilitate this pinch grip, we added thin metal “fingernails” to each finger, which helped the hand keep its hold on small items.
The pinch grasp would have been useless for some of the challenges posed by DARPA, like using a hammer. To complete tasks like that, we used the wrap grasp, which let us lift and swing a hammer five times during the competition, taking an average of less than 15 seconds per swing.
Although team members Nicholas Corson and Mark Claffee operated the hand during the DARPA challenges, it would eventually need to be controlled by an autonomous robot. That meant developing sensors that could give the robot a sense of the shape, weight, and pliability of the object it was handling. These sensors give software designers the information they need to program robots that will one day control the hand independently. We used two kinds of sensors on the iHY hand—one that detected where an object made contact with the hand and another that monitored how the fingers moved around that object.
Photo: iRobot How Many Fingers? To pick up a small item like an ID card, the iHY hand uses a two-fingered “pinch grasp.”
To track the motion of the fingers around their target, our Harvard colleague Leif Jentoft developed a set of fiber-optic sensors. These consisted of a loop of fiber-optic cable embedded in the rubber middle joint and a pair of photodiode receptors housed in each of the finger links. The fiber-optic cables emitted light that hit the receptors differently depending on how the joint was bent—for instance, when the joint was bent at a 60 degree angle, the fiber-optic light hit the receptors in a different place and with a different intensity than at a 75 degree angle. That data could eventually be used to map where each finger rested during a passive grasp.
To complement that information, we also installed arrays of pressure detectors. Harvard’s Yaroslav Tenzer adapted these off-the-shelf sensors, originally designed for weather and GPS applications in smartphones, to act like the nerves in human skin. The sensors could tell if the hand was touching an object at the fingertip, the palm, or somewhere in between. Patterns in that information provided data about the shape of the object being grasped to the computer controlling the hand. For instance, the handle of a screwdriver would make contact with different sensors than a telephone handset would.
The pressure sensors also supplied data on an object’s weight and the pliability of its surface, telling robots how tightly to grip an object. Heavy objects typically exert a lot of pressure and need a firm grasp, while those that offer less resistance require a lighter touch. Each of the fingers on the iHY hand housed 22 of these sensors, connected to printed-circuit boards and embedded in therubber finger pads of the hand. Another 48 lined the palm of the hand.
Our iRobot colleagues developed the hardware and software that let us control the hand and relay information from it to a connected computer. Microcontrollers embedded in each digit collected data from the joint and touch sensors in the fingers and thumb and sent it to a controller in the palm. This controller acted as a sort of traffic cop for the whole hand, sending readings from the hand to the control computer via Ethernet and relaying commands from that computer to individual fingers. While this information wasn’t used to control the hand during the competition, we provided visualizations of the information to demonstrate its sensing capabilities.
Photos: iRobot Go-To Grips: To lift a key, the iHY hand squeezes it into a pinch grasp. Gripping an object like this length of pipe requires a three-fingered wrap grasp instead.
A hand is nothing without its fingers, and the iHY hand is no exception. To build the digits, we took inspiration from our Yale and Harvard colleagues, who had built robotic parts with electronic components already embedded in them for previous robotic hands. We created the individual parts using several different molds, first crafting the rubber finger joint with its embedded fiber-optic sensors. Then we placed the printed-circuit boards and pressure sensors of the fingers in a pair of molds and poured rubber over these components, creating soft pads for the fingers that housed the more fragile electronics. To strengthen the finger design, we molded rigid backing pieces that would act as the bones of the iHY fingers. We affixed these pieces to the rubber finger pads and placed them in a final mold, where the upper and lower pieces that would make up the finger were chemically bonded to the rubber joint. That result was a single, unified finger unit that housed all the electronics it needed to function.
The manufacturing method let us simplify our design. From an initial finger prototype composed of 60 different parts, we ended up with one made from just 12 parts. And by connecting the parts in a mold, we eliminated the need for small screws and other fasteners that can be points of failure in a robotic hand. Crafting the fingers from rubber and polyurethane also made for fingers that were sensitive to touch but could survive severe impacts, bending on impact rather than breaking.
We also used magnets to connect the finger units to the hand. This caused the fingers to separate entirely from the hand if they were in danger of becoming overloaded, instead of breaking in the middle. That way we could simply reattach the finger rather than having to replace a part. To test its durability, we brought the iHY prototype to a park and knocked a baseball out of its grip with a bat. The hand continued working after multiple strikes, demonstrating its durability and confirming its standing as the world’s most advanced baseball tee.
Using common plastics and rubber to make our fingers and the molds to build them not only made them durable, it also kept costs down. That helped us stay close to DARPA’s expectation that competitors produce a versatile robotic hand for around US $5,000—a fraction of the cost of models with comparable capabilities currently on the market.
On the day of the competition, in June 2012, the iHY hand outperformed all our expectations. The challenge, which took place in Arlington, Va., consisted of 19 tests—nine different objects the hand would have to grasp, nine it would have to grasp and then manipulate, and one test of the hand’s pure strength—each performed five times to demonstrate that no performance was a fluke. Grasping such items as a ball, a canteen, and a telephone handset took us just seconds. Even manipulation tasks like drilling a hole in a wood block and activating a handheld radio were accomplished with ease. Perhaps most surprising was the strength test, where the iHY hand lifted and held a 22-kilogram weight—6 kg more than it had held in previous lab tests.
Though the challenges were scheduled to take all day, we finished with a couple of hours to spare. That let us show off some of the other capabilities of the hand, including ones we didn’t know it had. In one impromptu test, an iRobot staffer placed a pair of tweezers and a thin straw on the test table, challenging us to pick up the tweezers with the iHY hand—and then pick up the straw using the tweezers. This was uncharted territory for the hand and its operators, but we did it in just one try.
Photo: Lockheed Martin Corp. Lending A Hand: Humanoid robotic platforms like Boston Dynamics Atlas may manipulate objects with the iHY hand and its descendants in the future.
While we were happy with our performance, DARPA had invited only one team at a time to compete, so we didn’t know how we measured up against teams from SRI International (formerly known as the Stanford Research Institute) and Sandia National Laboratories. But a few weeks later, DARPA contacted us to let us know we had won the competition. Our victory meant that DARPA would continue using the iHY hand in future robotics competitions. Several teams of competitors in the DARPA Robotics Challenge, in which entrants design humanoid robots to respond to emergency situations, have used a version of the iHY hand. Attached to humanoid robot bodies like that of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, the iHY hand has been used in that competition to open doors and handle fire hoses, suggesting crisis response as one possible application for the iHY hand and its descendants.
Eventually, we hope to develop versions of the iHY hand for a variety of commercial purposes. But first, we hope that the low cost and high durability of the iHY hand will help to make hands like it a fixture in robotics research labs around the world. While there are many fine robot hands available, the expense of procuring one—and of repairing one if it is damaged during an experiment—can make researchers timid about how they use it, slowing the pace of research.
The iHY hand, however, is hard to break and inexpensive to replace if you do. That should make it less frightening for researchers to push its limits in the lab. And with a strong, capable hand easily accessible, other teams can concentrate their efforts on writing new control software or making iterative improvements to the hardware, rather than building new hands from scratch. Our research has already spun off into a company, RightHand Robotics, based in Cambridge, Mass. The company has just begun to ship the beta version of the ReFlex Hand, a direct descendant of the iHY hand designed for lab research.
As we develop the technology further, it’s likely that the company will offer several different models of the hand to research teams, from basic, stripped-down versions to more complex models with full sensor suites. While we learned a lot about underactuated design during the competition, the design has plenty of room for improvement. By making the technology easily accessible to other teams of researchers and engineers, we think those improvements will come more quickly, not just to the hands we’ve worked on but to the field of robotic manipulation as a whole.
Considering the complexity of grasping, it’s likely this design won’t be the final word on robot hands. Just as the DARPA Robotics Challenge competitors have used hands we designed for some tasks as well as other hands—including those developed by Sandia—there is likely space for a number of hand designs, each with different capabilities and specifications. But as the field moves forward, we feel that offering our fellow researchers a simple, durable, and effective hand and inviting them to improve on it is a good place to start.
This article originally appeared in print as “Robots Get a Grip.”
About the Authors
The head of the Harvard Biorobotics Laboratory, Robert Howe investigates how engineers can take cues from nature to build more effective robots. In general, he says, inspiration is preferable to mere imitation. “For generic manipulation, the human hand is not a great model,” Howe says. “It brings along a lot of biological baggage.” That kind of thinking led to the three-fingered iHY robotic hand, which he designed with coauthors Aaron Dollar of Yale and Mark Claffee of iRobot.Share:
Design
Node.js is JavaScript, so everything you already know about JavaScript applies to your Node.js application as well. The patterns you use to write your front-end client code work when writing your server-side application logic. Node.js does not use any JavaScript language extensions or modifications to accomplish its goal of server-side JavaScript.
There are, however, patterns used throughout Node.js that are helpful to know and can be useful while designing your application.
EventEmitter
The first pattern to be aware of is the EventEmitter pattern, which allows implementors to emit an event and consumers to subscribe to the events they are interested in. You can think of this as an extension to the pattern of passing a callback to an asynchronous function that the function invokes upon completion. EventEmitters are useful when one callback isn't enough, usually, because there's more than one event that might be interesting to the caller.
For example, a caller might make a request to "list files" on a remote server. You may want to stream results back as they come, invoking a callback for each one. The EventEmitter pattern lets you emit "file" on each one and "end" when the whole operation is done.
When implementing an EventEmitter, you simply need to emit the event and the arguments associated with that event.
const EventEmitter = require('events').EventEmitter; class MyClass extends EventEmitter { constructor() { super(); setTimeout(() => { this.emit('myEvent', 'hello world', 42); }, 1000); } }
The constructor for MyClass creates a timer that will fire in 1 second, when that timer fires it emit s the event myEvent with the string 'hello world' and the number 42. To consume that event you need to use the on() method which was added to the prototype of your class when you inherited it from EventEmitter :
const myObj = new MyClass(); const start = Date.now(); myObj.on('my |
for life, state media reported on Tuesday. The club team Shanghai Shenhua, which once signed the former Chelsea stars Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, was fined £103,000 for fixing a match in 2003. It was stripped of that year's league title and penalised with a six-point deduction for next season, which begins in March.
Ma said: "The Chinese Football Association (CFA), they will punish athletes or punish teams or punish referees, but they haven't punished any local government officials. In reality, it's local government officials who are conducting things from behind the scenes."
Ma added that local officials often had enormous power over football teams within their jurisdictions. "They can ask the team's boss to kick a player off the team if the player doesn't listen to him," he said.
This week's punishments mark the end of an extensive anti-corruption campaign that kicked off in 2009 under the 58-year-old association president, Wei Di. He put up a hard fight against match-fixing but recently resigned "over poor results", according to state media. China has not fielded a team at the World Cup since 2002. Its national team failed to reach the 2014 World Cup in Brazil after it ranked below Iraq and Jordan in qualifying rounds.
Among those banned for life are the former Fifa World Cup referee Lu Jun, four former national team players, and the former CFA leaders Nan Yong and Xie Yalong, who were both sentenced to over a decade in jail last year for accepting bribes. According to state media, Nan once said players could purchase a spot on the national team for about £10,000.
Official efforts to clean up Chinese football may be gaining some traction. The New York-based firm IMG Worldwide Inc will soon assume management of China's most prestigious professional league, and foreign star players have become an increasingly common sight on football fields across the country.
Despite the league's notorious corruption problems and low standards of play, China's stadiums are often packed with fans clad in team merchandise and hurling obscenities. The senior Communist party leader Xi Jinping has said he is a fan of the sport.
Yet some experts are sceptical that the CFA's anti-corruption measures are strong enough to have an effect. "These are not really serious punishments," Yan Qiang, vice-president of the sports publisher Titan Media, told the French news agency AFP. "The professional football league is getting more popular and attracting more public attention. But where there is profit, there will be more people trying to get into it with illegal ways, so it will be a continuing fight."In the wake of the CRTC's ruling this week that broadband internet access is a basic service in Canada, service providers on P.E.I. and elsewhere are now tasked with increasing service and internet speed to customers in rural areas.
"It's not just about getting the internet to people, it's about getting quality internet to them," said Alesia Napier, a partner with P.E.I. internet service provicer Wicked EH? "And I think the government's taken a great first step to walking towards those goals."
Napier told CBC's Mainstreet that a challenge to meeting the government's expectations is that some service providers are using costly, dated or limited technology.
Fact finding mission
"One of the things we looked at was the type of delivery systems that are available on the marketplace. And we wanted to make sure that whatever system we designed and built would be ready for 2030 and beyond," she said.
In the fall, the provincial government met with internet service providers, including Wicked EH? Napier said the meetings were similar to a "fact finding mission" to find "deficits" but also to set standards on download speeds and quality.
Napier said that "time and money" are ultimately what is going to be needed to provide the internet quality and coverage the government wants for Islanders.
"I think that what the government is looking at is trying to figure out how much money is it going to take to decrease the amount of time it [takes] the [internet service providers] to be able to provide the service more quickly."Wellington will need to find space for a lot more residents if predictions of the city's population doubling over the next 30 years come to pass.
Wellington's next city council will have a job on its hands to keep houses affordable and stop the city from bursting at the seams, with predictions its population could nearly double over the next 30 years.
Council chief executive Kevin Lavery has suggested in a pre-election report that the council's current prediction of an extra 50,000 people living in the capital by 2043 may have been grossly underestimated.
The past 15 years have seen Wellington's population jump from 169,000 to 203,000. If that trend continued, an extra 90,000 people would put down roots over the next three decades, Lavery wrote.
ROSS GIBLIN/ FAIRFAX NZ Wellington City Council chief executive Kevin Lavery says the city's expected population boom will be a challenging for the new council after October's election.
But he warned the real number could be higher still if last year was anything to go by, when population growth spiked at 2 per cent.
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"If that kind of growth is sustained for a long period of time, the city would grow by over 160,000 people over the next 30 years. All this growth means that there is greater demand for housing."
MAARTEN HOLL/ FAIRFAX NZ Wellington's suburbs may need to endure some level of housing intensification in order to cope with the expected population surge.
The average house price in Wellington has already increased about 7.5 per cent over the past year to sit at $560,000.
Wellington's physical boundaries do not look like growing. On Friday, the Local Government Commission announced it had ditched all work on merging the capital with other parts of the region, such as Porirua.
Lavery said the 15 people who find themselves sitting around the Wellington City Council table after October's election will have some big decisions to make on the supply, quality and diversity of housing in the capital.
MAARTEN HOLL/FAIRFAX NZ Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown says she would prefer to see housing intensification focused on the CBD and Te Aro rather than the capital's outer suburbs.
Gollins Commercial principal Chris Gollins, who is marketing the 386-hectare Plimmerton Farm subdivision north of Porirua, said fitting an extra 100,000 people into Wellington would be achievable, provided the city grew upwards as well as outwards.
"Most big cities around the world disposed of single houses years ago... people who want to live in a single house will have to accept they'll need to live a bit further out [of cities]."
He believed greenfield land north of Wellington at Lincolnshire Farm, Takapu Valley and Ohariu Valley would give the capital some room to move. But accessing other greenfield areas would not be cheap, from a development perspective.
SUPPLIED Wellington City Council's chief city planner David Chick says housing intensification done the right way, coupled with sorting out the capital's transport issues, will allow it to accommodate more residents.
"There's a lot of land around the city, but there are questions about the economics of getting to it."
David Chick, the council's chief city planner, said the odds of the city's population almost doubling over the next 30 years were pretty long, given last year's population spike was probably just that.
He acknowledged Wellington had its challenges when it came to housing supply, such as being constrained by its geography and a shortage of potential greenfield developments.
BUILDING COMMUNITIES
But he was confident Wellington could find room for a lot more residents through housing intensification in the CBD and Te Aro, as well as suburbs where the town centre and transport links could accommodate it.
The danger was that developers would concentrate more on packing people in than on good design. "We're not out to generate developments and profit margins for developers. We're building communities."
Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said she believed her council had done plenty during her six years in charge to set the city up for a population boom.
It had signed off on a number of special housing areas with the Government, and was actively consulting communities in several suburbs on potential medium-density housing rules.
Establishing an Urban Development Agency this year would also help increase the city's housing stock and keep prices in check, she said. The agency will be able to buy and assemble land parcels, and partner with developers.
"When our average house price is $560,000 and the Government considers $600,000 to be affordable in Auckland, then I think our city is looking pretty good."Lewis Baker is thriving in his second season at Vitesse Arnhem and the supporters of Chelsea’s sister side have really taken to the midfielder.
Baker is one of four players currently on loan from Chelsea, along with Brazilian midfielder, Nathan, Matt Miazga, Mukhtar Ali.
After scoring in the semi-final of the KNVB against Sparta tonight, Vitesse fans make some serious noise away from home.
The goal was his 13th goal of the season in all competitions, with Vitesse currently sitting seventh in the table.
In a period where the relationship between Chelsea and the Dutch side continues to be questioned, the rise of Baker, who has quickly become a crucial part of their midfield, shows the benefits the link can have between both clubs and players.
The midfielder is highly thought at Stamford Bridge and is likely to get his chance to impress Antonio Conte during pre-season.
A loan move in the Premier League next season could be the final step to making his way into the Chelsea first-team squad.The capital and the south-east dominate the list of house prices versus earnings over the past two years
Welcome to London, where homes earn more than their owners
Homes have earned more than their homeowners for the past two years in one in five local authorities – almost exclusively in London and the south-east – according to analysis by Halifax.
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The London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham has seen the biggest explosion in house prices relative to pay, Halifax said. Average prices there have gone up nearly £200,000 over the past two years, while households in the area have had median earnings totalling £56,698 over the same period.
Hammersmith is one of just two areas where houses have earned more than their occupants for the past 10 years. The other is Hackney, another London borough.
The figures reveal a deep north-south divide. Of the 73 local authority areas where homes have earned more than their owners over the past two years, 68 are in London, the south-east or the east. The Cotswolds and the Leicestershire areas of Melton and Harborough were the best “performers” outside of the south.
Islington in London tops the table for house prices versus earnings over five years. Householders in the borough typically earned £135,457 in the five years from 2010-2014. Meanwhile, the average home in Islington soared in price by £258,498.
Every one of the 23 local authority areas where homes outstripped homeowner incomes over the past five years were in London and the south-east.
House prices v earnings table: top 10 over past two years
Outside of the capital, Elmbridge and Mole Valley in Surrey, and South Buckinghamshire are areas where homes have earned more than their owners.
Halifax acknowledged that the huge house price gains have benefitted some, but left others struggling.
“This is good news for some homeowners. At the same time, it is challenging news for many looking to buy their first home in such areas, with prices being pushed out of range for many young people,” said Halifax housing economist Martin Ellis.
This is good news for some homeowners … [but] is challenging news for many looking to buy their first home in such areas
Even in parts of the capital with less salubrious reputations, house prices have earned far more than local wages. Brent, which encompasses Wembley Stadium and has been named as one of the worst areas in London for child poverty, came in the top 10 areas in the UK for house prices outstripping earnings. Over the past five years the median household in the borough earned £108,825, or little more than £21,000 a year, but the average house price in the borough has gone up by £156,731.
But recent data from the major indices tracking house prices show that much of the heat in the 2014 market has now dissipated. Halifax said house prices fell nationally by 0.3% in February, cutting the annualised growth figure to 8.3%. London was the only place in the UK where more surveyors reported price declines than increases in February, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Separate figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders show that loans advanced to first-time buyers tumbled again in January, while lending to landlords increased to new highs.
There were 19,000 loans advanced to first-time buyers during the month – down 27% on December’s figure and by 14% compared to January 2014, the CML said. Meanwhile, there were 18,200 buy-to-let loans in January – up 6% on the previous month and up 12% on the same period in 2014.The Military Police Complaints Commission says there was no wrongdoing by Canadian military police in the long-running controversy over the torture of detainees in Afghanistan.
The mandate of the commission's inquiry was tightly restricted to the question of whether a small group of eight military police officers had a duty to investigate the risk that detainees handed over to Afghan authorities might be tortured. It's illegal under Canadian law to knowingly transfer prisoners of war into a situation where they'll be tortured.
The MPCC report was also harshly critical of the government, devoting a chapter of the report to taking the government to task for stonewalling the commission.
The report by commission chair Glenn Stannard and commission member Roy Berlinquette says they and former chair Peter Tinsley ran into repeated problems getting access to documents, evidence and witnesses.
The inquiry cleared the officers, but did not examine the larger question of whether Canadian Forces should have transferred prisoners at all. That issue consumed the previous minority Parliament and provoked lengthy battles over access to government documents.
Somalia inquiry's legacy raised
Just as the spectre of a murdered Somali teenager had loomed over the hearings by the Military Police Complaints Commission into the transfer of Afghan detainees, the commission's chair raised the legacy of the 1990s Somalia inquiry in his final report.
Many of the military witnesses described not wanting a repeat of the mission in the African country, in which a handful of soldiers beat to death a Somali teen.
The Liberal government ended the inquiry into the mission before the commission felt it had completed its work. The commission complained of forged documents, evasive witnesses and outright lies by those testifying.
The MPCC report into the transfer of Afghan detainees says that much of what was written in the Somalia inquiry report could also describe their own hearings.
"It seemed that some of the key lessons from the Somalia experience had not been learned," the report said.
"Both inquiries found it necessary to start their hearings without having obtained complete production of documents. Both subsequently had to call witnesses to explain the delays in document production and related issues."
At one point, the commission wasn't able to get any documents produced for 21 months.
NDP MP Paul Dewar noted the commission was set up in the wake of the Somalia inquiry, which was announced in 1994 and presented its final report in 1997, to ensure some of the same mistakes weren't made.
Dewar says the Conservatives undermined the process from the beginning.
"There's nothing to see here if there's nothing provided," he said.
'Very narrow' report took 5 years
In the report issued Wednesday, the commission concluded that there was reliable evidence that torture did occur in Afghan prisons, notably those run by the Afghan security service, the National Directorate of Security, to whom Canadian troops transferred suspected Taliban prisoners. However, the report says that Canada's military police were entitled to rely on official assurances that the prisons were being monitored to prevent abuses. That, it said, relieved them of a duty to investigate for themselves.
Chris Alexander, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of national defence and a former ambassador to Afghanistan, says he knows as well as anyone that the Afghan system has shortcomings, but the Canadian Forces handed over detainees in accordance with "very good safeguards."
"The substantive conclusion … that matters for Canadians is that their soldiers handed over detainees in a manner that met the highest standards we expected of them," Alexander told Evan Solomon, host of CBC News Network's Power & Politics.
The report comes after more than five years of arguments between the federal government and the two groups that brought the complaint, Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
"To be blunt, there is no justice here for the many prisoners who were transferred from Canadian custody into the hands of torturers," said Paul Champ, the lawyer for Amnesty and the BCCLA.
"The commission emphasized that it was only looking at the conduct of eight military police officers who were kept out of the loop and marginalized, and therefore no serious review was conducted about the appropriateness or legality of the transfer decisions. The commission did make it clear that there was significant evidence about the risk of torture to the detainees."
The two groups first complained to the commission in 2007 about the treatment of Afghan detainees as part of the Canadian Forces' mission in Afghanistan. They also filed a challenge in Federal Court.
Following Canada's withdrawal from combat operations in Afghanistan last year, all NATO forces in the country ceased handing prisoners over to Afghan custody because of the risk that such transfers would make NATO complicit in torture.
'Serious information deficits'
The report says the military police weren't good about knowledge transfer, with new rotations of officers coming in knowing nothing about continuing cases.
"To borrow an analogy, it would be unacceptable for the police officers of a local detachment or city police force to change entirely every six months without taking serious measures to transfer the existing knowledge base to the newcomers," the report says.
"And yet, the commission saw repeated examples of MPs [military police officers] coming into theatre with serious information deficits on matters relevant to their policing duties arising during the previous rotation."
The report also pointed out serious communication and reporting problems, including different opinions in the chain of command about what role the military police should play in monitoring detainee conditions in Afghan prisons.
A response in the report from Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walt Natynczyk says the Canadian Forces have already taken steps to correct those problems.
The commission decided in September 2008 to hold hearings into the issue, but ran into a slow-moving government bureaucracy that made it difficult to get the documents former commission chair Peter Tinsley and current commission chair Glenn Stannard said they needed to run the inquiry.
The commission heard evidence from top military brass, diplomats, military police and the Canadian torture monitor who interviewed prisoners at an infamous National Directorate of Security prison.
Final arguments were made Feb. 3, 2011. The final report was submitted to Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Natynczyk last December for their response.Ever head out on those long rides and have to plan your route around a convenience store stop just to fill your bottles? Or jump in a really hot cyclocross race where there are no handups allowed and your bike is sans cage?
Those are the problems Brian Davis had, so he decided to find a way to bring an extra bottle without any of the discomfort or annoyance of shoving a standard one in your jersey pocket. The BackBottle is an 18oz, recyclable and BPA-free wide mouth water bottle that uses a unique shape at the bottom with a flat side to keep it from rolling and rocking back and forth in your jersey. The flat side has grooves so air will flow between it and your back. So go on, back that thing up…
The BackBottle isn’t the first creation from Davis designed to solve a problem. He’s the inventor behind Fix It Sticks, a set of mini-tools that fit compactly into a pocket or saddle bag and can be switched between the bits you need so you’re not carrying extra stuff. We’re fans, particularly of the fixed T-handle shop version.
The bottle is 100% made in the USA and measures 8.5″ by 3″, just about the right size to stay snugly in a pocket while still being grippable and squeezable. It even has a “freeze below” line on the top so you don’t overfill it and have it burst the top in the freezer. They’re going on Kickstarter March 3, but are already available for pre-order at $10 or less depending on quantity on their website.
UPDATE: It’s live on Kickstarter now.
Davis mentioned a couple other uses, all of which we’ve experienced: Short races where a pack is overkill, and those days when you’re on your own at the races and don’t have anyone to feed a bottle between laps. Been there, done that.
BackBottle.comA Kickstarter campaign is aiming to break the stereotype that links masculinity to technology. It helps to bridge the gap between the amount of men and women that are working in engineering.
The 3D printing Kickstarter campaign, which launched yesterday, hopes to teach girls the fundamentals of mechanical engineering software & 3D modeling through interactive jewelry design lessons.
Suz Somersall, Co-Founder and CEO of Kirakira (image: Kirakira)
Kirakira is a company run by UX designer Malena Southworth and Suz Somersall, an industrial designer who studied visual art and architecture at Brown and 3D printing and manufacturing at RISD.
Somersall wrote: “After researching tutorials to teach my students and interns, I realized that most existing classes are very uninspiring and intimidating for girls. Rather than teach girls how to design wrenches, I wanted to teach girls how to 3D model through something that would excite them, and I realized an easy way to do this: through jewelry design.”
They are hoping to raise $30,000 by December 2nd. So far, they received over $3,800 from their campaign on day one.
This money will be used to create 100 new classes to teach the girls. To do this, they have to pay local female mechanical engineering undergrad and grad mentors to create the curriculum as well as female high school students who practice and film each class with guidance from mentors.
The funds will also be used to help build an online academy and e-commerce shop that sells the students designs.
There is already an online foundation with free classes, but the website needs to be developed further to allow for girls to create user accounts, submit their designs, troubleshoot with engineers and order their creations directly from our site.
How Does KIRAKIRA Work?
Students are encouraged to download the free software to begin taking trial lessons and learning AutoDesk, Rhino, and Solidworks. Girls can use aCADemy (CAD – Computer Aided Design), learn fundamentals & commands of various mechanical engineering programs through affordable beginner, intermediate, and advanced classes offered online.
Once they have completed a class, they can submit a.stl file online which Suz Somersall’s team will troubleshoot to make sure it’s printable. The design is then available to be printed in gold, silver or bronze.
The aim is to use the Kirakira store to curate all the designs submitted. These designs will be sold and every time a piece sells, the student will earn points and funds that will be contributed to your school’s STEM program or their college tuition savings.
The girls are encouraged to use this knowledge as a foundation for creating whatever they can imagine, not just jewelry!
Do you think this Kickstarter is a worthwhile idea? How would you inspire more girls to learn engineering?There’s no science to coming up with a good comic idea, even though we’ve pushed the idea of a magical formula in the past. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and this week’s comic was inspired by my wife’s toothpaste tube of all things. When your toothpaste promises it will give you 25% stronger enamel, how can you refuse? Then I dug through our pantry and realized that this kind of on-product advertising was pretty common. I’m not talking about just health conscious advertising because everything advertises low calories, fat-free, no suger, etc. I’m talking about other benefits, like my cereal that says it improves attentiveness by 20%, or my Nesquik that says it helps build strong bones. For an RPG fan, those stat improvements are too much to resist!
Taking Tim’s idea about putting exciting labels on products led to the idea of creating a standardized labeling system on foods targeted towards kids. It would replace the boring “nutrition facts” on the back (no kid wants to look at that) and provide incentive as to why they would want to eat something. Think about it, kids will do the most boring thing over and over again in a video game just to let their character gain stats in a certain area, so why not apply the same logic to Spinach?Nobody could accuse India’s telecoms regulator, TRAI, of being in the operators’ pockets. This month it has, once again, set eye-watering reserve prices for the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction (see separate item), and now it has taken one of the toughest stances in the world on net neutrality, in effect banning zero rated or discounted content deals like Reliance Communications’ Facebook Basics, or Bharti Airtel’s Zero.
In a ruling last Monday, TRAI said telecoms providers are banned from offering discriminatory tariffs for data services based on content, and from entering deals to subsidize access to certain websites. They have six months to wind down any existing arrangements which contravene the new rules. Its stance is even stricter than in other countries with strong pro-neutrality laws, such as Brazil and The Netherlands.
“This is the most extensive and stringent regulation on differential pricing anywhere in the world,” Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, said. “Those who suggested regulation in place of complete ban have clearly lost.”
Such decisions, combined with high spectrum costs, will quickly make the traditional cellular business model unworkable in India, and the more that happens, the more wireless internet innovation will switch to open networks running on Wi-Fi and unlicensed spectrum. R.S. Sharma, chairman of TRAI, was careful to tell reporters that the zero rating ruling would not affect any plans to offer free Wi-Fi services, like those planned by Google in a venture with Indian Railways.
A disaster for MNOs, not Facebook
Facebook pronounced itself “disappointed” at TRAI’s ruling, having lobbied aggressively for a more flexible approach since RCOM was forced to suspend the Basics offering in December while the consultation process took place. But while the ruling bars the Basics offering – which provided free, low speed access, on RCOM’s network, to a selection of websites, curated by Facebook – it does not stop the social media giant pursuing other initiatives within its internet.org umbrella. These include projects to extend access using its own networks, powered by drones and unlicensed spectrum, to the unserved of India and other emerging economies.
So while the TRAI decision may be a setback for Facebook, it is not the body blow that it represents for the MNOs with their huge debt loads and infrastructure costs, and low ARPUs. Facebook, with 130m users in India, has a comparable reach to the Indian MNOs (only three, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, have more subscribers than Facebook has users), and is better skilled at monetizing those consumers.
The challenge for companies like Facebook is that strict neutrality rules reduce their ability to harness others’ networks in order to reach out to new users. There are about 240m people in India who are online, but don’t use Facebook, and about 800m who are not connected, so the growth potential is far larger than in the other 37 countries where Basics is offered, such as Kenya or Zambia (Facebook is blocked in China). Using RCOM’s network and marketing activities was a far cheaper way to reach some of those people than launching drones, but Facebook has other options too, including its existing efforts to make its services more usable on very basic handsets and connections; the ability to leverage the WhatsApp brand; and partnerships with Wi-Fi providers.
The drones may have less immediate results than Basics, but they are a high profile example of an ongoing shift towards open networks, which has been going on for years, driven more by Wi-Fi proliferation than neutrality laws. The latter will be an accelerant, however.
All internet will be free, not zero rated
Currently, zero rating is an increasingly popular tactic to lure users with an apparently cheap deal and then, hopefully, see them upgrade to richer data plans, or spend money on m-commerce and premium content, in future. Zero rating involves allowing users access to selected websites and services without it affecting their data caps or allowances.
The US regulator has so far tolerated the practice, but the debate is raging, there and elsewhere, over whether it infringes neutrality laws, by offering different pricing for different internet services. If other authorities take the stance adopted by TRAI in India, operators will have to find new ways to attract customers and differentiate themselves.
Increasingly, access to a truly open internet will be the baseline, and priced extremely low. That low pricing will be made commercially viable by rising use of Wi-Fi to reduce cost of data delivery, whether for MNOs, wireline providers or web players like Google and Facebook, which are moving into access provision. Providers, whether traditional or new, will have to stop regarding access to the internet as a premium service or a privilege – it will be more akin to connecting someone to the electricity grid, just the base enabler of the real revenue model.
Just as it’s only when users plug something into that grid that they start to pay fees, so the operators will charge for higher value offerings which ride on top of the internet – premium content, enterprise services, cloud storage, freemium applications and so on.
The mobile operators have not embraced these ideas willingly. For years, the ability to access the internet from a mobile device was regarded as a value-add, almost a miracle. Now that the wireless network is often the primary access method, they need to change their ideas and be more like the smarter cablecos – which have tacked internet access onto a model driven by paid-for content and services – or the web giants, which have worked out ways to monetize ‘free’ access, from advertising to big data.
This, of course, is one of the goals of internet.org and Google’s similar initiatives involving drones, white space spectrum and satellites. The more users are able to access the internet, preferably for free, and the more they see Google or Facebook as their primary conduits to the web, the more data these companies have to feed into their deep learning platforms, their context aware services and their advertising and big data engines.
So while critics of TRAI said the zero rating decision was a setback to the goal of getting internet access into the hands of the huge underserved population of India, that population is too large and potentially rich for Facebook and its rivals to give up at the first hurdle.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post: “While we're disappointed with today's decision, I want to personally communicate that we are committed to keep working to break down barriers to connectivity in India and around the world. Internet.org has many initiatives, and we will keep working until everyone has access to the internet."Gamer Guy is an animatronic that was introduced 2 months after Five Nights at Freddy's release.
Contents show]
Voice Actors
Games he is in
Behavior
During the night he mostly skulks in The Party Room and in any locations leading from there to The Office. He also usually bangs on doors and windows. He also WILL kill the player when given the chance. He will leave The Party Room when neglected (through the cameras) or he will leave automatically at 12:55. He will follow his Movement Pattern Listed Below or sometimes if Freddy escapes before him he will follow Freddy. He will also make the same groaning noises as Bonnie and Chica when he is in The Office. When he teleports he also makes a sound like this: Bum-Bum... Ba-Dum-Bum... Bum-Bum... Ba-Dum-Bum. He is first active on Night 2
Theme
His theme when his near The Office. It is a broke down Carnival Merry-go-round theme. It plays when he is near The Office. He will kill the player automatically after his theme plays.
Movement Pattern
Gamer has a certain pattern he follows when going to The Office to kill the player. It goes like this: Party Room --> West Hallway --> Parts/Service --> East Hallway --> Pirate's Cove --> Restrooms --> Poster Room --> The Office
Sound Made When Gamer Guy is in the Office:
Exceptions to the pattern
He will skip the East Hallway if Chica is going down there.
He will skip the West Hallway if Bonnie is going down there.
He will skip the Restrooms if Freddy is skulking in there.
He will automatically go straight towards Parts/Service if anyone has escaped there before him.
Whenever he moves he will make a clanking animatronic noise (much like Freddy's Laugh)
Hallucinations
Hallucinations he emits
An image of him with human eyes: flashes on the screen when he is near.
Personality
He is very mischievous.
He likes to hide in the dark.
He hangs out around Parts/Service and The Party Room
A young boy named Aaron was stuffed inside his costume
Most of the time he wishes to meet new animatronics so he sometimes looks inside Five Nights at Freddy's 3 to see who is there. He is lonely most of the time as well
Love Interest(s)
Wolfy: He and Wolfy are a couple. They also have a son named Elijah
Trivia
He is a gamer
He is one of the few Super Saiyans left in the world. (many were destroyed in a war but few survived).
He has a counterpart called Golden Gamer
Gallery
Model
Gameplay$28,000 Mobile Ports: iOS + Android
$30,000 Character Customization!
$35,000 Console Port: Xbox
$40,000 Console Port: Wii U and 3DS
$45,000 Console Port: Playstation
$50,000 Level editor w/social playing - send levels to your friends!
$60,000 Local Multiplayer (Blobby, Jennifer, Other Blobs)
$70,000 BlubBlub code becomes open source!
BlubBlub: Quest of the Blob is a classic platformer featuring a li’l blub named BlubBlub.
Play the prototype created at camp: BlubBlub Demo
The game begins with BlubBlub dancing in a meadow, chasing butterflies and being its Blubby self, when BlubBlub encounters Jennifer, an evil scientist bent on building the world’s greatest cosmetics empire.
Jennifer is out on a hunt to extract cuteness from anything and everything in sight to create the world's finest line of make up. It just so happens, BlubBlub is the cutest blub there ever was...
Prologue (Demo created at camp)
While BlubBlub is just beginning to warm up to a conversation, evil Jennifer captures an unsuspecting BlubBlub in her syringe (!)
After waking up in a cell-like room, BlubBlub discovers it must now parkour its way out, while rescuing its bestfriend, Blobby, who isn’t doing very well (labs...experiments.. you get the drift)
Act 2 (Demo created at camp)
Act 3 (Demo created at camp)
The game is divided into 4 unique Acts, with a minimum of 15 levels each. As you progress through the 4 Acts with increasingly challenging levels, you'll unlock super-powers, recruit allies, and gain experience that can be put towards character customization and upgrades!
'Spread Cuteness' Powerup: Fan art by Glory Dang.
If you have ever loved a classic platformer (the developers are big fans of Mario, Super Meat Boy!), then this is the game for you! Hop, Jump, Roll, Squeeze, Shoot, and Catapult your way to freedom!
Fan Art by Glory Dang!
BlubBlub: Quest of the Blob was designed and created by a talented group of middle school girls at the 3-week Girls Make Games summer camp in Boston, MA.
GMG Boston Campers at MIT! Can you spot the BlubBlubs?
GMG runs summer camps all over the country, and of the 32 games developed this summer in 10 cities, BlubBlub made it to the top 5 presenting at GMG’s 3rd Annual Demo Day in Mountain View, CA.
Team BlubBlub presenting their game!
Team BlubBlub wowed the judges and audience with their wit, humor and clever game design, and their game won both Grand Prize and Best Mechanics Awards!
See what the judges had to say about BlubBlub!
"Don't be lulled by this game's charm and comedy, it will keep you on your blobby toes as you dodge hypodermic needles and jiggle away from evil Jennifer, who's coming to extract your cuteness for her nefarious cosmetics empire. The developers of this game created everything from scratch, from recording popping bags for SFX to mixing their own custom tracks. I can't wait to play the final version! "
-Theresa Duringer, Virtual Reality Developer. Creator, Canon Brawl
“I was so impressed with the passion displayed by this amazing group of girls! They not only created a great game they really jumped into all areas of development from coding, art, audio and SFX to game design. These girls show that you can Do IT ALL and Blob Blob needs to be a reality so that we can hear wonderful phrases like “Capture the cuteness” in our lives. Plus who doesn’t need a blob blob sticker right now? Stop thinking and support this amazing project! I <3 BlubBlub!”
-Katie Stone-Perez, Sr. Program Manager, ID@Xbox
"Its great to see a new generation of developers tackle the platformer genre, and letting their game be just as demanding as those that came before it. Quest of the Blob tells a story that is as wacky as it is adorable, through unconventional characters and imaginative levels "-Jolie Menzel, Level Designer @ Ubisoft
"It's rare that you find a character this original, compelling and fun. I knew I needed to play BlubBlub the moment I saw it onscreen." -David Brevik, Game Industry veteran. Creator, Diablo.
"A challenging platformer with a great sense of humor and a provocative theme is something I can always get behind. I was especially struck |
may save lives which would be lost if victims and bystanders involved in the situation remain passive, or law enforcement response is delayed until overwhelming force can be deployed. It is recommended that victims and bystanders involved in the incident take active steps to flee, hide, or fight the shooter and that law enforcement officers present or first arriving at the scene attempt immediately to engage the shooter. In many instances, immediate action by victims, bystanders, or law enforcement officers has saved lives.[13]
Criticism of the analytical category "mass murder" [ edit ]
Commentators have pointed out that there are a wide variety of ways that homicides with more than several victims might be classified. Such incidents can be, and have been even in recent decades, classified many different ways including "as a mass shooting; as a school shooting; as mass murder; as workplace violence...; as a crime involving an assault rifle; as a case of a mentally ill person committing acts of violence; and so on."[14]
How such rarely occurring incidents of homicide are classified tends to change significantly with time. "In the 1960s and 1970s,... it was understood that the key feature of [a number of such] cases was a high body count. These early discussions of mass murder lumped together [a variety of] cases that varied along what would come to be seen as important dimensions:
Time: Did the killings occur more or less simultaneously, or did they extend over several days, months, or years?
Place: Did the killings occur in a single location, or in a variety of places?
Method: How were the victims killed?"[14]
In the late decades of the twentieth century and early years of the 2000s, the most popular classifications moved to include method, time and place.
While such classifications may assist in gaining human meaning, as human-selected categories, they can also carry significant meaning and reflect a particular point of view of the commentator who assigned the descriptor.[14]
See also [ edit ]In my previous post, I shared a way to add a custom attribute to the General Link field in Sitecore — in that post I called this attribute “Tag” and will continue to do so here — and also showed how to render it on the front-end using the Sitecore Link field control.
You might have been asking yourself when reading that last post “Mike, how would I go about getting this to work in the Sitecore ORM Glass.Mapper?” (well, actually, I planted a seed in that post that I was going to write another post on how to get this to work in Glass.Mapper so you might not have been asking yourself that at all but instead were thinking “Mike, just get on with it!”).
In this post, I am going to show you one approach on how to tweak Glass to render a Tag attribute in the rendered markup of a General Link field (I’m not going reiterate the bits on how to customize the General Link field as I had done in my previous post, so you might want to have a read of that first before reading this post).
I first created a custom Sitecore.Data.Fields.LinkField class:
using Sitecore.Data.Fields; namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Data.Fields { public class TagLinkField : LinkField { public TagLinkField(Field innerField) : base(innerField) { } public TagLinkField(Field innerField, string runtimeValue) : base(innerField, runtimeValue) { } public string Tag { get { return GetAttribute("tag"); } set { this.SetAttribute("tag", value); } } } }
An instance of this class will magically create a XML representation of itself when saving to the General Link field, and will also parse the attributes that are defined in the XML.
Next, we need a Glass.Mapper field like Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields.Link but with an additional property for the Tag value. This sound like an opportune time to subclass Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields.Link and add a new property to hold the Tag value 😉 :
using Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields; namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields { public class TagLink : Link { public string Tag { get; set; } } }
There’s nothing much in the above class except for an additional property for the Tag attribute value.
I then built the following Glass.Mapper.Sc.DataMappers.AbstractSitecoreFieldMapper for the TagLink:
using System; using Sitecore.Data; using Sitecore.Data.Fields; using Sitecore.Data.Items; using Sitecore.Diagnostics; using Sitecore.Links; using Sitecore.Resources.Media; using Glass.Mapper; using Glass.Mapper.Sc; using Glass.Mapper.Sc.Configuration; using Glass.Mapper.Sc.DataMappers; using Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields; using Utilities = Glass.Mapper.Sc.Utilities; using Sitecore.Sandbox.Data.Fields; using Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields; namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.DataMappers { public class SitecoreFieldTagLinkMapper : AbstractSitecoreFieldMapper { private AbstractSitecoreFieldMapper InnerLinkMapper { get; set;} public SitecoreFieldTagLinkMapper() : this(new SitecoreFieldLinkMapper(), typeof(TagLink)) { } public SitecoreFieldTagLinkMapper(AbstractSitecoreFieldMapper innerLinkMapper, Type linkType) : base(linkType) { SetInnerLinkMapper(innerLinkMapper); } private void SetInnerLinkMapper(AbstractSitecoreFieldMapper innerLinkMapper) { Assert.ArgumentNotNull(innerLinkMapper, "innerLinkMapper"); InnerLinkMapper = innerLinkMapper; } public override string SetFieldValue(object value, SitecoreFieldConfiguration config, SitecoreDataMappingContext context) { return InnerLinkMapper.SetFieldValue(value, config, context); } public override object GetFieldValue(string fieldValue, SitecoreFieldConfiguration config, SitecoreDataMappingContext context) { return InnerLinkMapper.GetFieldValue(fieldValue, config, context); } public override object GetField(Field field, SitecoreFieldConfiguration config, SitecoreDataMappingContext context) { if (field == null || field.Value.Trim().IsNullOrEmpty()) { return null; } TagLink link = new TagLink(); TagLinkField linkField = new TagLinkField(field); link.Anchor = linkField.Anchor; link.Class = linkField.Class; link.Text = linkField.Text; link.Title = linkField.Title; link.Target = linkField.Target; link.Query = linkField.QueryString; link.Tag = linkField.Tag; switch (linkField.LinkType) { case "anchor": link.Url = linkField.Anchor; link.Type = LinkType.Anchor; break; case "external": link.Url = linkField.Url; link.Type = LinkType.External; break; case "mailto": link.Url = linkField.Url; link.Type = LinkType.MailTo; break; case "javascript": link.Url = linkField.Url; link.Type = LinkType.JavaScript; break; case "media": if (linkField.TargetItem == null) link.Url = string.Empty; else { global::Sitecore.Data.Items.MediaItem media = new global::Sitecore.Data.Items.MediaItem(linkField.TargetItem); link.Url = global::Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaManager.GetMediaUrl(media); } link.Type = LinkType.Media; link.TargetId = linkField.TargetID.Guid; break; case "internal": var urlOptions = Utilities.CreateUrlOptions(config.UrlOptions); link.Url = linkField.TargetItem == null? string.Empty : LinkManager.GetItemUrl(linkField.TargetItem, urlOptions); link.Type = LinkType.Internal; link.TargetId = linkField.TargetID.Guid; link.Text = linkField.Text.IsNullOrEmpty()? (linkField.TargetItem == null? string.Empty : linkField.TargetItem.DisplayName) : linkField.Text; break; default: return null; } return link; } public override void SetField(Field field, object value, SitecoreFieldConfiguration config, SitecoreDataMappingContext context) { if (field == null) { return; } TagLink link = value as TagLink; if(link == null) { return; } Item item = field.Item; TagLinkField linkField = new TagLinkField(field); if (link == null || link.Type == LinkType.NotSet) { linkField.Clear(); return; } switch (link.Type) { case LinkType.Internal: linkField.LinkType = "internal"; if (linkField.TargetID.Guid!= link.TargetId) { if (link.TargetId == Guid.Empty) { ItemLink iLink = new ItemLink(item.Database.Name, item.ID, linkField.InnerField.ID, linkField.TargetItem.Database.Name, linkField.TargetID, linkField.TargetItem.Paths.FullPath); linkField.RemoveLink(iLink); } else { ID newId = new ID(link.TargetId); Item target = item.Database.GetItem(newId); if (target!= null) { linkField.TargetID = newId; ItemLink nLink = new ItemLink(item.Database.Name, item.ID, linkField.InnerField.ID, target.Database.Name, target.ID, target.Paths.FullPath); linkField.UpdateLink(nLink); linkField.Url = LinkManager.GetItemUrl(target); } else throw new Exception(String.Format("No item with ID {0}. Can not update Link linkField", newId)); } } break; case LinkType.Media: linkField.LinkType = "media"; if (linkField.TargetID.Guid!= link.TargetId) { if (link.TargetId == Guid.Empty) { ItemLink iLink = new ItemLink(item.Database.Name, item.ID, linkField.InnerField.ID, linkField.TargetItem.Database.Name, linkField.TargetID, linkField.TargetItem.Paths.FullPath); linkField.RemoveLink(iLink); } else { ID newId = new ID(link.TargetId); Item target = item.Database.GetItem(newId); if (target!= null) { MediaItem media = new MediaItem(target); linkField.TargetID = newId; ItemLink nLink = new ItemLink(item.Database.Name, item.ID, linkField.InnerField.ID, target.Database.Name, target.ID, target.Paths.FullPath); linkField.UpdateLink(nLink); linkField.Url = MediaManager.GetMediaUrl(media); } else throw new Exception(String.Format("No item with ID {0}. Can not update Link linkField", newId)); } } break; case LinkType.External: linkField.LinkType = "external"; linkField.Url = link.Url; break; case LinkType.Anchor: linkField.LinkType = "anchor"; linkField.Url = link.Anchor; break; case LinkType.MailTo: linkField.LinkType = "mailto"; linkField.Url = link.Url; break; case LinkType.JavaScript: linkField.LinkType = "javascript"; linkField.Url = link.Url; break; } if (!link.Anchor.IsNullOrEmpty()) { linkField.Anchor = link.Anchor; } if (!link.Class.IsNullOrEmpty()) { linkField.Class = link.Class; } if (!link.Text.IsNullOrEmpty()) { linkField.Text = link.Text; } if (!link.Title.IsNullOrEmpty()) { linkField.Title = link.Title; } if (!link.Query.IsNullOrEmpty()) { linkField.QueryString = link.Query; } if (!link.Target.IsNullOrEmpty()) { linkField.Target = link.Target; } if (!link.Tag.IsNullOrEmpty()) { linkField.Tag = link.Tag; } } } }
Most of the code in the GetField and SetField methods above are taken from the same methods in Glass.Mapper.Sc.DataMappers.SitecoreFieldLinkMapper except for the additional lines for the TagLink.
In both methods a TagLinkField instance is created so that we can get the Tag value from the field.
The follow class is used by an <initialize> pipeline processor that configures Glass on Sitecore application start:
using Glass.Mapper.Configuration; using Glass.Mapper.IoC; using Glass.Mapper.Maps; using Glass.Mapper.Sc; using Glass.Mapper.Sc.IoC; using Sitecore.Sandbox.DI; using Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.DataMappers; using IDependencyResolver = Glass.Mapper.Sc.IoC.IDependencyResolver; namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Web.Mvc.App_Start { public static class GlassMapperScCustom { public static IDependencyResolver CreateResolver(){ var config = new Config(); DependencyResolver dependencyResolver = new DependencyResolver(config); AddDataMappers(dependencyResolver); return dependencyResolver; } private static void AddDataMappers(DependencyResolver dependencyResolver) { if(dependencyResolver == null) { return; } dependencyResolver.DataMapperFactory.Replace(15, () => new SitecoreFieldTagLinkMapper()); } public static IConfigurationLoader[] GlassLoaders(){ /* USE THIS AREA TO ADD FLUENT CONFIGURATION LOADERS * * If you are using Attribute Configuration or automapping/on-demand mapping you don't need to do anything! * */ return new IConfigurationLoader[]{}; } public static void PostLoad(){ //Remove the comments to activate CodeFist /* CODE FIRST START var dbs = Sitecore.Configuration.Factory.GetDatabases(); foreach (var db in dbs) { var provider = db.GetDataProviders().FirstOrDefault(x => x is GlassDataProvider) as GlassDataProvider; if (provider!= null) { using (new SecurityDisabler()) { provider.Initialise(db); } } } * CODE FIRST END */ } public static void AddMaps(IConfigFactory<IGlassMap> mapsConfigFactory) { // Add maps here ContainerManager containerManager = new ContainerManager(); foreach (var map in containerManager.Container.GetAllInstances<IGlassMap>()) { mapsConfigFactory.Add(() => map); } } } }
I added the AddDataMappers method to it. This method replaces the “out of the box” SitecoreFieldLinkMapper with a SitecoreFieldTagLinkMapper instance — the “out of the box” SitecoreFieldLinkMapper lives in the 15th place in the index (I determined this using.NET Reflector on one of the Glass.Mapper assemblies).
Now that the above things are squared away, we need a way to add the Tag attribute with its value to the attributes collection that is passed to Glass so that it can transform this into rendered HTML. I decided to define an interface for classes that do that:
using System; using System.Linq.Expressions; namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Attributes { public interface ICustomAttributesAdder { object AddTagAttribute<T>(T model, Expression<Func<T, object>> field, object attributes); } }
Classes that implement the above interface will take in a Glass Model instance, the field we are rendering, and the existing collection of attributes that are to be rendered by Glass.
The following class implements the above interface:
using System; using System.Collections.Specialized; using System.Linq.Expressions; using Sitecore.Configuration; using Sitecore.Diagnostics; using Glass.Mapper.Sc; using Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields; namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Attributes { public class CustomAttributesAdder : ICustomAttributesAdder { private static readonly Lazy<ICustomAttributesAdder> current = new Lazy<ICustomAttributesAdder>(() => { return GetCustomAttributesAdder(); }); public static ICustomAttributesAdder Current { get { return current.Value; } } public CustomAttributesAdder() { } public virtual object AddTagAttribute<T>(T model, Expression<Func<T, object>> field, object attributes) { TagLink tagLink = field.Compile()(model) as TagLink; if (tagLink == null || string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(tagLink.Tag)) { return attributes; } NameValueCollection attributesCollection; if (attributes is NameValueCollection) { attributesCollection = attributes as NameValueCollection; } else { attributesCollection = Utilities.GetPropertiesCollection(attributes, true, true); } attributesCollection.Add("tag", tagLink.Tag); return attributesCollection; } private static ICustomAttributesAdder GetCustomAttributesAdder() { ICustomAttributesAdder adder = Factory.CreateObject("sandbox.Glass.Mvc/customAttributesAdder", true) as ICustomAttributesAdder; Assert.IsNotNull(adder, "Be sure the configuration for CustomAttributesAdder is correct in utilities/customAttributesAdder of your Sitecore configuration!"); return adder; } } }
The AddTagAttribute method above first determines if the field passed to it is a TagLink. If it’s not, it just returns the attribute collection unaltered.
The method also determines if there is a Tag value. If there is no Tag value, it just returns the attribute collection “as is” since we don’t want to render an attribute with an empty value.
If the field is a TagLink and there is a Tag value, the method adds the Tag attribute name and value into the attributes collection that was passed to it, and then returns the modified NameValueCollection instance.
I decided to use the Singleton Pattern for the above class — the type of the class is defined in Sitecore configuration (see the patch configuration file further down in this post — since I am going to reuse it in my next post where I’ll show another approach on rendering a Tag attribute using Glass.Mapper, and I had built both approaches simultaneously (I decided to break these into separate blog posts since this one by itself will already be quite long).
Next, I built a new subclass of Glass.Mapper.Sc.Web.Mvc.GlassView so that I can intercept attributes collection passed to the RenderLink methods on the “out of the box” Glass.Mapper.Sc.Web.Mvc.GlassView (our Razor views will have to inherit from the class below in order for everything to work):
using System; using System.Collections.Specialized; using System.Linq.Expressions; using System.Web; using Sitecore.Configuration; using Sitecore.Diagnostics; using Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Attributes; using Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields; using Glass.Mapper.Sc; using Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields; using Glass.Mapper.Sc.Web.Mvc; namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Web.Mvc { public abstract class SandboxGlassView<TModel> : GlassView<TModel> where TModel : class { private ICustomAttributesAdder attributesAdder; private ICustomAttributesAdder AttributesAdder { get { if (attributesAdder == null) { attributesAdder = GetCustomAttributesAdder(); } return attributesAdder; } } public override RenderingResult BeginRenderLink<T>(T model, Expression<Func<T, object>> field, object attributes = null, bool isEditable = false) { object attributesModified = AttributesAdder.AddTagAttribute(model, field, attributes); return base.BeginRenderLink<T>(model, field, attributesModified, isEditable); } public override HtmlString RenderLink(Expression<Func<TModel, object>> field, object attributes = null, bool isEditable = false, string contents = null) { object attributesModified = AttributesAdder.AddTagAttribute(Model, field, attributes); return base.RenderLink(field, attributesModified, isEditable, contents); } public override HtmlString RenderLink<T>(T model, Expression<Func<T, object>> field, object attributes = null, bool isEditable = false, string contents = null) { object attributesModified = AttributesAdder.AddTagAttribute(model, field, attributes); return base.RenderLink<T>(model, field, attributesModified, isEditable, contents); } protected virtual ICustomAttributesAdder GetCustomAttributesAdder() { return CustomAttributesAdder.Current; } } }
I used the CustomAttributesAdder Singleton instance to add the Tag attribute name and value into the passed attributes collection, and then pass it on to the base class to do its magic.
I then strung everything together using the following Sitecore patch configuration file (Note: lots of stuff in this configuration file come from my previous post so I advise having a look at it):
<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/"> <sitecore> <controlSources> <source mode="on" namespace="Sitecore.Sandbox.Shell.Applications.ContentEditor" assembly="Sitecore.Sandbox" prefix="sandbox-content"/> </controlSources> <fieldTypes> <fieldType name="General Link"> <patch:attribute name="type">Sitecore.Sandbox.Data.Fields.TagLinkField, Sitecore.Sandbox</patch:attribute> </fieldType> <fieldType name="General Link with Search"> <patch:attribute name="type">Sitecore.Sandbox.Data.Fields.TagLinkField, Sitecore.Sandbox</patch:attribute> </fieldType> <fieldType name="link"> <patch:attribute name="type">Sitecore.Sandbox.Data.Fields.TagLinkField, Sitecore.Sandbox</patch:attribute> </fieldType> </fieldTypes> <pipelines> <dialogInfo> <processor type="Sitecore.Sandbox.Pipelines.DialogInfo.SetDialogInfo, Sitecore.Sandbox"> <ParameterNameAttributeName>name</ParameterNameAttributeName> <ParameterValueAttributeName>value</ParameterValueAttributeName> <Message>contentlink:externallink</Message> <Url>/sitecore/shell/Applications/Dialogs/External link.aspx</Url> <parameters hint="raw:AddParameter"> <parameter name="height" value="300" /> </parameters> </processor> </dialogInfo> <renderField> <processor patch:after="processor[@type='Sitecore.Pipelines.RenderField.GetInternalLinkFieldValue, Sitecore.Kernel']" type="Sitecore.Sandbox.Pipelines.RenderField.SetTagAttributeOnLink, Sitecore.Sandbox"> <TagXmlAttributeName>tag</TagXmlAttributeName> <TagAttributeName>tag</TagAttributeName> <BeginningHtml><a </BeginningHtml> </processor> </renderField> </pipelines> <sandbox.Glass.Mvc> <customAttributesAdder type="Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Attributes.CustomAttributesAdder, Sitecore.Sandbox" singleInstance="true" /> </sandbox.Glass.Mvc> </sitecore> </configuration>
Let’s see this in action!
For testing, I created the following interface for a model for my Sitecore instance’s Home Item (we are using fields defined on the Sample Item template):
using Glass.Mapper.Sc.Configuration.Attributes; using Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields; namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Models.ViewModels { public interface ISampleItem { string Title { get; set; } string Text { get; set; } [SitecoreField("Link One")] TagLink LinkOne { get; set; } [SitecoreField("Link Two")] TagLink LinkTwo { get; set; } } }
Model instances of the above interface will have two TagLink instances on them.
Next, I built the following Glass.Mapper.Sc.Maps.SitecoreGlassMap for my model interface defined above:
using Glass.Mapper.Sc.Maps; using Sitecore.Sandbox.Models.ViewModels; namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Mappings.ViewModels.SampleItem { public class SampleItemMap : SitecoreGlassMap<ISampleItem> { public override void Configure() { Map(x => { x.AutoMap(); }); } } }
Glass.Mapper will create an instance of the above class which will magically create a concrete instance of a class that implements the ISampleItem interface.
We need to plug the above into the front-end. I did this using the following Razor view:
@inherits Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Web.Mvc.SandboxGlassView<Sitecore.Sandbox.Models.ViewModels.ISampleItem> @using Glass.Mapper.Sc.Web.Mvc @using Sitecore.Sandbox.Glass.Mapper.Sc.Web.Mvc <div id="Content"> <div id="LeftContent"> </div> <div id="CenterColumn"> <div id="Header"> <img src="/~/media/Default Website/sc_logo.png" id="scLogo" /> </div> <h1 class="contentTitle"> @Editable(x => x.Title) </h1> <div class="contentDescription"> @Editable(x => x.Text) <div> @RenderLink(x => x.LinkOne) </div> <div> @RenderLink(x => x.LinkTwo) </div> </div> </div> </div>
The above Razor file inherits from SandboxGlassView so that it can access the RenderLink methods that were defined in the SandboxGlassView class.
I then ensured I had some tag attributes set on some General Link fields on my home Item (I kept these the same as my last blog post):
After doing a build and navigating to my homepage Item, I saw the following in the rendered HTML:
As you can see, it worked magically. 🙂
If you have any questions/comments/thoughts on the above, please share in a comment.
Also, I would like to thank Sitecore MVP Nat Mann for helping me on some of the bits above. Without your help Nat, there would be no solution and no blog post.
Until next time, keep on Sitecore-ing. 😀
AdvertisementsAfter years of anticipation and hype, the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset launched on Monday. It’s pretty damn cool! The only problem is that three days later, very few people appear to actually have one. You can’t find them in stores, and Oculus hasn’t done a great job of telling people who preordered when theirs might ship.
If you backed the Oculus Rift during its initial Kickstarter campaign, you’re probably getting a headset this week or the next. If you order a Rift today, it sounds like there’s an estimated ship date of July. If you preordered—even if you made your order within minutes of preorders going live back in January—you’re probably gonna have to wait, too. According to a mass email sent out by Oculus on Monday:
Kickstarter units will start arriving today, and the first pre-ordered Rifts will start shipping mid-week and arrive soon after. We’re working as fast as we can to get Rifts to customers who pre-ordered. If you pre-ordered, you’ll get an email when your order is being prepped (1-3 weeks prior to shipping) and then another one when your payment method has been charged and your Rift is on its way.
That sounds okay at first glance. Problem is, that’s the only information people who preordered have been given. It appears as though that initial email went out to everyone with an Oculus account; it’s more of a newsletter, really. I didn’t preorder a Rift, but I got the email. People who preordered haven’t gotten direct emails with more details about their order status, which most of us have come to expect when we order something online.
You can check your order status on the Oculus site, but the landing page doesn’t offer many specifics. You’ll see a page with your order number along with an empty space for the tracking number. “TBA when your order ships,” it reads. That’s pretty much it. People who preordered just have to wait, and at some point between now and… mid-April? May?... they’ll get an email telling them their order should ship within the next three weeks.
Plenty of people who preordered are as upset about the lack of communication as they are about possible delays. The Oculus subreddit is currently full of threads from people trying to determine when their order might ship based on others who’ve gotten ship notifications, or by reverse-engineering their order number to determine their rank compared with everyone else. It’s a mess of half-answers and frustrated guesswork, and it could be pretty easily dispelled by some better communication from Oculus.
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The preorder and shipping process worked similarly for the prototype DK2 headset Oculus started selling a couple of years ago. The bare-bones system didn’t seem as odd at the time, since that headset was a developer’s kit that wasn’t really intended as a commercial product. The new Rift is a regular piece of consumer gear, so I get why people would have different expectations of how buying and shipping should work. I asked Oculus what might be causing the delay and how they might change things in the future, but they declined to answer my specific questions.
It’s not unusual for a new hardware launch to hit some snags in manufacturing and production, particularly when the technology is brand new and the company selling it has never launched a commercial product. It’s also understandable that people would be frustrated by the lack of direct communication and by Oculus’ evidently poor customer service apparatus. For my part, I want more people to get their headsets so that I can finally play EVE: Valkyrie against a full server of humans. It’s lonely out here with all these bots.
Update, 4/1: Yesterday Oculus founder Palmer Luckey responded to shipping complaints in a couple of different places. He hasn’t offered any concrete information or timelines, however.
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Update, 4/2: In an email sent to customers, Oculus has cited “an unexpected component shortage” as the cause of the delay. They’ve volunteered to cover shipping costs for all orders made before April 1st, and say everyone’s order status page should be updated with a new shipping window by April 12.Snapchat has been working on secret sunglasses for years, but an unreleased video obtained by Business Insider is the first glimpse at what the product will look like.
Business Insider
Called "Spectacles," the glasses appear to have a small camera on their frame — similar to the prototype Business Insider first noticed that CEO Evan Spiegel had been wearing in public about a year ago.
At the beginning of the video, a ring around the camera flashes lights, apparently to signal it is recording. The rest of the video weaves through images people might want to record, like a kid's birthday party, before it closes on a shot of grandparents watching the film on their phones.
Business Insider
This is the first time there has been public evidence of the project beyond photos taken of Evan Spiegel wearing an early prototype on the beach. The video ends with a title screen that says "Spectacles" by "Snap Inc."
After Business Insider obtained and posted the video, Snapchat told the Wall Street Journal that the company was changing its name to Snap Inc., and that the glasses, called Spectacles, would go on sale soon for $129.
Here's the first commercial:
There are signs that Snapchat could be ready to debut the glasses in New York soon. Zach Kahn posted a photo to Twitter on Thursday that showed a Snapchat ghost with different eyes than normal covering the front of a building on Wall Street.
The end of the Spectacles ad has the same matching "eye" as the ghost on Wall Street does.Every Friday the PC Gamer team scan their memory banks to identify the incontrovertibly best and worst moments of the last week. Then, when confronted with the sum total of human ecstasy and misery, they write about PC gaming instead...
THE HIGHS
Tyler Wilde: Not crying wolf
Episode four of The Wolf Among Us came out on Tuesday, and not only is it good, it arrived just a month and a half after episode three released. I hope Telltale sticks to this newly speedy schedule. Four months passed between the first and second episodes, which is way too much time for those of us who like keeping up with the series as it happens (and are as forgetful as I am). Waiting for the whole season and binging is nice, but playing episodes at release gives me the opportunity to discuss them with people who also just played, and that's part of the fun for me.
Evan Lahti: Arma marks a million
Arma 3 quietly crossed the 1 million mark this week. Not to cheerlead for a franchise I love, but it's a signal of PC gaming's health that a game with a reputation for being impenetrable and graphically demanding has done this well in less than a year. When I say health, I don't mean simply in terms of the number of PC gamers on the planet, but how open-minded and curious many of us are about new experiences. It certainly makes me want to write about Arma more. And try its silly new kart racing DLC.
Chris Thursten: Rising through the ranks
I've been playing Blade Symphony since it came out, but I've been having a great time with it this week. After an initial run of success I managed to totally tank my global ranking - down from 600 to about 22,000. In the last couple of days I've crawled back up, and I'm now sitting at 742. To get there I've had to totally rebuild how I play, how I respond to opponents, and how I make sure I'm in the right mindset to win my duels. As a fencing dork and someone who used to be obsessed with Jedi Knight, I'm in heaven. Providing that the community stays active, it's shaping up to be one of my games of the year.
Cory Banks: A welcome delay
It's not often that I'm happy about a delay, but Valve pushing back the Steam Controller until 2015 is, honestly, a good thing. We have not been all that impressed by Valve's controller prototypes—I thought the first one was okay, but Evan really disliked the second one. It's good that Valve's hearing that feedback (and the feedback of other users, too), because getting this right might be the single most important part of the company's SteamOS initiative.
It does, unfortunately, mean that we likely won't see the full launch of SteamOS this year, either. But I'd rather wait than have to suffer a crappy controller.
Andy Kelly: A new home for horror
I played two hours of The Evil Within this week, and it's everything I hoped it would be. It's no secret that I love Resident Evil 4, and as you can read in my hands-on preview, it feels like its spiritual successor. A lot of horror games on PC these days are little more than elaborate games of hide and seek, but Mikami's game has systems to exploit and opportunities for creative play. Rather than go for cheap scares, the team at Tango Gameworks seem to be focusing on tension-building. Like the Resident Evil games did so well (the good ones, anyway), you always feel like you're right on the edge of running out of ammo. If they can keep this up throughout the whole game, and it doesn't do that thing where you suddenly become so powerful and overloaded with supplies that it's no longer scary, it could be great.
Tom Senior: When hackers play hide and seek...
If you're going to nab ideas for your open world adventure game, Dark Souls is a good place to go. So I keep thinking as I experiment with Watch Dog's 1 vs 1, hacker vs. hacker multiplayer mode, which lets players invade other games for a round of hide and seek. You jump from manipulating predictable AI enemies to facing a living, thinking human being with hopes, dreams, and infuriatingly good hiding skills.
I found one opponent by wrecking up a crossroad. I dispersed the NPC crowds with some warning shots, hacked the traffic lights to create a traffic jam and then started scanning from car to car. I was 91% hacked when a sports car launched into reverse just metres ahead of me, and sped off into the distance. I tried to shoot out their tyres, but they successfully fled the scene. I got points for stopping the hack, my opponent got points for escaping. We both walked away with a story to tell—great stuff. This sort of encounter bodes well for games like The Division, with its strong multiplayer focus.Yesterday, I went to see Star Wars Rogue One. Because you are all dying to know my “expert opinion.”
It’s good. It’s really good. I don’t want to discuss the story, because “spoilers” but it takes place before Star Wars IV and shows the attempt to steal the plans of the Death Star.
It is a darker Star Wars movie, and at the same time it manages to be less stiff. It takes itself less seriously, which is proven by comedy relief characters that are actually funny. It’s definitely darker than the other Star Wars movies, showing a side of the Rebels that hasn’t been touched in the previous movies. They aren’t all do-gooders that are oh so scared of the big, evil Empire.
The attempt to make the “Star Wars Stories” stand out was definitely a succes. The story was gripping, fun and emotional. My Troll sister was teary eyed near the end of the movie because stuff happened. I, too, was feeling a wee bit emotional.
It’s good, guys. Like, really really good. If you like Star Wars you’ll really like this one. There are some elements of a Star Wars movie that are ‘missing’ but they make sense story wise and are more than made up for by the story and the other characters.
I rate Star Wars: Rogue One four out of five light sabers. Or, if you are more familiar with my other ranking, four out of five Lennie’s.
If you like Star Wars or just good sci-fi movies, go see it. The force is with me, and I am with the force.
ROGUE Troll out.
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On the fence about picking up Rise of the Tomb Raider? Microsoft has launched a free demo for the Xbox One version of the adventure game. Head to the game's Xbox.com product page (via NeoGAF) to get started.
It's not immediately clear what's included with the trial or what limitations it might have. A trial for Rise of the Tomb Raider does not appear to be available for the Xbox 360 version.
Rise of the Tomb Raider launched in November as a timed-exclusive for Xbox One and Xbox 360. Despite not making the top ten US physical sales chart for its launch month, the game has "done well," according to Microsoft marketing executive Aaron Greenberg.
Multiple paid expansions are coming to Rise of the Tomb Raider starting in next year. The game also comes to PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016.After reading comments on a weekly basis from our loyal and, thankfully, critical readers, I kept tabs of what you all didn't go gaga over, made my own notes and made a nifty little guide of things the crew should ponder while on hiatus.
But with that frenzied hype comes the undeniable pressure to avoid the sophomore slump. So we thought we’d help out and offer some tips on how to make Season 2 even better. We admit, we’re not show runners by any means here at Show Tracker, but we are in the business of offering a bit of unsolicited advice from time to time, as we pride ourselves on being experts in the shows we cover.
Easy on the guest stars: Make no mistake, there have been some phenomenal guest spots this season. It’s impossible to think of the season without Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel and Jonathan Groff and their multi-episode arcs. (I consider Mike O'Malley more of a regular than his technical “guest” status.) I'm not afraid to say Eve’s stint on the show was my favorite because she truly felt like a guest star and none of the kids got lost, which is hard when you have three Broadway vets.
I’ve yet to understand the purpose of Molly Shannon joining the ranks from what we’ve seen so far, and if she's not fleshed out next season then there is no use for her, which is a shame given her excellent comedic chops. Although I’m excited to see John Stamos as the dentist pursuing Emma’s affections, my head is pounding at the thought of another guest-star-packed season that loses sight of the background players that have yet to be given much of a chance to shine, which leads to my next tip.
: While I’m all for the occasional guest star, I feel there has to be a way to get our background players higher up into the mix. We’ve had some great stories with Kurt and Artie and a few with Mercedes and Tina, but now that New Directions has expanded let’s find a way to integrate the other Asian with the fantastic dance moves and the adorable but quiet black guy -- we've had lots of Brittany and Santana moments, but no story, so let's fix that as well. It seems that finding this balance is increasingly difficult, and that could partly be because the major guests have had so much to do this season.
Smartly use the new three characters: |
computing device. If you'd like to give it a spin, the creators have taken a great step towards building an audience by allowing full access to the app for one project for free. Full free trials are usually the make or break for me when considering an intangible app purchase, so having a complete trial shows they have confidence in the product.
When you create a project in Scenios, you'll see the Production Documents section is the main section of the app. It is divided into the following subcategories:
Contact List Script Locations Call Sheets Budget File Cabinet Wrap Book
Each category contains the ability to either import an existing document created externally to Scenios, or create a version right inside of the app itself. So take the Script section for example; you can write your script in Final Draft, save out a.fdx file, and have it imported directly into Scenios complete with cards and a watermark. Granted, you won't be able to edit the document as Final Draft is a proprietary format, but when you're in production, you're likely pushing out updates anyway. You can also create documents in a Microsoft Word-like interface, or using a custom spreadsheet. (If you're making call sheets, it's also worth noting that according to the training video, you can email them for a call sheet template free of charge that works in Scenios.)
The way you push out updates is fantastic as well, and I find it the main pull to the platform. Everyone on your production signs up for a Scenios account, and every user can be divided into different departments or permission groups you can customize. Have a Blue Draft to push out, and only want it to go to actors above the line, as well as your AD? Scenios is completely adaptable for situations like that, as demonstrated by this how-to video:
By the way, each section of Scenios features a handy Video Tutorial like that one.
Speaking of video, Scenios also has an option for uploading rough and final cuts for daily reviews. This is also all sortable by permissions as well. Storage space is not an issue as well with the 5GB you get with the free version.
There's more than just the free version though, so let's get down to brass tacks. According to the Scenios pricing page, for $20 a month you get to host two productions, join two productions, and get 100GB of storage. Not bad. For $50 a month, everything is unlimited, including production joins, creations, and storage. If you're producing several deliverables a month/quarter, this platform really could function as your virtual production office. I can see this option being a huge boon for businesses large or small, especially considering how much many companies spend on Microsoft Outlook/Project pipelines anyway. (Which are the bane of my existence.)
My overall impression of the app is similar to how I felt about the Google ecosystem. I think it's amazing to have a one stop shop for your production on the cloud. I mentioned just yesterday that large backups to the ominous cloud can be a bit stressful. However we're not talking about large backups, a couple hundred megabytes (minus dailies) maximum, and this app makes your production documents completely downloadable. All you need to do is download yourself, have a couple of producers download as well, and boom -- you're completely redundant, and can sleep at night.
Here's another good video featuring a case study. Granted there's a staged feeling to the video, but I took it with a grain of salt... yes they're being teleprompted, but it's plausible just the same:
I also think it's worth noting that this app has some very good support behind it; within 20 minutes of signing up for the platform I received a friendly email from a customer service rep assigned to my newly created account. That's incredibly reassuring -- there are real people behind this -- and again, conversely when Google Docs went down, I was SOL. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a Google-lover through and through, but have you ever seen all the un-answered pleas in Google help before? I don't think this will be the case with Scenios. They want to be the next Final Draft, or Celtx, or Paper, or Dropbox. They've listened to production professionals needs, and I really think they're on their way.
I usually direct, and I've been looking for an excuse to get an iPad for my next production. With this and a few other great products coming out, I can see myself finally moving entirely to the cloud. Call me Kid Icarus? (Anyone?)
Have you ever used cloud-based platforms for production management? Also, I'd love for our readership to take this new app for a spin and report back here with impressions. Any takers?
Link: Scenios - Move Your Production into the CloudOTTAWA – The working poor continue to make up an overwhelming majority in Canada’s poverty statistics, a fact that has helped make the fifth annual Chew on This! campaign the largest ever.
On Oct. 17 — the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty — 80 groups in more than 30 communities across Canada called for a national, anti-poverty strategy to deal with the estimated 850,000 people who visit a food bank each month and the 4.8 million Canadians who live below the poverty line.
Chew on This!, organized by the Dignity for All Campaign, is a joint venture of Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ) and Canada Without Poverty. It calls for a comprehensive plan based on human rights that will be fully funded in the next federal budget.
“Canada needs to develop at all levels a plan to address poverty,” said CPJ executive director Joe Gunn. The campaign included handing out 22,000 lunch bags across the country containing a snack such as an apple, a magnet and a postcard saying “We Need a Plan to end poverty, food insecurity, and homelessness in Canada.”
Gunn and a team from CPJ were on Parliament Hill handing out lunch bags and encouraging passers-by to mail the postcard to Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Jean-Yves Duclos.
The event coincided with the CPJ’s annual October report of Canada’s poverty levels in “Poverty Trends 2017.”
The latest Statistics Canada figures from 2015 show one in seven Canadians, or 4.8 million people, live in poverty.
“It allows people to have a snapshot in mind of what poverty looks like when handing out a postcard or an apple,” Gunn said.
Most people in Canada think of poverty in terms of the “urban poor man sleeping homeless on the streets,” Gunn said. “The report points out most poor people are actually working,” but at “precarious jobs,” with few hours, no benefits and no protections.
“Certainly anyone working full-time in all provinces of Canada but one on minimum wage would be counted as living in poverty,” Gunn said.
The CPJ report showed 70 per cent of those living in poverty are working poor. “Youth 15-24 and women are over-represented in precarious work, along with racialized people, Indigenous people, immigrants, people with disabilities, and older, working-age adults,” the report says.
The report noted the desperate need for safe water and housing in some Indigenous communities, as well as the high rates of food insecurity, especially in the North. In Nunavut, 46.8 per cent of the predominantly Inuit population experiences food insecurity, it said.
Twenty-three per cent of people with disabilities aged 25-64 live in poverty, the report showed. Refugees and refugee claimants are also vulnerable to poverty once sponsorship and government supports end.
“Chew On This! provides an opportunity to reflect on poverty issues in Kingston and across Canada,” said Tara Kainer of the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul’s Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Office in a release. The Sisters of Providence in Kingston, Ont., joined groups from Vancouver to Yellowknife to St. John’s in the campaign to “raise awareness about poverty’s impact on health, income and food insecurity, precarious jobs and unemployment, as well as the lack of affordable housing and the need for quality early childhood care and education,” Rainer said.Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has warned terrorists and their sponsors about “more serious revenge” should they try their hands at staging more terror attacks against the Islamic Republic.
IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Press TV on Monday.
Late Sunday, the IRGC fired six medium-range ballistic missiles at Daesh targets in Syria's Dayr al-Zawr in response to a June 7 attack by the Takfiri terror outfit against two locations in Tehran, which killed 18 people.
Frame grab from broadcast footage shows the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps firing a ballistic missile against Takfiri targets in eastern Syria.
Sharif reminded that the counterstrike had taken place “on a very limited scale."
“If similar behavior is repeated with similar terrorist operations, more serious revenge will be exacted on them by our missile power and also by our forces against terrorists,” he cautioned.
“The message of this operation for terrorist groups and also their regional and international sponsors is that they should never try to undermine the national security of Iran,” he noted.
“Fortunately, all incoming reports and images of drones which were monitoring the operation suggest that the six medium-range powerful Iranian missiles have precisely hit the targets, the key bases of terrorists in the general area of Dayr al-Zawr inside Syria.”
He said field reports gleaned by the IRGC suggested that the attack had inflicted considerable casualties on terrorist groups and destroyed their equipment and systems.
The retaliation, he said, came after the IRGC vowed to retaliate against the terror assaults
“As the Leader said, they will receive a slap in the face,” Sharif asserted, echoing Sunday's remarks by Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
Read more:Young man 'tortured to death with broken bottles and knives by three men and a woman who stole his PIN number and withdrew just £20'
Jamie Dack, 22, was lured to a Southampton squat by the gang where he was beaten with a rounders bat for his bank card and PIN number
The gang later returned and tortured Mr Dack to death with knives and broken glass, court told
Donna Chalk, 21, Ryan Woodmansey, 32, Lee Nicholls, 28, and Andrew Dwyer-Skeats, 26, all deny murdering Mr Dack on April 6
A man was beaten with a rounders bat for his bank card and laptop before being'slowly tortured to death' with knives and broken bottles, dumped in a wheelie bin and set on fire, a court heard.
'Vulnerable' Jamie Dack, 22, was lured to a squat in Southampton and beaten by three men and a woman who stole his debit card and PIN number and used them to withdraw just £20 to fund a night out.
The 'cold-blooded' gang - afraid their victim would go to the police - kept him in the flat overnight where they later tortured him to death over several hours using broken glass and kitchen knives, before setting his body alight in a prolonged and 'positively chilling' attack, Winchester Crown Court was told.
Victim: Two police officers in a patrol car failed to notice the lifeless body of Jamie Dack (pictured), who had been repeatedly stabbed and beaten with a rounders bat in Southampton, Hampshire, in April, a court heard
Mr Dack's body was found in a metal waste bin in on an industrial estate in Southampton on Easter Sunday.
A post-mortem examination revealed he had been stabbed several times in the neck, shoulder, chest, stomach and leg, but his body was so badly burned the true extent of his injuries will never be known, the court heard.
Donna Chalk, 21, Ryan Woodmansey, 32, Lee Nicholls, 28, and Andrew Dwyer-Skeats, 26, all deny murdering the 22-year-old on April 6.
The jury at Winchester Crown Court was told the Southampton flat where the alleged murder took place was being used as a squat by Chalk and her boyfriend Dwyer-Skeats, who Mr Dack had got to know while living in the city.
Investigation: Firefighters found Mr Dack's badly burned remains when they were called to put out a fire at the Southampton industrial estate
Prosecutor Christopher Parker QC said the defendants had targeted the 22-year-old's bank card and laptop after meeting up with him on Thursday April 5, to help fund a planned night out at a rave in Bournemouth.
'Mr Dack was beaten up in the bedroom with a rounders bat and his debit card was stolen from him and taken to a cash machine. Woodmansey got £20 from the machine,' Mr Parker said.
'Overnight, Mr Dack was kept in the flat and was never to leave it alive again.'
'On the Friday, he was left in the flat probably bound and gagged. These four defendants went out and sold his laptop.
'What happened next in cold blood is they tortured him to death in the kitchen of the flat using fists and feet, stabbing him with broken bottles and kitchen knives - altogether as a group.
'Not everybody necessarily wielding the bottle, not everybody necessarily wielding the knife, but those who did not deliberately encouraged those who carried out the fatal killing,' the barrister said.
The next day the gang'regrouped' and allegedly wheeled Mr Dack and a blood-soaked carpet through the streets in wheelie bins before finding the metal bin on an industrial estate, dousing his body in petrol and setting it alight.
It was done to'systematically' try to hide what they had done, the prosecutor told the jury.
Mr Dack knew the four and had been attacked by one of them the previous month over unfounded claims he had been a'sex pest' to a girl, the court heard.
Mr Parker went on: 'We say that each of these defendants, in each of his or her own way, was involved in that joint enterprise killing of Jamie.
'By their actions, or by their encouragement, they took part in a vicious and degrading attack on a young, vulnerable victim.'
Firefighters found the badly burned remains when they were called to put out the fire in the early hours of April 8.
Chalk also denies perverting the course of justice by disposing of the body and setting it alight.
The jury was told that the three men have pleaded guilty to the charge of perverting the course of justice.
The trial is expected to last seven weeks.
Police tape: Mr Dack's body was dumped in a wheelie bin, doused with petrol and set on fire, a court heardLooking for news you can trust?
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Read Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer’s firsthand account of his four months spent working as a guard at a corporate-run prison in Louisiana.
In 1887, a 23-year-old journalist got herself checked into the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in New York City. When she emerged, she wrote about patients tied together with ropes, abusive staff and ubiquitous vermin, “lunatics” treated with nothing more restorative than ice baths, and, perhaps most disturbingly, patients who seemed to be perfectly sane, dumped there by a society that had few safety nets for women who were single, poor, and often immigrants.
Serialized by Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, Nellie Bly’s accounts (later collected in a book called Ten Days in a Mad-House) caused a sensation, fueled in no small part by her pluck—she’d begun her career by writing a scathing rebuttal to an editorial titled “What Girls Are Good For”—though her ingénue looks couldn’t have hurt, either. But despite prose that shades purple to today’s ears, Bly’s work holds up not only for its daring, but for its impact: It prompted a grand jury investigation that led to changes she’d proposed, including a $26 million (in today’s dollars) increase to the budget of the city’s Department of Public Charities and Correction and regulations to ensure that only the seriously mentally ill were committed.
Access to prisons has been vastly curtailed. There is no way to know what truly happens inside but to go there.
Bly—who’d go on to get herself arrested so she could investigate conditions at a women’s prison, and to best Jules Verne’s fictional protagonist by circumnavigating the world in 72 days—was not the first journalist to go inside an institution to expose its inner workings. Or the last. Ted Conover also reported from behind prison walls, as did Ben Bagdikian, for whom MoJo’s fellowship program is named. In 1961, John Howard Griffin ingested a chemical that darkened his skin to investigate racial apartheid in the United States. Barbara Ehrenreich took jobs at chain restaurants and Walmart to spotlight the plight of low-wage workers. Mac McClelland worked as a picker in a warehouse of an online shipping behemoth to report for Mother Jones.
But while such investigations were commonplace in the muckraker era, they’ve grown increasingly rare. Why? First, there’s a real concern over ethics. When is it okay for reporters to not announce themselves as such? There’s no governing body of journalism, but a checklist written by Poynter ethicist Bob Steele provides guidelines for assessing when this kind of reporting is acceptable. I’ll paraphrase:
When the information obtained is of vital public interest.
When other efforts to gain that information have been exhausted.
When the journalist is willing to disclose the reason and nature of any deception.
When the news organization applies the skill, time, and funding needed to fully pursue the story.
When the harm prevented outweighs any harm caused.
After meaningful deliberation of the ethical and legal issues.
To see what private prisons are really like, Shane Bauer applied for a job with the Corrections Corporation of America. He used his own name and Social Security number, and he noted his employment with the Foundation for National Progress, the publisher of Mother Jones. He did not lie. He spent four months as a guard at a CCA-run Louisiana prison, and then we spent 14 more months reporting and fact-checking.
We took these extraordinary steps because press access to prisons and jails has been vastly curtailed in recent decades, even as inmates have seen their ability to sue prisons—often the only way potential abuses would pop up on the radar of news organizations or advocates—dramatically reduced. There is no other way to know what truly happens inside but to go there.
But here’s the other reason investigations like this one have grown so rare: litigation. When ABC News busted Food Lion for repackaging spoiled meat for sale back in 1992, a jury bought the company’s line that the real offense had been the falsification of employment applications and the reporters’ failure to fulfill their assigned duties—i.e., repackaging spoiled meat! The $5.5 million damage award was eventually knocked down to just two dollars, but it put a chill on this kind of muckraking for a generation, and during that time, corporate and official entities built an ever-tighter web of legal protections. Nondisclosure agreements—once mainly the provenance of people who work on Apple product launches and Beyoncé videos—are now seeping into jobs of all stripes, where they commingle with various other “non-disparagement” clauses and “employer protection statutes.” Somewhere along the way, employers’ legitimate interest in protecting hard-won trade secrets has turned into an all-purpose tool for shutting down public scrutiny—even when the organizations involved are more powerful than agencies of government.
Companies’ interest in protecting trade secrets has turned into a tool for shutting down public scrutiny.
Or when, for that matter, they replace the government. When CCA (which runs 61 prisons, jails, and detention centers on behalf of US taxpayers) learned about our investigation, it sent us a four-page letter warning that Shane had “knowingly and deliberately breached his duty to CCA by violating its policies,” and that there could be all manner of legal consequences. The letter came not from CCA’s in-house counsel, but from the same law firm that had represented a billionaire megadonor in his three-year quest to punish us for reporting on his anti-LGBT activities. When he lost, he pledged $1 million to support others who might want to sue us, and, though we won the case, were it not for the support of our readers the out-of-pocket costs would have hobbled us.
Shane’s story will draw a fair bit of curiosity around the newsgathering methods employed. But don’t let anyone distract you from the story itself. Because the story itself is revealing as hell.
If you think stories like this need to be told, please make a tax-deductible donation to Mother Jones to help underwrite our investigations.Samsung Galaxy Avant the only phone able to use it
Some big news out of T-Mobile tonight — it's released a SIM unlock app that will allow a phone to work on other GSM networks.
The catch? (Of course there's a catch.) As of this moment, it's only available for the Samsung Galaxy Avant — a low-ender that's just a coupe hundred bucks. (We were able to install it with ease on a couple other phones, including the Samsung Galaxy S5, but unlocking was a no-go.)
There are two options at play here — a temporary unlock, intended for use overseas (which generally is what you want a SIM-unlocked phone for), or a permanent unlock. TMo News earlier reported that the temporary unlock is a 30-day deal, and the permanent unlock will be subject to "certain eligibility requirements."
Of course the usual frequency caveats remain no matter what, so there's that. No word yet if more devices will be able to take advantage of this, but we wouldn't bet against it.
Thanks, Austin!The price of war is set to cost the Canadian tax payer dearly as the cost of building 15 surface combatant ships for the navy balloons more than $16 billion to reach $30 billion. The increase was found following an audit by independent professional services firm A.T. Kearney. One suggested way forward is to reduce the number of ordered ships.
Canada, following continued geopolitical uncertainty and its proximity to the sometimes disputed artic region, has sought to upgrade its navy. 15 newly designed combat ships were ordered in the late 2000s, for the price of $14 billion as part of a wider budget for the navy of $26.2 billion. Yet the federal government recently announced that even that budget has been blown out of the water.
To develop a clearer picture of the total cost of the programme, A.T. Kearney was called in to audit the programme and develop a projection of total costs. The consulting firm was hired to provide a qualitative analysis that examines “the relationship between the project requirements and feasibility, and affordability to provide a solution that allows [the Navy] to fully realise its mission.” The analysis shows that the cost was put at $30 billion for the combat ships, thus $16 billion above budget and pushing the total navy budget to $42 billion.
The problem for the Canadian government is a result of a mismatch between expectations, cost and requirements. There were already initial concerns about the $14 billion agreement when it was agreed to. “We had concerns all along,” says Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, Commander Royal Canadian Navy, in an exclusive interview with the CBC. “It is obvious that the concerns were less acute in 2008 and 2009, when the foreclosure process [cost] down was still fresh and the ink was drying. But as we went forward, you know, we had real concerns.”
Concerns about the costs blowout associated with the construction programme were further raised in 2013, when the Auditor General of Canada Michael Ferguson warned that there were considerable unknowns involved in the project, including labour and equipment, inflation and other project uncertainties, placing critical questions about the originally decided budget cap of $14 billion.
The cost explosion has been attributed to a number of factors: the marine requirements did not exist to meet the construction demand and needed to be developed. It was almost impossible to judge the cost of the technology required for advanced war ships, given the pace of development. Even today, the final costs produced by A. T. Kearney remain projections, as the ships are still only in the design phase.
The programme has been placed under pressure from the Minister of National Defence when Jason Kenney, who in October suggested that, given budget constraints, the number of ships ordered may need to be lowered to 11. “Based on expert advice that we received from the Royal Canadian Navy and after exhaustive analysis the Ministry of Public Works, following the most comprehensive and transparent major process in the history of the Canadian government, we believe that it is possible with a budget of $26 billion to build between 11 and 15 warships surface,” Kenney explains.New Delhi: While most people in the country are concerned about layoffs, job losses and the lack of employment generation, and the impact this is having on India’s young people, railways minister Piyush Goyal seems to think the decrease in employment opportunities is a “very good sign”. His logic suggests that young people are using the proverbial lemons life is throwing at them to make not lemonade, but gajar ka halwa.
At the World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit on Thursday, industry executives expressed concern about the country’s employment situation. Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal talked about how India’s top 200 companies had made “significant” reductions in their workforce in the last few years. “If these top 200 companies are not going to generate jobs, it’s going to get harder and harder for the whole business community to pull society along with it,” Mittal said. “And then, you will leave millions and millions behind.”
But Goyal wasn’t having any of that. Interjecting, he said, “Can I just add a little bit just to change the perspective from what Sunil had mentioned?… What Sunil just spoke about companies bringing down their employment is a very good sign, in fact. The fact [is] that today, the youth of tomorrow is not looking to be a job seeker alone. He wants to be a job creator. The country today is seeing more and more young people wanting to be entrepreneurs.”
Where do Goyal’s beliefs come from? Is there evidence that shows young people, after losing their jobs, are immediately filled with a new-found energy (not to mention the capital needed) to start something of their own? And even if they do, are they likely to be able to stay in the game for the long haul?
The Indian Express recently put together data from different sectors on the number of jobs that had been lost – and the picture that emerged of entrepreneurship was not at all pretty. In addition to everything else, a total of 212 startups shut down in 2016, 50% higher than the previous year. And this trend has continued into 2017 – Stayzilla and Taskbob are two of the biggest names to have called it a day.
Not surprisingly, these numbers aren’t really generating a lot of hope in the young entrepreneurs of India that Goyal is so excited about. According to a Livemint report, the first nine months of 2017 saw just 800 startups come into being, while all of 2016 had seen 6,000. If the thousands of people losing their jobs are really that enthusiastic and financially able to get their own initiatives up and running, that number should be going up, not down. Startup investments have also been low in both years, the report says. “While the amount of start-up funding so far this year has already exceeded last year’s levels, the volume of deals is lower, according to data from Tracxn. Start-ups have raised roughly $8 billion in the first nine months of the year, compared with $4.6 billion in all of 2016, Tracxn data shows. The volume of deals, however, has dropped to 700 compared with more than 1,000 in 2016, according to Tracxn”.
In an interview to The Wire last week, BJP leader and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha described as “untenable” the claims made by BJP president Amit Shah and other party leaders about the government’s Mudra scheme creating millions of jobs through entrepreneurship and self-employment:
Do you know what the average loan amount is of all those millions of people [under the Mudra scheme]? Eleven thousand rupees! And you tell me, in today’s day and age, what kind of business can be set up with 25 thousand rupees, 50 thousand rupees?… The party president said that all these 80 million people today are self employed which means we have created 80 million job opportunities. This is absolutely untenable.
Earlier this year, mental health startup YourDost said that job insecurity is one of the major causes behind depression and anxiety among young workers across sectors. The group hosted a three-day counselling campaign for those who had been recently laid off or feared that it may be in the making. “In a span of three days – between June 29 and July 1 – it received over 1,000 enquiries, including 260 calls and around 800 chats, a majority of them reporting depression and anxiety,” Tech in Asia reported. While a large number of those calling were from the IT sector, there were others as well. “65% inquiries were from professionals who had been laid off or were insecure about their job stability, given the uncertainty in the industry. 43% professionals were from the IT sector; a few from healthcare, pharma, manufacturing, and e-commerce industry,” the YourDost study says.
But for the railways minister, apparently, the impact that layoffs and the lack of alternatives can have – both of which are pretty well documented – is invisible. Because, like the ever-optimistic Marie Antoinette and her unfaltering belief in the value (and availability) of cake, it seems Goyal doesn’t want to see that there just might be a very real problem out there.The Baltimore Ravens successfully ran out the game’s final 11 seconds on fourth down by committing holding against all nine Bengals who rushed their punter, giving Sam Koch the time to meander around the end zone before finally conceding a meaningless safety.
The plan exploits a rule misapplied earlier this year in the famous CMU-Oklahoma State and Illinois high school playoff games: while a team with the ball on fourth down is effectively the defensive team from the moment the ball is snapped—they are, after all, trying to prevent the opposite team from scoring, the usual definition of “defense”—the “game can’t end on a defensive penalty” rule does not apply to them. That allows a team to commit intentional grounding or, in this case, holding penalties to run out the clock—something not in the spirit of the rules, but something football’s rule-makers have never addressed.
[CBS]VICTORIA B.C. - Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green Party, welcomed the news that the UBC Board of Governors accepted the school’s new sexual assault policy. Weaver introduced legislation, the Sexual Violence and Misconduct Act, in April 2016, which was later adopted into law by the B.C. government.
“I am glad to hear that UBC will finally have a sexual assault policy,” said Weaver. “Our aim as a society should be a world that is safe for everyone. Too many people, especially women, transgender people and other minorities, still face sexual violence on campus. We must do everything we can to prevent these horrendous crimes, and the fact that cases of sexual assault are not adequately responded to – or at all – is egregious. It is essential that all of our institutions have robust, proactive policies in order to protect students from these reprehensible acts. I hope this policy means that the students of UBC will get the preventative measures, education, support and response they need and deserve from their administrators.”
- 30 -
Media contact
B.C. Green Party
Jillian Oliver, Press Secretary
+1 778-650-0597 | jillian.oliver@bcgreens.ca"It's not complicated or cryptic in any way," Kasabian guitarist, Serge Pizzorno, has explained. No, he's not talking about his band's musical output, but the seemingly random words which flashed up on the enormous on-stage screen throughout the Leicester rockers' Glastonbury headline slot.
Words including "canister", "voucher" and "cordial" appeared in abrasive pink on a black screen behind the band as they rattled through their hits in front of the Pyramid Stage crowd.
In an interview with MTV, frontman Tom Meighan revealed that "they're words that I use and that Serge uses that are in-jokes."
Pizzorno elaborated on this theme: "The point is, when you get this huge screen behind you and you think what content you can have, you can have anything, you can put psychedelic butterflies [up there].
"And it's like, 'wouldn't it be amazing if you just put one word', and then the word has to relate to us growing up and things that we'd find funny."
The 33-year-old continued: "It's not complicated or cryptic in any way... There's certain people that will recognise the words from growing up and go, 'love that word.' But it can't be cool. There's a prerequisite: if they're cool, they're out."
So, why "cordial", for example? "We all like a bit of cordial. Everyone likes a bit of cordial," Pizzorno said.
Asked which bands could be the next big festival headliners, Pizzorno replied: "The next wave isn't there yet. I'm sure it's just around the corner but it doesn't seem to be there yet."
Kasabian recently released their fifth album, 48:13, which topped the UK album chart – their fourth number one album – and are touring the UK throughout November and December.
Kasabian tickets are available to buy through Telegraph Tickets.
READ: Kasabian: a beginner's guideMr. Grayson argues that some of Dr. Paul’s ideas (getting rid of the Departments of Energy, Education and Commerce) are too “weird” for Kentucky. And in increasingly sharp ads, he argues that Dr. Paul is downright dangerous when it comes to foreign policy.
“Here’s a guy who is outside of the Republican mainstream,” Mr. Grayson said in an interview here.
He likened the mood of the electorate to a driver stuck in traffic. “You can honk on the horn and it makes you feel good, but you’re still stuck in traffic behind that car,” he said. “You’re better off getting around, passing and keep going. And I think in this campaign, Paul is the guy who is attractive to the people who are honking on their horn. Because I don’t think he is going to be able to navigate Washington.”
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Dr. Paul’s appearances, which almost invariably start with him declaring that “a Tea Party tidal wave is coming,” offer a glimpse of what Tea Party governance might look like.
Outside a courthouse in Independence, he told a group of about 100 people, mostly Tea Party supporters, that one of his first acts as a senator would be to unite with conservatives and demand that Congress stop work for a week if it could not amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget. “Let’s just stop it up,” he said, “and let’s invite the Tea Party up and let’s fill the Mall and let’s debate a balanced budget amendment and let them explain why they can’t do it.”
“Gridlock!” one man cheered.
He quotes Thomas Paine as well as the rock band Rush: “Glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity.” The prizes, Dr. Paul told an audience outside Ol’ Harvey’s Eats in Lawrenceburg, are the pork barrel projects politicians bring home even though there is no money to pay for them.
“When they promise you things, they’re promising something they don’t have to give,” he said. “They have picked the pig clean.”
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But cutting earmarks and even whole departments only nicks the national debt. In an interview, Dr. Paul suggested cutting Medicare and Social Security spending by raising deductibles or the age of eligibility. He declined to be specific, saying he did not want an opponent to use his words to scare voters.
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Mr. Grayson is counting on influencers who will get the word. A recent day took him to meetings with a physician and a judge in a small town and to a bank in Inez where Mike Duncan, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, is chief executive.
Dr. Paul, who has been endorsed by Sarah Palin, is met at each stop by local Tea Party groups with “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, who ask him how to reverse the health care bill, reduce the debt and bring back jobs.
For Mr. Grayson, there is irony in the challenge. Mr. McConnell and his allies had feared that the sitting senator, Jim Bunning, would not win, so they nudged him out last summer after securing another Republican, Mr. Grayson, who was sure to win the seat.
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Mr. Grayson says voters are only now beginning to focus on the race and will come to his side as they realize that Dr. Paul has, as he says, “strange” ideas on national security.
Dr. Paul rejects that characterization. But he agrees that Mr. Grayson’s attacks are beginning to cut into his support. At several stops last week, he answered questions from concerned voters: No, he does not want to close Guantánamo, and yes, he supports the war in Afghanistan.
Watching Dr. Paul in Lawrenceburg, Cliff Pike was dismissive of Mr. Grayson. “He’s a career politician,” he said. “It’s about time we broke the mold.”To our knowledge, this is the first work to provide a quantitative assessment of the effects of immigration on political stability. There is a sizeable body of literature analyzing political instability and the different variables that affect it (e.g. Auvinen, 1997 ; Blanco and Grier, 2008 ). However, much less work has been done examining immigration as a potential source of political instability. Rather the focus in the literature has been on various institutional variables, other socio‐demographic conditions and macroeconomic factors. Feng ( 1997 ), Parsa ( 2003 ) and Goldstone et al. ( 2004 ), for example |
? Is it because the STEM fields are biased against women?
We can all agree that sexism exists, is bad, and needs to end. But in a world where all are equally welcome in every line of work, would every occupation be 50 percent female? If not, should we be measuring our progress in fighting sexism in science by the sex ratio of the scientists? My answers are no, and no.
If sexism is the only cause of women’s under-representation in science, then the environment in STEM fields today must be very bad – even worse than it was in medicine and law in the 1960s and ’70s, a time when women’s representation in these professions was increasing dramatically.
This seems unlikely. Law is claimed to be sexist even today, even though the overall sex ratio is quite balanced. And sexism is the last thing one would suspect of academic sociologists, yet there is a marked preponderance of men in the more mathematical subfields of sociology (Section #3 here). Sexism exists, but something else is going on.
Another popular hypothesis is that the distribution of mathematical abilities has a higher variance for men than for women, so that men form a majority in the upper tail. The problem is that most of us are nowhere near the upper tail in any distribution, and yet we all manage to find work. Men form a majority of electrical engineers, but also a majority of electricians. Different variances might matter at the very top (and bottom) but, again, something else is going on.
In my opinion, the key element missing from this discussion has been an understanding of occupational choice. Many people seem to assume that in a world without sexism, if two people are equally good at math they will be equally likely to enter a STEM field. This belief is false.
The basic economic principle guiding occupational choice – comparative advantage – was discovered by David Ricardo in the early 1800s. It is simple but very powerful. It helps to explain patterns of occupational choice, it gives normative guidance on what those choices should be, and it suggests policies that can help achieve these goals.
Let me illustrate with an example from my first-year economics course. Suppose there are only two subjects in high school – English and mathematics. Performance in either indicates intelligence and industry, but math performance also indicates the potential to be a good scientist, while performance in English also indicates (let’s say) the communication and empathetic skills necessary to be a good doctor.
High school boys lag behind girls in every subject but math. So let’s suppose Susan is getting 90 percent in math and 95 percent in English, while Steven is getting 90 percent in math and 85 percent in English. Who is more likely to major in science?
The choice to enter a field does not depend just on your expected success compared to others in that field. What matters is your expected success relative to what you can expect to achieve by doing something else. You are making a choice. So perhaps the best reply to our question about why so few women are in STEM is simply another question: “What else are the men in STEM going to do?”
Comparative advantage matters. A simple regression will show that students are somewhat more likely to choose a STEM field if they have good grades in math. But the ratio of their math grade to their overall average adds a lot to this regression. The same pattern is seen when the results of aptitude tests are used instead of grades.
Should we be encouraging more women to enter STEM fields? In our example, Susan is as good as Steven at math, so she will be equally good as a scientist. But what if favouring Susan for a math or science field forces Steven to seek work elsewhere? In general, the pattern of job assignments that wrings the most from our limited human resources is the one that respects comparative advantage. In our example, that means Steven should be the scientist and Susan the doctor.
Of course productivity isn’t everything, and we might still wish for greater gender balance in all fields. An understanding of comparative advantage is useful here as well. Current educational policies focus on encouraging girls in math and science. What if we put the same energy into helping boys do better in all the other subjects? This would increase the proportion of women in STEM by giving boys an alternative. At the same time it might begin to address the other major equity problem in our universities – the severe under-representation of males.
Surely this is a policy we can all support.
Dr. Carmichael is professor of economics at Queen’s University.(CNN) Let's fight about soap. What's there to discuss, you ask? Plenty, if new consumer research is to be believed.
Apparently, there is a serious ideological divide when it comes to bar soap and the people who put it on their bodies.
For one, bar soap sales are declining.
What was once a staple of our daily ablutions is being eclipsed by fancy-pants body washes and other cleaning options.
Mintel says bar soap "suffers from several negative perceptions." Forty eight percent of consumers think bar soaps can be a haven for bacteria and other decidedly unclean stuff. Young consumers believe this the most, with 60% of soap buyers between the ages of 18-24 saying they are squicked out by the idea of germs on their soap.
(For the record, there's research going back as far as 1988 that says, while bacteria might be present on a bar of soap, the likelihood it will hurt you or even transfer to your skin is really low.)
But wait, there's more
There's more to this emerging "Bar soap is for old people" theory: One third of the 25-35 year-old set would never use bar soap on their face, as opposed to about 60 percent of people aged 65 and up.
Overall, 55% of consumers also thought bar soap, which has a tendency to slip around and puff up when left to its own devices after a wash, is less convenient than liquid options.
Talk amongst yourselves
Bath product preferences are a deeply personal, so there may be some trepidation in discussing soap among friends.
Please, buck the taboo!
Are there any bar soap die-hards out there? Is it really that much more inconvenient than liquid soap, which requires a secondary item (washcloth, scrub, puff, etc) to be optimally applied? What is the best way to keep bar soap from making like a greased-up pig and shooting our of our hands mid-shower?
This may be the biggest deterrent from the bar soap lifestyle. No wonder people think it's full of germs if it spends half of its life trying to escape down the drain! There's a lot to unpack here, so don't be shy.
The future of our hygiene depends on it.Bernie Sanders head of the political pack
Donald Trump may win the television ratings, but Bernie Sanders is winning the polls.
In a stunning December 22 national poll, Sanders beat Trump by 13 points - 51 per cent to 38 per cent, a landslide. This is no fluke: Sanders has won 12 out of 17 national polls in the last few weeks, including four by significant margins of between 9 points and 13. He even outvotes Hillary who also beats Trump. And yet, many think Sanders has no shot at the Democratic nomination, much less the White House. They think he's too left, too old, too unknown.
But everyone should think again.
Trump is paving the way for Sanders to win and so is the rising dissatisfaction among voters toward traditional politics.
Subtext to this is that polls show that a majority of Americans agree on major issues, such as abortion to capital punishment and gun controls, with Europeans and Canadians. And yet nothing changes. Americans are disgusted with the political system, growing income disparity, financial corruption in Congress and the partisan media circus.
This is why they like "anti candidates" like Sanders and Trump. Both are outsiders beyond the reach of lobbyists, donors and special interests.
But Trump helps Sanders by singlehandedly carpet-bombing his Republican Party and leaders. He also helps Sanders by attacking the Clintons who have more baggage than LaGuardia Airport.
For example, after Hillary criticized Trump for anti-female comments, his response was, "if they're going to play that card", what about Bill Clinton's "abuse of women" as a serial philanderer and seducer of Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern.
(This, I would guess, will force a recalibration of Bill's role in "helping" Hillary on the campaign trail going forward.)
Further, he added, Hillary was "the worst Secretary of State in the history of this country."
Trump also, like Sanders, blasts away at the system itself.
"We have massive corruption, massive incompetence, vets are treated like third class citizens," says Trump, adding that 60 percent of the political media are "dishonest, terrible people".
In fact, Trump is destroying the Republican Party brand to the point where its biggest donor, oil tycoon and Tea Partier Charles Koch, has just announced he won't support any of the Republican primary hopefuls. This is a reversal from April when Koch said he was deciding soon which of several to support.
"I have no plans to support anybody in the primary now," he told USA Today last week. "If they start saying things we think are beneficial overall and will change the trajectory of the country, then that would be good, but we have to believe also they'll follow through on it, and by and large, candidates don't do that."
Trump gets the television ratings because he's the Don Rickles of Politics, a big mouth with a steady and amusing stream of insults.
He drove Texas Governor Rick Perry off the podium with put-downs such as "Rick Perry put glasses on so people would think he's smart," he said. "There should be an IQ test before getting onto the debate stage."
Then he pulled off a two-for-one punch with his "but Rick Perry is smarter than Lindsay Graham."
He described Jeb Bush as "weak and ineffective" and said "we've had it with the Bushes". He said Ted Cruz acts like a "maniac" with people and Marco Rubio is not a leader because he "couldn't answer a question whether Iraq was good or bad."
He even attacked the icon of the Republican Party, John McCain. "I supported him [McCain] but he lost and I don't like losers," he said. "He's on television all the time. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, okay?"
(Footnote to this is that Donald Trump, who claims he's in splendid health, was not drafted during the Vietnam War for unknown reasons, according to one report.)
But he's great at verbal warfare and his take-no-prisoners mentality is obliterating the field. Even if he drops out of sight, his insults will provide enough content to make a series of juicy commercials for the Democrats.
So The Donald wins ratings and Sanders quietly wins minds. Unlike Trump, Sanders has experience, ideas and plausible prescriptions. He does not insult and would level the taxation playing field for all. He voted against the Kuwait and Iraq invasions, but in favor of Afghanistan's as well as the intervention to stop ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.
Conventional wisdom is that Trump and Hillary will get nominations, but the numbers currently show that Sanders is the main contender.Sheffield United allowed Ched Evans' contract to expire following his rape conviction in 2012
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has urged Sheffield United's owners to "think really long and hard" before re-signing convicted rapist Ched Evans.
Clegg, Sheffield Hallam MP, said: "When you take a footballer on, you are not taking just a footballer these days, you are also taking on a role model."
United boss Nigel Clough has said the League One club has held talks over the possibility of the striker returning.
Evans, 25, was jailed for five years in 2012 for raping a 19-year-old woman.
The Wales international is expected to be released from prison at the end of this week.
Former sports minister and ex-MP for Sheffield Central Richard Caborn also said Evans must "show remorse and say sorry" before he can be considered for a return to playing professionally.
Clegg, who was speaking to LBC, said: "You are taking on a role model, particularly for a lot of young boys who look up to their heroes on a football pitch in a team like that, and he has committed a very serious crime.
Nick Clegg urged Sheffield United to think hard about the possibility of taking Ched Evans back
"Rape is an incredibly serious offence, an unbelievably serious offence.
"He has done his time, but I just don't believe that the owners of a football club can somehow wish away the fact that that has happened."
Caborn, sports minister from 2001 to 2007, told the BBC it would be "a sad day for football" if the player was taken back by a club.
"It's a very sad episode, but Ched Evans is a convicted rapist," said Caborn, a lifelong Sheffield United supporter.
"I wouldn't want to see him in a Sheffield United, or any other, shirt until he acknowledges what he did was wrong and indeed shows some remorse for his actions.
"I believe that will give him his pathway back to professional football."
Evans, who Sheffield United signed for £3m in 2009, was not sacked by the club when he was sent to prison - but they allowed his contract to expire in June 2012.
Richard Caborn says Ched Evans must show his remorse before making a return to professional football
Blades manager Nigel Clough has confirmed he has spoken to club officials about the possibility of Evans returning after his release.
"We've had one or two discussions and the owners will make a decision on it," he told BBC Radio Sheffield.
"It is above a football level. If he comes back then we [the coaching staff] will decide whether to play him or not."
At his trial, Evans denied raping the woman at a Premier Inn near Rhyl, Denbighshire, in May 2011.
More than 146,000 people have now signed a petition demanding the club does not re-employ Evans.
Evans's family have criticised the online petition.
In statement on a website set up to try to clear the player, they said: "Those who have signed it are of course entitled to their opinion, but many have no idea of the facts of the case."Changing landscape: Paul Gallen collects Nate Myles during the 2013 Origin series. Punching was banned after that incident. Credit:Getty Images The first is this: there are eight games every weekend and yet we are obsessed with who will be playing for who next year. And when next year comes around, we won't be paying much attention to them actually playing for their new clubs – because we'll be talking about who'll be playing for who the following year! What a prescient idea it was to title one of the increasing number of rugby league podcasts "Market Watch". The market sometimes seems to have more watchers than the actual games. Because I don't have a favourite NRL club, I don't care who's joining who next year – and this speculation is the fuel that drives the engine of media coverage in 2017. Having reliable information in this area is increasingly like possessing gold dust, it's one of the few things in traditional media that gets the cash registers clinking.
The second barmy thing is State of Origin selection speculation. You would not know there is a representative weekend a fortnight from now. You wouldn't know this is a World Cup year and that it will be in Australia. As soon as a ball was kicked in March, speculation on the make-up of the NSW and Queensland sides was rampant. Once more we are looking over not one hill, but several. This column has already lamented the fact rugby league runs two competing competitions each year with the same players. But it was once a good argument that Origin was more compelling than Tests because it was more competitive. But now? New Zealand seem more capable of winning series involving Australia than the Blues are of beating the Maroons. They've done so more often in the last nine years. The fact that Origin is such a focus merely underlines how parochial, geographically limited and inward looking rugby league in Australia remains as we head toward the third decade of this century.
The biff is gone, the playing population is changing rapidly and the eligibility rules have been tightened up. Huge swathes of NRL players are ineligible for NSW and Queensland. The fact that Origin is such a focus merely underlines how parochial, geographically limited and inward-looking rugby league in Australia remains as we head towards the third decade of this century. One more thing. In the short time he has been out of first grade coaching Ivan Cleary says "more speculation" is the biggest thing that has changed. It's true. For most of my career, the aim in a news story was to have a quote in the third paragraph. That has changed for two major reasons: one, you can't just get a player on the phone when you feel like it anymore.
And two, a story with a quote is easy to "lift" by a rival. On the other hand, if you hang an unsourced story on a byline or a reporter's name, the reader or viewer has to keep coming to your website, station or channel. Commercially, it is actually in a media outlet's interests not to quote people or confirm rumours because they lose control of their content as soon as they do. The personal relationships between the media professionals and coaches, players and officials have eroded to such an extent that a reporter is far more willing to call for a coach to be sacked or a player to be dropped than before. He's got nothing to lose, the coach or player doesn't talk to him anyway. Wayne Bennett has seen the process first-hand. The rugby league media is being taken over by rights holders and the governing body itself, which will run its own website from next year.LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A former neighbor who prosecutors say supplied assault rifles to the couple who massacred 14 people at a county office building in San Bernardino, California, was indicted on Wednesday on charges of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.
Enrique Marquez, 24, is shown in this courtroom sketch as he appears during a hearing in federal court in Riverside, California, December 17, 2015. REUTERS/Bill Robles
Enrique Marquez, 24, was charged with conspiring with San Bernardino gunman Syed Rizwan Farook in 2011 and 2012 to support a terrorist attack that was never carried out.
Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, stormed into a holiday party attended by his co-workers at a San Bernardino County social services agency and opened fire on Dec. 2, killing 14 people and wounding 22 others.
Authorities have said that the couple were inspired by Islamic extremism, calling it the deadliest such attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
Marquez was also accused in the indictment, which was handed down in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, of lying to federal authorities about the purchase of two assault rifles that were used by Farook and his wife in the San Bernardino shooting rampage.
Marquez is also charged with entering into a sham marriage with a Russian woman in Farook’s extended family so that she could live in the United States.
The indictment supersedes a criminal complaint containing similar charges that was filed against Marquez earlier this month and allows prosecutors to proceed to trial without holding a lengthy evidentiary hearing first.
Marquez is being held without bail on those charges.
“Defendant Marquez’s extensive plotting with Syed Rizwan Farook in 2011 and 2012, and his purchase of explosive powder and two firearms, provided the foundation for the murders that occurred this month,” U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker said in a written statement.
“This indictment is the result of sustained and coordinated efforts by many federal and state prosecutors, agents and officers, and I thank them for their efforts,” Decker said.
Prosecutors say Farook and Marquez met in 2004 when they became neighbors in Riverside, California and that Farook introduced the younger man to radical Islamic theology.
According to an FBI affidavit, Farook and Marquez were plotting gun and bomb attacks as early as 2011, but never carried them out before their friendship waned.
Prosecutors have said there is no evidence that Marquez had direct prior knowledge of the Dec. 2 attack in San Bernardino, which came a few weeks after Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in a series of coordinated attacks in Paris.A woman looking for work in the cannabis industry fills out a form in front of a marijuana plant at the CannaSearch job fair in downtown Denver. (Photo: Rick Wilking/Reuters)
If public opinion is any indication, nationwide marijuana legalization might not be such a pipe dream after all.
Forty-four percent of Americans say they have tried cannabis, according to a new Gallup poll.
The American research-based consulting company, which is best known for its opinion polls, says this is the highest percentage to admit to having tried the soft drug since it first started asking the question in 1969 — when only 4 percent said they had sampled it.
Additionally, roughly 1 in 10 U.S. citizens say that not only have they tried marijuana, but they also currently smoke it.
This new information, released Wednesday, was collected July 8-12 via telephone interviews with 1,009 adults who were selected at random. The news comes shortly after Oregon legalized recreational pot use on July 1; it was already legal in Colorado, Alaska, Washington and the District of Columbia.
Gallup’s new poll conforms to an upward trend in which Americans have become more liberal on the issue of marijuana legalization.
These changes could mirror wider pot use among the populace, increased comfort in admitting to it or a mixture of both factors.
The poll also confirmed several other factors that increase the likelihood of a person experimenting with marijuana. According to the results, men are more likely than women to use or have used pot, and secular people are more likely than religious people to toke up.
In March, the General Social Survey released survey findings that said a majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana.Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
A fall in Sydney and Melbourne house prices in November looks set to leave overall capital city house price growth negative, according to CoreLogic’s preliminary monthly hedonic index for the month.
Tim Lawless, CoreLogic RP Data’s head of research said in a note this afternoon that continued weakness was “resulting in a negative result over the month to date in both Sydney and Melbourne and foreshadowing a decline in capital city home values when we report our final numbers on Tuesday next week”.
“The five city aggregate index is down 1.4% over the first 26 days of the month, driven by falls across the two largest capital cities, Sydney and Melbourne, where previously capital gains have been the strongest,” Lawless said.
Lawless also highlighted the falling auction clearance rates and record supply were impactingon prices and this combination, along with low inflation could eventually see the RBA cut rates.
Not next Tuesday, but at some point in the future, he said.
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Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.The motive for an attack on an 18-year-old college student walking to her digs on Sunday night is unknown.
The motive for an attack on an 18-year-old college student walking to her digs on Sunday night is unknown.
Gardaí appeal to bus passengers after girl (18) suffers head injuries in attack while walking home to college digs
An investigation has been launched after the young woman was discovered seriously injured on a footpath outside a Co Kildare estate.
The incident took place on Sunday evening shortly before 8.30pm.
The girl was found outside the entrance of the Moyglare Abbey Estate, Maynooth after being seriously assaulted.
The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain)
She suffered a broken jaw, broken nose and broken eye sockets in the attack.
The motive for the attack is not known.
The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain)
Locals said the young woman's phone and bag with her laptop were not taken, so robbery is unlikely.
The victim got a private bus to Maynooth from Monaghan, which travelled via Castleblaney, on Sunday. She was walking to her digs near the university when the attack happened.
The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain)
It is also reported locally that the victim lost a lot of teeth in the attack.
On Monday night an appeal was made on Crimecall for anyone with information about the attack to come forward.
The scene of the incident in Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photo: Colin O'Riordain)
Specifically gardai are looking to speak to anyone who was on a private bus from Monaghan which arrived in Maynooth at 8.15pm to contact them.
Local couple Patrick and Chris Kirrane said they were shocked at the attack.
"We've never heard of anything like this happening around here before. It's such a quiet estate. We are numbed by it all," said Chris.
"There are quite a few students from the university staying in accommodation here, especially first years. I hope they catch whoever did this and that the poor girl will recover," she added.
The young woman received medical assistance at the scene before being taken to James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown.
Maynooth University said in a statement that it was "very disturbed to hear of the serious incident" and had made support available to the victim and her family.
The university added: "The safety and wellbeing of all our students is of the utmost importance to us.
"The university is working closely with the gardaí and offering advice and support services to all students concerned about this incident."
The area has been preserved for a technical examination.
No arrests have been made.
Gardaí are appealing for witnesses and anyone with information, particularly those who were in the vicinity of Maynooth Village/Moyglare Abbey Estate between 7.30pm and 9.15pm last night, Sunday 20th November 2016, to contact them at Leixlip Garda Station on 01 6667800, The Garda Confidential Line, 1800 666111 or any Garda station.
Online EditorsAlmost as exciting as the release Taylor Swift's long-awaited fourth studio album is decoding the not-so-hidden messages in the 'Red' liner notes. With each album, the superstar leaves clues as to who might have influenced each song by capitalizing certain letters in the lyrics. Put them together and... Well, you find out she was pretty inspired by the Kennedy family on this new album.
The 'Red' liner notes messages reveal that a number of songs could have been inspired by Swift's romance with Jake Gyllenhaal, but not necessarily the ones you'd expect. Taste of Country decoded the 'Red' insert to reveal the 16 secret messages. After each, we offer a theory as to who the song is likely about. A few stumped us. Want to share your two cents? Hit up the comments section below.
Taylor Swift 'Red' Liner Notes Messages:
Song: 1. 'State of Grace'
Hidden Message: I LOVE YOU DOESN'T COUNT AFTER GOODBYE
What it Means: The album begins on a sour note. In fact, the first five songs find Swift dealing with lovers past more than lovers future. It's not clear who this lyric is about, but the line that goes " Just twin fire signs / Four blue eyes " has us thinking it's the same guy who inspired the title track.
Song: 2. 'Red'
Hidden Message: SAG
What it Means: "SAG" could be short for Sagittarius, which is the astrological sign that Jake Gyllenhaal falls under. It could also be an abbreviation for Screen Actors Guild, which would work for the actor. However, that's sort of boring, so we lean toward the stars to reveal who the title track is after. Swift is also a Sagittarius.
Song: 3. 'Treacherous'
Hidden Message: WONT STOP TILL IT'S OVER
What it Means: If Swift is as sneaky with her lyrics as she is with her liner notes messages, this song could be another written about John Mayer. Clues include words in the song like "gravity" (a 2007 hit for Mayer) and another line about his hands, a reference to 'Your Body Is a Wonderland.'
Song: 4. 'I Knew You Were Trouble'
Hidden Message: WHEN YOU SAW ME DANCING
What it Means: It will take some time for the stories of all 16 cuts on 'Red' to come out. Swift has had a number of romances go sour in recent years, and 'I Knew You Were Trouble' could be about any of them.
Song: 5. 'All Too Well'
Hidden Message: MAPLE LATTE
What it Means: We're just guessing, but Swift was spotted with Jake Gyllenhaal at Fido Cafe -- a hot coffee spot in Nashville -- around Thanksgiving 2010. It's a coffee shop, and November is a great time to order a maple latte.
Song: 6. '22'
Hidden Message: ASHLEY DIANNA CLAIRE SELENA
What it Means: This four names are likely Taylor Swift's four besties, Selena Gomez, Dianna Agron (from 'Glee'), stylist Ashley Avignone and Claire Kislinger. The girls enjoy hanging out for dress-up parties, and Swift tweets about them quite a bit.
Song: 7. 'I Almost Do'
Hidden Message: WROTE THIS INSTEAD OF CALLNG
What it Means: This song's placement on the album is important, as 'Red' seems almost split into two halves, with one or two exceptions. The first eight cuts are about the end of love, and the next are about finding new love. 'I Almost Do' finds the singer missing someone she's separated from and knowing it's a bad idea to call, but still fighting the irresistible urge. Our guess is that the same person inspired 'Sad Beautiful Tragic.'
Song: 8. 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together'
Hidden Message: WHEN I STOPPED CARING WHAT YOU THOUGHT
What it Means: It's widely assumed that this song is about Gyllenhaal, but Swift's story that it was inspired by a friend of the guy's who visited her in studio leave one believing it was a musician who treated her so poorly. Will Anderson, frontman for Virginia indie rock band Parachute, is a name that has surfaced recently. We like him as the guilty party.
Song: 9. 'Stay Stay Stay'
Hidden Message: DAYDREAMING ABOUT REAL LOVE
What it Means: We'll take Swift's word for it that this song is just a daydream and nothing else.
Song: 10. 'The Last Time'
Hidden Message: LA ON YOUR BREAK
What it Means: It took us forever to figure out it wasn't 'Laon Your Break' but rather 'L.A. on your break.' Someone dumped Swift in Los Angeles, during a break from... a movie? Recording an album? Busing tables at the local Applebees? The first two are more likely, and since L.A. means Hollywood we'll assume it was Gyllenhaal.
Song: 11. 'Holy Ground'
Hidden Message: WHEN YOU CAME TO THE SHOW IN SD
What it Means: Taylor Swift didn't play any shows in South Dakota during her Speak Now Tour, but she did play an Oct. 20, 2011 date in San Diego. Those who followed her arm lyrics from show to show wondered if there was a narrative, and this song only encourages that dangerous idea. Leading up to the San Diego show, Swift's mood changed and the arm lyrics became more cheerful. The good feelings lasted for several weeks. Some speculate that this song may be about mending old broken bridges with Joe Jonas -- though, only as friends.
Song: 12. 'Sad Beautiful Tragic'
Hidden Message: WHILE YOU WERE ON A TRAIN
What it Means: This song will be the most debated of all 16 cuts on 'Red.' With 'Back to December' in mind, it's hard to believe Swift thinks of her relationship with Mayer as "beautiful." There's regret in her voice as she looks back on what could have been, so we're led to believe the ballad is about a romance that ended peacefully. Taylor Lautner, perhaps?
Song: 13. 'The Lucky One'
Hidden Message: WOULDNT YOU LIKE TO KNOW
What it Means: Yes, we would. Which Hollywood or Nashville singer inspired Swift to write this song, the one from 'Red' that isn't about love or heartbreak? Our money's on Joni Mitchell, which makes sense since Swift is in line to play her in a movie.
Song: 14. 'Everything Has Changed'
Hidden Message: HYANNIS PORT
What it Means: Swift wrote this song with Ed Sheeran over the summer, after rumors of her relationship with Conor Kennedy began to heat up. The lyric message leaves no doubt as to who this song is about. In fact, one could argue the last three songs are about Conor Kennedy and his family.
Song: 15. 'Starlight'
Hidden Message: FOR ETHEL
What it Means: That's Ethel Kennedy that Swift is referring to in her hidden message. The story in 'Starlight' paints a picture of Mrs. Kennedy's love and marriage to Robert F. Kennedy. Swift has said multiple times how much she loves the Kennedy matriarch, and this one is painfully obvious.
Song: 16. 'Begin Again'
Hidden Message: I WEAR HEELS NOW
What it Means: The story comes full circle for Swift, ending with a song that finds the singer more confident than ever. The last few songs leave one feeling jubilant about the idea of love that is squashed so thoroughly early on the album. Is this song also about finding Conor? It would seem so.WarioWare: Twisted![b] is a puzzle video game for Game Boy Advance by Nintendo. It is the third installment in the WarioWare series. It was released on October 14, 2004 in Japan; on May 19, 2005 in Australia; and on May 23, 2005 in North America.
Wario and his friend Dr. Crygor invent a Game Boy Advance that only reacts when tilted around. The game follows the WarioWare formula with a variety of games that last for only a few seconds. The cartridge utilizes a gyro sensor and players must spin and twist in order to play the games.
Twisted! was critically acclaimed and has won numerous awards. Reviewers found the gyro sensor to be innovative and adding to the gameplay aspect.
It is one of only two Game Boy Advance games to include force feedback, the other being Drill Dozer.
Gameplay [ edit ]
Twisted follows a similar format to its predecessor, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!, in which players must play through a series of "microgames"; short minigames that require the player to understand and clear its objective within a few seconds. Twisted! features unique gameplay thanks to its built-in gyro sensor, which detects the rotation of the handheld system. As such, many of the microgames require the player to physically rotate the system in order to clear. For example, players may have to empty a bin's contents, steer a plane, or guide something through a maze. Microgames become more complex as the game progresses, with later microgames sometimes requiring the player to fully rotate their system.
This game changes the scoring from the other WarioWare titles. Previously, the score was the number of games that were played, but Twisted only counts the number of games that the player won. The game features items called "souvenirs", which are unlocked after boss stages in story mode. Records, musical instruments, figurines, games, and many quirky items are possible to unlock.
Gyro sensor [ edit ]
The Twisted cartridge has a built-in gyro sensor and rumble feature (for feedback during rotation). Most of the microgames are played by rotating the entire handheld device. The gyro sensor uses a piezoelectric gyroscope developed by NEC[1] to detect angular movement.
Because the game automatically calibrates the gyro sensor when the game is turned on (and after every "micro-game"), it works with both top-loading slots (like the Game Boy Advance) and bottom-loading slots (like all other models after the original GBA: Game Boy Advance SP, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Micro, and Nintendo DS Lite). The manual states that Twisted! is not compatible with the Game Boy Player;[2] although the game loads as normal, players would have to carry and tilt the connected GameCube console and use its controller for button presses, thus it is simply not practical.
Plot [ edit ]
One day, while Wario was playing with his Game Boy Advance, Wario becomes frustrated with a particularly hard game on it and throws the system at a wall, causing it to bounce back and hit him on the head. After his temporary rage, he notices his GBA is broken. He requests Dr. Crygor's help in mending it. Crygor, however, places it in his new invention, the Gravitator, which spits out dozens of buttonless objects similar in form factor to a Game Boy Advance. It demonstrates that in order to play, the device must be physically moved. Mona and 9-Volt arrive and toy with these new units, enjoying themselves. Wario, taking note of their reaction, decides to take advantage of these motion-sensing abilities as a selling point, and recruits his friends to design microgames based on this concept.
The rest of the game features stories of all the characters in the game, each one going to Club Sugar once their stage is complete. Wario chases a mouse that breaks his watch. Mona tries to deliver pizza while avoiding a rival restaurant. Jimmy T. and his parents play on their phones at Club Sugar. Kat and Ana encounter a troll after getting lost on a field trip. Dribble and Spitz fix their taxi and add an additional feature that allows it to travel through space. Dr. Crygor attempts to upgrade the Gravitator. Orbulon tries to figure out the password to initiate warp drive in order to escape a black hole. 9-Volt becomes friends with a new student named 18-Volt at his school.
Finally, after an accident in the Gravitator, Wario turns into a superhero personal named Wario-Man. He takes Crygor's invention and turns it into a giant robot in space. Wario's friends use Orbulon's ship to |
Wonders Whether He Should Have Used Porn to Trend in Primaries
Robert Mueller More
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Such is the scale of Mueller’s investigation that legal fees for those coming under the probe’s focus are mounting sharply, to the extent that outside legal defense funds could soon be necessary, Axios reports. More Trump aides are said to have lawyered up in response to a draft letter from Trump explaining his reasons for firing Comey, which was never sent and has not been published but has been obtained by Mueller. The letter was handed out to several White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, according to The New York Times.
Despite Trump’s repeated insistence that he has been told he is not personally under investigation, the president is possibly facing very real personal consequences. Based on conversations with White House aides, Axios says that Mueller is narrowing in on a possible charge of obstruction of justice against the president.
Most popular: Which Is Better, iPhone or Android? Let the Debate Rage
While the details of the original letter have yet to be disclosed, Trump undermined his legally refined reasons for dismissing Comey when he told NBC News that he did so with the Russia investigation in mind.
Despite all of this, Trump is not thought to be considering firing Mueller, according to Axios. Doing so, Trump associates said, would be as bad as “firing the pope.”
More from NewsweekThe purpose of this study was to investigate the cardiovascular effects of anabolic androgenic steroid (AAS) use, specifically the hemodynamic response, during maximal treadmill exercise testing by comparing the exercise response between users of AAS (U-AAS) and non-AAS users (N-AAS). Twenty-four men (n=12; 29+/-3.4 years and n=12; 29.5+/-8.2 years for the U-AAS and N-AAS groups, respectively) with regular participation in both resistance (mean=6 d.wk) and aerobic exercise (mean=2 d.wk) volunteered for the study. Both groups of subjects completed a ramp-protocol maximal treadmill exercise test to volitional fatigue. Several hemodynamic and metabolic measures were obtained before, during, and after testing. The results demonstrate for the first time that chronic administration of high doses of AAS (355.4+/-59.47 mg.wk) lead to hemodynamic and metabolic response impairment. In conclusion, the chronotropic significant incompetence in the current study was reflected by an exaggerated hemodynamic response to exercise. Furthermore, the findings suggest that nonusers of AAS showed increases in VO2max when compared to the AAS group. Therefore, this study provides a contraindication to AAS use, especially in those at increased risk of cardiovascular events.Six Delhi BJP leaders who quit the party in the past year will contest the upcoming assembly elections in the national capital on Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) tickets. They include two former MLAs and three councilors. AAP has also fielded two others who have switched from the BSP and the Congress.
While the BJP has accused the Arvind Kejriwal-led party of poaching, and picking turncoats to win Delhi, AAP says the defections are an achievement “at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity is soaring amid intensive membership drives by the saffron party.”
Senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia denied poaching allegations. “The exodus shows people are getting disenchanted with BJP because of their conduct and their politics of communalism. But we are not offering tickets to engineer defections. Volunteers decide who fights from where.” He said scores of BJP leaders have joined AAP, but the party has fielded only six such ‘defectors’.
Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay said the defections could not be linked to “Modi-ji’s popularity.” “Those who have left BJP are power hungry just like Kejriwal. They realised BJP will not give them tickets. This will not affect our prospects. Such political tourism happens every election,” he said.
The state assembly elections are likely in mid-February. Though the dates are yet to be announced, a meeting of the full Election Commission today has fuelled speculation that the poll schedule will be revealed soon.
Former BJP MLA Ram Niwas Goel is the AAP candidate from Shahdara. Goyal, who was BJP’s Shahdara district president (a district comprises five assembly segments), quit the BJP last February to join AAP. Raghuvendra Shaukeen, who served as a BJP councilor twice, also joined AAP last February and is now its candidate from Nangloi Jat in northwest Delhi.
Four other former state BJP leaders — Ved Prakash, Kartar Singh Tanwar, Naresh Balyan and Fateh Singh — joined AAP after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
AAP has fielded Prakash from Bawana in northwest Delhi. He was a youth leader with the BJP, its Dalit face and a senior office-bearer of the party’s state committee. Tanwar, who has served as a BJP councilor twice, is now AAP’s candidate from Chattarpur in south Delhi.
Balyan, who joined the BJP during the 2013 assembly elections, is now AAP’s Uttam Nagar candidate.
Fateh Singh — a former BJP MLA who held key positions in the Delhi BJP and was also deputy speaker in Delhi assembly once — is the AAP nominee from Gokulpuri in northeast Delhi.
AAP claims it has made inroads into east, northwest, northeast south and west Delhi Lok Sabha seats through these defections. One LS seat comprises 10 assembly segments.
Senior AAP leader Ashutosh said, “AAP is a movement for honest and clean politics. Anybody who is clean, believes in honest politics is welcome in the party.”
Apart from these six, Sahi Ram, who was a BSP candidate in 2013, is an AAP nominee from Tughlakabad. Another BSP nominee (2008) Sharad Chauhan will fight from Narela for AAP. SK Bagga, AAP’s Krishna Nagar nominee, has come from the Congress.
Through November and December, AAP declared all 70 candidates in six lists. The party has dropped seven outgoing MLAs as it fought dissidence and looked to field new faces with stronger winnability. As many as 30 others who lost with big margins in 2013 have also been dropped.
First Published: Jan 09, 2015 00:59 ISTApproximately 20,000 state employees got too much money in their paychecks last month. Now the government wants it back.
The goof led a union locked in tough contract talks with Gov. Jerry Brown to criticize the administration – even though State Controller Betty Yee’s office, which processes state pay, is not under the governor’s control.
The payroll errors ranged from $37 to $101 per employee and showed up in checks and direct deposits issued in January for the December pay period, Controller’s Office spokesman John Hill said.
The mistake was limited to 12,689 employees in the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and “about 7,000” others in the International Union of Operating Engineers Bargaining Unit 12, Hill said.
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It’s a fiasco. Tim Neep, executive director of International Union of Operating Engineers Bargaining Unit 12
The Controller’s Office was still figuring out the exact numbers as of Friday, but the erroneous payments represent about 5 percent of all the paychecks and direct deposits the state issues in a month.
Hill said the overpayments to state workers occurred due to a “human error” that charged the state more than its share for the cost of employees’ medical benefits and undercharged employees for their share. The individual amounts varied, depending on each employee’s health plan and whether dependents were also covered.
“We had a high volume of health plan changes this year,” Hill said, further complicating an already-complex task of updating some 17,000 data fields used to calculate the benefit rates.
Unit 12, which represents 10,000 state craft and maintenance workers, issued a statement on its website that characterized the mistake as an affront on top of contentious contract talks that have dragged on for months. The union’s agreement expired last summer, and it has met nearly 30 times with Brown’s labor negotiators.
436,165The total direct deposits and paychecks issued by the State Controller’s Office in January
“We understand that you will bear the burden of their mistake. You, the employee, will feel the impact, not the State,” the union’s website states. “To add further insult, the State’s position in bargaining has not changed.”
Although the Controller’s Office has nothing to do with contract negotiations, Unit 12 Executive Director Tim Neep said the payroll error and labor talks with Brown are connected.
If the union had a new contract, the state’s share of cost for members’ health benefits would have increased when rates went up at the beginning of this year. Without a contract, his members had to pick up the difference when premiums rose. And now they have to give money back.
“It’s a fiasco,” Neep said.
CCPOA members are in the same position. A call to the correctional officers’ union was not immediately returned Friday.
Hill said that the state’s outdated payroll computer system – built in the 1970s – did not factor into the overpayments. The data would have required manual entry regardless of the technology processing the numbers, he said.
As to repayment, each employee’s departments will send notice of what’s owed and how to repay the money through payroll deduction, direct payment or by deducting leave credits.
Meanwhile, Hill said, “We’re looking at ways to mitigate this in the future.”MongoDB Vice Chairman Max Schireson made waves in August when he said he was leaving his role as the company’s CEO in order to spend less time traveling and more time with his family. Since then, the company has continued its momentum with a new CEO, new products and some new revenue streams. Schireson came on the Structure Show podcast this week to talk about how the company is doing, where it’s headed and how his life has changed since the publishing the viral blog post announcing his resignation.
This is one of our more interesting interviews, in that it touches on everything from disrupting a $40 billion database market to the roles of fathers in their kids’ lives. Here are some highlights, but it’s definitely worth listening to the whole thing.
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Dealing with competition from, well, everyone
“I think what we see is everybody from Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM — all the big players — recognizing that the model we hit on is how developers want to build applications in the future,” Schireson said in response to a question about how MongoDB is dealing with the fact that a growing number of database vendors and cloud providers are integrating support for the JSON file type, MongoDB’s bread and butter. Although, he noted, [company]MongoDB[/company] actually does have a strong partnership in place with IBM.
“I think it expands the market, and then I think it’s incumbent on us to continue delivering a market-leading offering to continue to have a very large of what’s a large and rapidly growing market,” he added. “The good news is we’ve been doing this since 2007, so we’ve got a six-to-seven-year head start. We have a couple hundred engineers working on this. I think that even for a big company, it’s going to take a long time to catch up, and we’re absolutely a moving target.”
What’s the open source business model?
“I think most people will use [MongoDB] without paying for it, and that’s fine,” Schireson said. “What we need to do is we need to deliver offerings that add value for at least a very significant subset of our users, and I think we’re doing that.”
About that impending IPO …
Schireson’s response to my question about whether the company’s new revenue streams are in preparation for the IPO it has been talking about for a while: “If you don’t mind, I’ll just offer one slight correction, which is that the world has been talking about us going public for a while now, I think since the last round. That’s not something that we’ve been focused on or really talking about.”
The new management tools the company announced earlier this week, which it estimates could result in an additional $750 million in annual revenue, have been underway for year, he added.
It turns out lots of people care about gender equity and work-life balance
Schireson said the response to his blog post announcing his resignation, detailing his 300,000 air miles per year, 70-hour work weeks and desire to spend more time at home, was greater than he expected. However, he understands why it caught on:
I think part of what people responded to, the question I asked was why do we ask women how they do it and not ask men? I think that’s important that we look at those work-life balance issues not just for women, but for men. For two reasons: Number one, I think that they’re important issues for men and, number two, as long as it’s viewed as a women’s issue I think that it can be marginalized and the problem isn’t solved necessarily for women as well as it would be if it was just an issue for people in the workplace.
Fathers are parents, too — really
Still, he explained, there are double standards and assumptions in place that just aren’t fair, either to women or men. “If I ditch out of work for a few hours to go to something at my kid’s school, people think, ‘Oh, how great, he’s an engaged father,’” Schireson said. “If a female executive does the same thing, people might question her commitment to the job, and that’s not right.”
In part, these types of attitudes persist because people expect too little from fathers when it comes to family life. “When I say I’m doing something with my kids, people say, ‘Oh, you’re babysitting, that’s great!’” Schireson said. “No, they’re actually my kids. If I watch my friend’s kids, I’m babysitting.”
Not just a tech issue, and certainly not a MongoDB issue
Schireson pointed out that work-life balance isn’t just an issues in the tech industry, and that his particular situation — living in Palo Alto, California, while most of the company is located in New York — might have made a difficult arrangement impossible. Responding to questions about why MongoDB wasn’t more conducive to his desires, said it wasn’t really fair to ask the company to accommodate him more than it had.
“[T]he fact that living 3,000 miles from the center of a company isn’t necessarily compatible with running it, to me, is not an an indictment of work-life balance in the tech industry, in general,” he said.
Two months later, it still looks like the right decision
Schireson said he’s still confident he made the right decision in stepping down, both for himself and the company. He’s proud of his tenure helping grow the company to what it is today, and new CEO Dev Ittycheria’s experience running large companies will actually be a boon to MongoDB.
“It really just sort of felt like a win-win situation, where we could bring some additional skills onto the team, and probably make my own shares more valuable, and have a saner life,” Schireson said.
And life has been saner. His travel load has reduced significantly and will keep dropping as the CEO transition finally finishes up. And, he added, “The other thing is I feel less of the weight of the world on my shoulders and, frankly, I like that.”Deep Stash Considerations For 2018
Now that most owners have finished the regular season, it’s time to do some self-evaluating of rosters and determining which players are expendable heading into the offseason. The final weeks of the 2017 season present an excellent opportunity to get a jump start at trying to find some 2018 breakout candidates before the offseason when other teams start to take notice and roster locks may come into effect. This strategy is even more critical for non-playoff teams. There’s no use keeping a Jacquizz Rodgers rostered for the final few weeks of the season when you can take a flier on a player who could pay big dividends heading into next year.
Colt McCoy
Holding onto sleeper picks at the quarterback position is no easy feat as during most years there’s minimal turnover and when there is, the pickings are slim. This name is pure speculation at this point, but the rumors surrounding Washington’s future quarterback have been swirling since Kirk Cousins‘ most recent franchise tag. Even with Kyle Shanahan pegging Jimmy Garoppolo as the heir in San Francisco, there are still plenty of suitors for Cousins’ skills. If Washington does indeed let him walk, Colt McCoy is the only quarterback on the roster worthy of taking snaps in 2018. While Washington would most likely bring in another name, McCoy has the advantage of playing in the system and playing relatively well when called upon.
T.J. Logan
A preseason injury has taken away the entirety of T.J. Logan’s rookie season, which robbed the speedster of showing off his talent once David Johnson went down with his injury. Overshadowed at UNC by Elijah Hood, Logan’s speed and receiving prowess made him a more attractive back at the next level. Johnson will undoubtedly regain his workhorse status in 2018, but Logan has a chance to carve out a niche role spelling the superstar and receiving some work when Johnson splits out wide. With the speed to take it to the house anytime he touches the ball, Logan could surprise next season if given offered the chance.
Brandon Wilds
Brandon Wilds got some love during the 2016 draft process, but never really got a chance at the next level after going to an Atlanta team that’s fairly well set at the running back position. Picked up by Jacksonville in 2017, the former South Carolina running back has a chance to make a dent in the three deep with his new team. Leonard Fournette is firmly entrenched as the starter but has shown a penchant for nagging injuries. Should the Jaguars wish to go with a younger and cheaper backup than Chris Ivory, Wilds would be an intriguing player to watch with reasonably favorable metrics for a player his size.
Geronimo Allison
Probably the biggest name on this list, if Geronimo Allison is still on the waiver wire, he should be your top priority. Allison had flashed in several games between 2016 and 2017 when injuries struck the Green Bay receiving corps. With Jordy Nelson slowing down this year and Randall Cobb, a potential cap casualty, the 6’3” Allison has the potential to step into a more prominent role when Aaron Rodgers returns to form next year. If Allison can establish himself as a competent outside threat, he could be in line for several big games in 2018.
Krishawn Hogan
It’s not often a 22-year-old 6’3” 220-pound wideout with 4.55 speed, and 80%+ collegiate production stats fly under the radar this long, but that’s what happens when you play college ball at Marian as Krishawn Hogan did. The former Cardinal signed with the Colts practice squad this year and was brought up to the big leagues in late September. Unfortunately, he ended up tearing his ACL during his second game and ended the season on IR. However, assuming the Alshon Jeffery lookalike makes a complete recovery he should be ready to compete for a higher spot in the pecking order in 2018. Donte Moncrief has been a bust and shouldn’t be brought back, which means Hogan’s only real competition in Indy next year behind T.Y. Hilton will be fellow UDFA Chester Rogers.
David Moore
Another small school standout to consider is David Moore, who runs a 4.48-second 40-yard dash at 6’1” and 220 pounds. Currently buried on the Seattle depth chart, Moore has a chance to continue to work within the offense and work his way up to challenge for more playing time this offseason. The Seahawks may not be able to afford Paul Richardson after his breakout season, and Moore would bring some needed size to the receiving corps with that departure.
Damiere Byrd
Much has been made about the Panthers failing to replace Ted Ginn Jr. as a deep threat in their offense to this point. While Carolina may elect to bring in a vertical threat this offseason, the deep threat they lack might already be on the roster. A 4.3 speedster, Damiere Byrd showed flashes during the preseason as he looked like he might emerge as that component of the offense this year before an injury derailed his chances. Curtis Samuel may eventually develop into a more permanent part of the offense, but Byrd looked to be the frontrunner during the preseason games in 2017 and might be a more immediate fixture if he can regain his form in 2018.
Stacy Coley
A bet on Stacy Coley is a bet against Laquon Treadwell. The 7th round pick would primarily be competing against the 1st round dud for a complementary role in what has become one of the more explosive offenses in the league. While Treadwell will undoubtedly receive every opportunity to play the part, he hasn’t done much of anything to note thus far in his career, so a few explosive plays in practice or the preseason may be enough to get Coley a chance. An early collegiate breakout player at Miami, Coley is a similar athlete to Stefon Diggs. If Diggs were to miss time, Coley might be able to help fill the shoes of the explosive wideout.ZAGREB, Croatia — Croatian Jews said Friday they would boycott for the second consecutive year a commemoration for victims of the country’s most notorious World War II camp, blaming authorities for failing to react to a pro-Nazi ideology revival.
Ognjen Kraus, who heads an umbrella association of Jewish groups, said they would “not attend” the official ceremony in Jasenovac on April 22 due to the ongoing trivialization of the role of the Nazi-allied Ustasha regime and its symbols.
“Nothing was done (about it) in the past year,” he told N1 television. “We cannot and will not ever reconcile with such politics.”
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The Ustasha persecuted and killed hundreds of thousands of ethnic Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croatians, all of whom boycotted last year’s commemoration for Jasenovac victims over a resurgence in pro-Ustasha sympathies.
In January, the Jewish community also snubbed the official ceremony for International Holocaust Remembrance Day for the same reasons.
Around three-quarters of the Jewish community, which numbered around 40,000, were killed by the Ustasha. They now make up less than one percent of Croatia’s population of 4.2 million.
Central to the issue is a memorial plaque with an Ustasha slogan that was unveiled in Jasenovac in November by former paramilitaries to honor fellow fighters killed in the area at the start of Croatia’s 1990s independence war.
Ethnic Serbs said they would attend this year’s commemoration if the slogan was removed.
Conservative Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who came to power following snap elections in October, has pledged to move away from extremism.
Under the previous center-right government, there was a growing climate of intolerance which included nostalgia for a pro-Nazi past and attacks on independent media and minorities, notably ethnic Serbs.
Critics say the current administration has not done enough to move away from its predecessor’s policies.
In January, a Croatian school refused to display an exhibition on Jewish diarist Anne Frank because it included panels on the Ustasha crimes.
And the next month, dozens of a far-right activists marched through downtown Zagreb chanting a pro-Nazi salute. Their leader was eventually arrested.Early Tuesday morning, music journalist and Pitchfork senior editor Jessica Hopper asked for stories from "women and other marginalized folks" on inequality they might have experienced in the music or journalism industries.
Gals/other marginalized folks: what was your 1st brush (in music industry, journalism, scene) w/ idea that you didn't "count"? — Jessica Hopper (@jesshopp) August 24, 2015
The tweet neatly expresses a common yet complex form of discrimination in less than 140 characters.
Two days later, Hopper is still retweeting hundreds of stories.
Musicians told her about the countless times they were mistaken for girlfriends or "groupies," like they couldn't possibly be at a venue for any other reason.
@jesshopp informed at the door "No girlfriends with the band" when i was in fact, playing — infinity crush (@yrinfinitycrush) August 25, 2015
@jesshopp being forced on stage at a rap show, with the few other women present, being called a groupie for being a fan/doing my work — plaintainpapi (@_anupa) August 25, 2015
Other journalists talked about how their editors didn't trust them or actively encouraged them to use their sexuality to make a story more salacious. They recounted interviews in which their male subjects condescended to them, doubted their qualifications, hit on them, and even assaulted them.
@jesshopp Complaints about groping met with shrugs from venue staff, other bands. "Let the pros do their job, sweetie" in the photo pit. — Caroline Moore™ (@MooreClick) August 24, 2015
@jesshopp My "favorite," tho, is when a mag pulled me from a story when I refused to ask an all-male band if they jerked each other off. — Megan Seling (@mseling) August 24, 2015
@jesshopp When a man I was interviewing said to me "I hope your writing is as good as your tits" — rachel syme (@rachsyme) August 25, 2015
These tweets are worth a read, if only because they prove just how constantly working women deal with pervasive and toxic misogyny and discrimination, in every industry imaginable.
Read all of the tweets in the Storify below.On Friday 10 June, five men charged with keeping Britain in the European Union gathered in a tiny, windowless office and stared into the abyss.
Just moments before, they had received an email from Andrew Cooper, a former Downing Street strategist and pollster for the official remain campaign, containing the daily “tracker” – the barometer of support among target segments of the electorate. It had dropped into the defeat zone. The cause was not mysterious. “Immigration was snuffing out our opportunity to talk about the economy,” Will Straw, the executive director of Britain Stronger In Europe, recalled.
Earlier that week, the top Tories fronting the leave campaign – Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – had dominated the news with promises to control the nation’s borders. The remain side’s message, that Brexit entailed deadly economic risk, was being drowned out, particularly in areas that traditionally supported Labour. Polls showed that many voters were unaware that a remain vote was the party’s official position, a confusion exacerbated by Jeremy Corbyn’s manifest ambivalence about the entire European project.
The vote was less than two weeks away, and the team of former political enemies needed to jump-start the stalled campaign machine. Straw was a former Labour parliamentary candidate. Stronger In’s head of strategy, Ryan Coetzee, had run the Liberal Democrat 2015 election campaign. They were joined by three Conservatives: Ameet Gill, director of strategy at No 10 Downing Street, Stephen Gilbert, a former deputy chairman of the Conservative party, and Craig Oliver, David Cameron’s communications chief.
The immediate priority was to cut through the media’s obsessive focus on internal Conservative squabbles – “endless blue-on-blue” as Straw put it – which was turning supporters of other parties off the referendum and threatening to suppress the remain vote. The team discussed the possibility of launching a whole new campaign. It would be called “Progressives for In”, complete with its own branding and battle bus – a way to jolt the media into reporting the views of Lib Dems, Greens, and Scottish Nationalists, as well as Labour figures. But the logistics were too difficult. Instead a plan was hatched to tone down Tory voices and amplify the opposition. Staff from Stronger In branded it a “Labour fightback”.
Straw mobilised his Labour contacts. The campaign had scheduled a speech by David Cameron in Leicester for the following Monday – and now it made a last-minute switch. Gordon Brown, who had long wanted to be more involved in the campaign, stepped in to replace the man who had, six years earlier, succeeded him as prime minister. Ed Miliband, the man Cameron had beaten in the general election of 2015, helped to persuade Corbyn to lend his voice to a trade union event already planned for the following week.
Stronger In’s head of press, James McGrory, a Liberal Democrat, briefed journalists that Labour was riding to the rescue. With non-partisan zeal that impressed their colleagues, the Tories on the team agreed to a script aimed at core Labour voters, which included the threat that Brexit would “turn industrial heartlands into wastelands” and “finish the job that Thatcher started”.
Old party rivalries were largely banished from the campaign “war room” at Stronger In’s Cannon Street headquarters. Researchers and press officers who had been savaging each other’s work for years now collaborated amicably. Residual tensions stayed below the surface. Former Labour staffers, moderate refugees fleeing the hard-left takeover under Corbyn, sometimes bristled at what they saw as unmerited swagger in the step of the Downing Street contingent, who expected to easily replicate their victory in the previous May’s general election. “They arrived like an occupying force,” recalls one former Labour staffer. “They came in with a sense of, ‘Step aside and we’ll tell you how it’s done.’”
But over the course of the campaign, the most senior remainers found collegiate sympathy in a shared world view. As one put it: “We were the pluralist, liberal, centrist force in British politics.” Pro-Europeanism became a proxy for the fusion of economic and social liberalism that had been a dominant philosophy of the political mainstream for a generation, although its proponents were scattered across partisan boundaries. These centrists were the ruling class of an unrecognised state – call it Remainia – whose people were divided between the Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems; like a tribe whose homeland has been partitioned by some insouciant Victorian cartographer.
How remain failed: the inside story of a doomed campaign Read more
In the days when the politics of the fringe did not threaten their intellectual security, adherents of New Labour, the Lib Dems and “Cameroon” Conservatives had never seen themselves as a fellowship of moderation. Before Corbynite radicalism seized the left and Ukip’s vinegary nationalism suffused the right, debate was conducted in shades of difference within a broad consensus. But as the referendum approached, Stronger In became the informal party of defensive liberalism – the unpopulists – although that had never been the intention.
Cameron gambled everything on the European referendum because he thought the centre was secure. He and George Osborne believed, as one of their cabinet allies told me: “It will be about jobs and the economy and it won’t even be close.”
Cameron and Osborne had reason to be confident. They had defied pundits and opinion polls to win a narrow Tory majority in May. But victory meant Cameron now had to fulfil his manifesto commitment to an EU referendum, following a renegotiation of membership terms. Promises minted as virtual currency for buying loyalty from rebellious Tory MPs now had to be converted into real policy.
Cameron’s inner circle was driven by two instincts. First, its members wanted to get the pesky referendum out of the way in order to crack on with a legacy-building second term of domestic reform. Delay would increase the risk of a mid-term anti-government backlash. No 10 was also advised, through diplomatic channels, that the French and German governments would be less and less receptive to British renegotiation demands as their own general elections, which are due to be held in 2017, drew closer. “When we came back in May 2015, there was a sense that we had to get on with it,” one Downing Street strategist recalled. “The furthest you could look safely ahead was 2016.”
Second, they were convinced that the referendum campaign could be won with tactics learned from Cameron’s ruthless Australian strategist Lynton Crosby in the 2015 election. The No 10 team had imbibed from Crosby a belief in the virtues of a relentless, narrow focus on economic security and the risks of gambling on the unknown. Ed Miliband’s hopes of becoming prime minister had been shredded by that approach.
Brexit: how a fringe idea took hold of the Tory party | Matthew d’Ancona Read more
But Cameron was committed to a public position of agnosticism until the renegotiation was complete. He claimed that he would only support membership of the European Union if he could wring the right concessions from other continental leaders. This posture of neutrality was thought necessary to keep a Europhobic Tory insurrection at bay and to avoid compromising Britain’s negotiating position in Brussels. Cameron’s view, expressed to friends in the summer of 2015, was: “I cannot create the impression that we will say ‘Yes’ under any circumstances.”
Meanwhile, the leave side was gearing up for a campaign. Some kind of defence had to be organised, but Downing Street could not be seen to be involved. Shortly after Cameron’s “Bloomberg speech” in 2013, when he committed to a plebiscite, an organisation named British Influence was launched to start making the case to remain in the EU. Intended as a cross-party initiative, it was funded by David Sainsbury, a businessman, philanthropist and Labour peer, and fronted, to begin with, by Peter Mandelson, the Lib Dem Danny Alexander and Tory grandee Ken Clarke.
Over the next two years, a successor organisation, Britain Stronger in Europe, began to take shape. Sainsbury was still closely involved. Political leadership came from a triumvirate of Mandelson, Alexander and Damian Green, one of a few ardently pro-European Tory MPs.
By July 2015, Andrew Cooper, the Conservative peer and chair of the opinion polling company Populus, had been recruited to research public sentiment, with a view to developing a strategy. Cooper had advised Cameron in the coalition period and had been instrumental in Better Together, the cross-party umbrella organisation that had opposed Scottish independence. Although that campaign had succeeded, its unwieldy federal model of multi-party cooperation was judged dysfunctional. (“Everyone involved in Better Together seemed to be suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress,” notes one senior member of the team.) The lesson was that a pro-EU campaign needed a centralised, non-partisan command.
The Stronger In founders hired Straw as director and, at Nick Clegg’s recommendation, Coetzee was taken on as strategist. The Stronger In branding was then developed with Greg Nugent, a marketing executive who had worked for London’s 2012 Olympic agency, and Lucy Thomas, a pro-European business advocate who became Straw’s deputy. Mandelson, Alexander and Green mined their contacts to recruit a board with no single party allegiance, which would include representatives from the business and voluntary sectors.
They knew they needed a chairman from the liberal right of the political spectrum. After some disagreement over candidates, they settled on the stolid former Marks & Spencer executive Stuart Rose. The chairman was only meant to hold the ring until Cameron could emerge as the remain camp’s main message carrier, and Rose was unwilling at first to take such a role. A phone call from Osborne finally persuaded him with barely a week to go before the official Stronger In launch. (Some clumsy media appearances later vindicated Rose’s initial reluctance, and he quickly stepped back from public advocacy. “Rose was like a world-class rugby player who was handed cricket pads and expected to bat,” said one senior source campaign source.)
Officially, Cameron and Osborne were not yet involved. Downing Street had been watching the emergence of Stronger In warily. Osborne worried about Straw’s inexperience and Labour pedigree, although he joked that he was not about to complain if Mandelson could recreate and put at his disposal the formidable machine that had carried Tony Blair to three consecutive election victories.
Cameron worried that the whole Stronger In approach reeked of a metropolitan europhilia that would not chime with the public mood. He believed that the country was Eurosceptic by nature and could only be cajoled to vote remain by a campaign that showed deference to this anti-EU feeling.
Andrew Cooper’s research appeared to support that view. Using a model similar to the one that had been applied in Scotland, the pollsters analysed and segmented the public along a spectrum of receptiveness to pro-Europe messages. On one side were the “ardent internationalists”, “comfortable Europhiles” and “engaged metropolitans”, while “strong sceptics” and “EU hostiles” occupied the other pole. In between were the “disengaged middle” and “heart v head” groups. These were people who would never love the EU, but could be persuaded to stick with it for safety’s sake. Coetzee then developed the strategic concepts and message scripts, which were tested, refined and retested in focus groups throughout the campaign.
By September 2015, Coetzee had written the “war book” containing the campaign’s core message: “The choice in this referendum is economic security and global influence as part of the EU, or a leap in the dark. A vote to stay is a vote for certainty.” Brexit meant: “Jobs aren’t safe, prices will rise, mortgages will be at risk, and funding for your local school or hospital will fall. It is a risk not worth taking.”
Around the time of the Stronger In launch on 12 October, Cooper brokered a meeting in Mandelson’s Marylebone offices between the Stronger In team and emissaries from Downing Street – Craig Oliver and Stephen Gilbert. Cameron’s people were kicking the tyres to check that this unproven vehicle would give safe carriage to the fortunes of their government. Gilbert was warm, and Oliver more aloof. But their reports back to Downing Street were broadly positive.
A final Conservative worry was that the process of “docking” Downing Street’s operation with Stronger In would require sharing confidential Tory campaign methods with rival parties. Osborne wanted to use the services of Jim Messina, the former White House deputy chief of staff under Obama and specialist in state-of-the-art digital techniques for targeting individual voters. Messina had worked with the Tories in May but the chancellor was reluctant to see his powerful methods deployed outside the Conservative family.
Osborne visited Mandelson at home one late-autumn Sunday in 2015 and agreed that Stronger In |
bookstores, while “Unbreakable Runner: Unleash the Power of Strength and Conditioning for a Lifetime of Running Strong” from Cross-Fit Endurance founder Brian MacKenzie will debut in October.
RELATED: Are We Really Born To Run?
6. The Movie? The movie adaptation of “Born to Run” appears to be stuck in Hollywood. Originally, reports said actor/director Peter Sarsgaard would be directing the movie adaptation of “Born to Run” and Jake Gylenhaal, his brother-in-law, was expected to play a lead role. An IMDB.com report later said the movie would be produced by the husband-wife team of Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, who have individually and jointly been tied to many blockbuster productions from Steven Spielberg and Lucasfilm. However, McDougall said in 2013 a major shake-up occurred. A new script was expected to be completed last year, and a new director was supposed to be unveiled last summer, but the movie is still listed as being “in development” on film industry websites. As of this week, the new script writer is Marshall Lewy while the producers are Michael Glassman, Deborah Jelin Newmyer and Tim Perell, who each have a variety of lower-profile movie credits on their resumes.
7. Ultrarunning Growth. Although still a small part of the running world, ultrarunning has grown considerably since McDougall first ventured to Mexico in 2006. According to one report published by Ultrarunning magazine, ultra-distance race finishes in the U.S. have gone from about 25,000 in 2007 to more than 70,000 in 2013. That pales in comparison to marathons (about 540,000 in 2013) and half marathons (about 2 million in 2013), but ultrarunning is growing at a much faster rate and its stars (Scott Jurek, Anton Krupicka, Kilian Jornet, Krissy Moehl, Darcy Africa and others) have attracted considerable attention. And because most ultra-distance runs have smaller race fields—either by design or because of trail permits—more races are selling out sooner. The book embellished many ultrarunning stars and participants, including Jurek and Jenn Shelton, as well as numerous “Mas Loco” runners who True said were “crazy” enough to run his race.
RELATED: Growth Is Good, But Growing Pains Hurt Trail Running
8. Ultra Caballo Blanco. Speaking of his race, on March 2, 715 athletes representing 15 countries—including more than 400 Raramuri runners—started the 12th annual Ultra Caballo Blanco, a 50-mile race and celebration of “running free” among all cultures of running people. True started the race to help ensure nutritional sustenance to both the physical and cultural survival of the Raramuri people. For each loop completed, runners receive vouchers for maize, beans, rice, flour and non-GMO seed corn. (Non-local runners donate their portions back to the locals.) Blankets and food are also given to Raramuri runners and their families who come down for the race. Miguel Lara Viniegras, a local Raramuri runner, won this year’s race in 6:39:16. The 13th annual Ultra Caballo Blanco 50-mile race and celebration was scheduled for March 1, 2015, but was canceled due to violence related to drug cartels.
9. Born to Run Ultramarathon. Following True’s “Run Free” theme, photographer Luis Escobar is hosting his fourth annual Born to Run Ultramarathon event on May 17-18. After gaining access to an 8,000-acre ranch in Los Olivos, Calif., four years ago, Escobar, who was a friend of True, decided to create an intimate social event where people could get together, camp, sing, share some beers and run—a lot. The event has grown from 75 people to a projected 500 participants for this year. This year several Raramuri runners will take part in the race thanks to online fundraising efforts.
RELATED: Caballo Blanco’s Legacy Lives On
10. Urique To Batopilas Trail. Through the collaborative efforts of nonprofits and international volunteers, a historic 14-mile trail from Urique to Batopilas in Mexico’s Copper Canyons is about to re-open. The route, part of True’s original Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon (renamed the Ultra Maratón Caballo Blanco after his death in 2012), was plagued by bandits and overgrown vegetation for the past several years. But with the help of Norawas de Raramuri, (“Friends of the Running People”), the U.S. non-profit organization True helped create in 2009, and local resident Prospero Torres, the original trail is being revived with the hope of creating a world-class route for international adventurers and re-opening a vital link for locals between the canyons of Urique and Batopilas. Norawas supports Raramuri participation in local and international foot races by providing maize, non-GMO seed corn and cash awards for participating Raramuri runners, men and women alike. (Watch this short video of the new portion of the trail
11. Run Free. But if there is anything to be remembered from all of this notoriety, good will and/or media attention, it’s the two simple words that continued to drive True: “Run Free!”Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) has instantly become everyone’s favorite XXL piñata over his decision to hold a special election in October to fill the seat vacated by the recently, sadly deceased Sen. Frank Lautenberg, rather than having to face Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D-Krypton) in November. Add The Young Turks host and self-proclaimed “fat New Jersey-American” Cenk Uygur to the list, as he told viewers, Tueday night, that “Chris Christie doesn’t give a damn about the people of New Jersey getting to vote a couple weeks earlier,” adding, “All Chris Christie cares about is protecting his own fat ass.”
Governor Christie had several options to choose from in deciding how to fill Lautenberg’s seat. He could have appointed a replacement to serve until the seat’s term was up in 2014, which would have likely resulted in a court challenge, or he could have scheduled a Democratic primary, and appointed a replacement until November’s general election. Or he could do what he did, which was to schedule a Democratic primary for August 13, and a special election for October 16. Many Republicans are angry with Christie for not appointing a Republican to fill the seat until 2014, giving the GOP another vote in the Senate, and an advantage in maintaining the seat in the midterms.
Democratic supporters, meanwhile, are accusing Christie of trying to protect himself by avoiding a November showdown with super-popular Newark Mayor Cory Booker, which, the theory goes, would juice Democratic turnout and endanger Christie’s reelection chances. Both sides are also attacking Christie over the cost of the special election. During his panel discussion, Cenk did just that, asking “Doesn’t this mean Christie should shut his fat mouth about being a fiscal conservative, from this day forward? Now that he’s going to throw $24 million in the garbage for this special election, for his own political purposes?”
He went on to blast Christie for what he called a “ridiculous lie.”
“Chris Christie doesn’t give a damn about the people of New Jersey getting to vote a couple weeks earlier,” he said, adding, “All Chris Christie cares about is protecting his own fat ass.”
“As a fat New Jersey American,” Cenk concluded, “I know I live in a glass house, and brother, I’m calling you out on it.”
To be fair, Cenk also called out Democrats for their satisfaction with Christie’s decision, which all but guarantees Cory Booker the seat, and he’s right that, philosophically speaking, the right thing to do would have been to hold the special election in November. But Cenk, my friend, you’re at a 12, and you need to be at a 6.
First of all, just because we’re heavy guys from Jersey doesn’t make it okay to blast Christie over his weight. Come on, man, he’s trying. Let’s wish him well on that.
But more importantly, Christie’s motives may well be political, but they appear to have nothing to do with his own (size-neutral) ass. Christie has a 34 point lead with likely voters. As the panelist pointed out, there was a greater danger that Christie voters voting the straight ticket could have swamped Cory Booker, but even if that didn’t happen, Christie isn’t about to sweat a 34 point lead. The only thing that could possibly eat into a lead like that would be, say, appointing a Republican to that seat until 2014.
In the best possible light, Christie tried to honor voters’ intentions by making the decision that best assured a Democrat would replace Lautenberg. At worst, or at the same time, he helped out a lot of down-ticket Republicans who would have had trouble running into the Cory Booker buzz-saw. As a weight-challenged New Jersey-American, I’m fine with it, and I’m pretty sure if Christie had put Booker on the ballot in November, Democratic supporters would be screaming just as loudly.
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comWe’ve reached the best part of the season and are about to find out which teams out of the NFL Conference Championship matchups will make it to Super Bowl XLIV at Miami this Feb. 7.
In order to win big this season, NFL bettors need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of all four teams that have made it this far in the playoffs. Making smart bets is crucial this time of year, especially since all four teams have a lot in common, which could make it difficult to decide who to lay your money on.
The following is a breakdown of each team's strengths and weaknesses with their odds to win the Super Bowl. Keep these in mind when betting this upcoming weekend.
Indianapolis Colts 6/5 to win the Super Bowl
Strengths: You don’t have to be a genius to know the Colts’ best weapon is Peyton Manning. This is not the same guy who choked under pressure years ago; he has matured and knows the game probably better than anyone right now.
On defense, Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney are two of the best pass rushers in the league. Offenses that will face the Colts are already trying to make a plan to stop these two guys, as they know how to really pressure opposing offensive lines and QBs. The two are set to face arguably the best offensive line in the game this weekend.
The Colts secondary has some essential playmakers; Antoine Bethea and Marlin Jackson will be key players in these upcoming games.
Weakness: The Colts' biggest disadvantage is their running game; they don’t seem to know how to make a statement running the ball and that might be trouble against a defense that will be prepared for the passing game.
Despite the fact that they stopped the Ravens, their stats say they can’t stop the run. Handling the best running game in the league will be a tough task for them.
New York Jets 7/1 to win the Super Bowl
Strengths: The Jets' biggest advantage is their defense (which ranked No. 1 in the regular season and has shut down Cincinnati and San Diego in the playoffs so far) led by Darrelle Revis; he is one of a kind and can shutdown anybody that you put him against in a one on one situation.
Drew Coleman, Lito Sheppard, and Shaun Ellis are also big complements to a destructive defensive scheme well organized by the aggressive, big-mouth coach Rex Ryan.
On offense, if they can run the ball effectively, they will run you over and punish you with those big offensive linemen and that will, without a question, tire your defense.
The Jets have nothing to lose but everything to gain and that makes them a dangerous threat.
Weakness: Without a doubt, their biggest question mark is rookie QB Mark Sanchez. Even though he’s playing really well and not making a lot of mistakes right now, he’s still a rookie, and rookies tend to fall under pressure.
Minnesota Vikings 7/4 to win the Super Bowl
Strengths: The way Brett Favre is playing, with his rhythm, and with his experience, there is no question that he is the most valuable player on this squad. Who would have thought Favre would be playing the best football of his career as a Viking at the age of 40?
Favre didn’t get a lot of time to throw the ball against the Dallas defense, but he managed to hit Sidney Rice in the end zone three times. Those are signs that his arm hasn’t fatigued after playing a full season.
Another strength the Vikings have at their disposal is their defensive line led by Jared Allen; he has become a pain in the butt for any offensive coordinator trying to make a game plan.
Weaknesses: It’s hard to believe that Adrian Peterson isn’t making a notable impact. The Vikings need to establish the run, and he is not getting the job done. He ran for 63 yards against the Cowboys and was not a factor in the game.
Think about it, against a well prepared, play-making defense that will probably be playing the pass, the Vikings need to run the ball to surprise and punish them. Then, when the run is properly established, a play action pass could be all Minnesota needs to shock the New Orleans' secondary.
Another issue for the Vikings is their secondary. They managed to only allow three points from the Cowboys, but don’t expect that to happen against New Orleans.
Tony Romo didn’t find time to throw the ball. That’s something that won’t happen to Brees because their offense is more complex and he has many more weapons than Dallas.
New Orleans Saints 2/1 to win the Super Bowl
Strengths: The Saints have an offense that could put up 45 points any day of the week running or passing the ball. Their offense is their best strength; they are creative and don’t fall into a tendency of making the same plays over and over.
Most importantly, I don’t think there is a set of playmakers on defense like the ones the Saints have right now. They recorded 39 takeaways in the regular season, the most by any team in the NFL.
Weaknesses: The Saints are so talented that everyone expects them to win; their only weakness might be fear. Fear of failing under the pressure of the media and fans. Their record shows that they don’t handle pressure well, but now that they have made it this far and are playing at home, maybe they can turn things around.
The Superdome has re-opened after Hurricane Katrina, spirits are high, fans are psyched; the Saints have every excuse to make it to the Super Bowl and win it.Joe Robbins/Getty Images
Martellus Bennett will be a free agent when the NFL's new league year starts Thursday, and he reportedly won't be short on suitors with a chance to cash in and sign a lucrative long-term deal.
On Saturday, the Boston Globe's Ben Volin reported the Oakland Raiders, Jacksonville Jaguars and New England Patriots are all interested in signing Bennett once he hits the open market.
However, Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald noted Tuesday that Mike Garafolo of NFL Network said Bennett wants $9 million per year, but the Patriots won't spend that much.
On Feb. 21, NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported it would be "hard" for the Patriots to keep Bennett since his value is trending up, but the defending Super Bowl champions do have nearly $62 million in cap space to spend entering the spring if they want some peace of mind on the roster behind the oft-injured Rob Gronkowski.
Likewise, the Raiders and Jaguars are replete with financial wiggle room in advance of the new league year starting. Specifically, the Jaguars have north of $71 million free, while the Raiders have a shade over $43 million at their disposal.
And considering the Jaguars just dumped Julius Thomas in a deal with the Miami Dolphins, they have a glaring need for a safety blanket who can help elevate the play of quarterback Blake Bortles.
The Raiders, on the other hand, could use a clear No. 1 tight end after they deployed Clive Walford and Mychal Rivera in supplementary roles alongside Michael Crabtree and Amari Cooper.
In other words, Bennett—who caught 55 passes for 701 yards and seven touchdowns in 2016—is primed to cash in regardless of where he lands.
All salary-cap figures courtesy of OverTheCap.com.The observance for Davenport was highly symbolic. For this AT&T Park home opener against the archrival Los Angeles Dodgers, third base was emblazoned with the jersey number 12 that Davenport wore during his 13-year playing career, which began with the franchise's inaugural season in San Francisco in 1958.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants honored two of their most distinguished players, third baseman Jim Davenport and outfielder Monte Irvin, in a pregame ceremony Thursday. Both passed away during the offseason.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants honored two of their most distinguished players, third baseman Jim Davenport and outfielder Monte Irvin, in a pregame ceremony Thursday. Both passed away during the offseason.
The observance for Davenport was highly symbolic. For this AT&T Park home opener against the archrival Los Angeles Dodgers, third base was emblazoned with the jersey number 12 that Davenport wore during his 13-year playing career, which began with the franchise's inaugural season in San Francisco in 1958.
View Full Game Coverage
The Giants' starting infielders, all drafted and developed by the club and tutored by Davenport as Minor Leaguers, accompanied members of his family onto the field as third base was planted in its spot.
The tribute to Irvin reached a stirring level with the appearance of the legendary Willie Mays, who drew a steadily rising ovation from the crowd. Irvin, a Hall of Famer who was the Giants' first black player, mentored Mays on and off the field during the early years of the latter's career.
Irvin's daughters, Pamela Irvin Fields and Patricia Irvin Gordon, tossed ceremonial first pitches.
Chris Haft is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Haft-Baked Ideas, follow him on Twitter at @sfgiantsbeat and listen to his podcast.The average age for first time mothers varies between 22.6 (Mississippi) and 27.7 (Massachusetts) between states.
The average for the US is 25.0.
Source: CDC, 2006
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db21_table2.pdf
State Years Alabama 23.6 Alaska 24.3 Arizona 24 Arkansas 23 California 25.6 Colorado 25.7 Connecticut 27.2 Delaware 25 District of Columbia 26.5 Florida 25 Georgia 24.5 Hawaii 25.7 Idaho 23.8 Illinois 25.4 Indiana 24 Iowa 24.5 Kansas 24.2 Kentucky 23.8 Louisiana 23.3 Maine 25.6 Maryland 26.1 Massachusetts 27.7 Michigan 25 Minnesota 25.8 Mississippi 22.6 Missouri 24.1 Montana 24.5 Nebraska 24.7 Nevada 24.6 New Hampshire 26.7 New Jersey 27.2 New Mexico 23 New York 26.8 North Carolina 24.6 North Dakota 24.7 Ohio 24.7 Oklahoma 23.1 Oregon 25.4 Pennsylvania 25.5 Rhode Island 26.2 South Carolina 24 South Dakota 24 Tennessee 24 Texas 23.9 Utah 23.9 Vermont 26.5 Virginia 25.8 Washington 25.9 West Virginia 23.9 Wisconsin 25.3 Wyoming 23.7Mike Hearn, one of the original members of the Bitcoin development team, recently stated that the "Bitcoin experiment" has failed:
Why has Bitcoin failed? It has failed because the community has failed. What was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked “systemically important institutions” and “too big to fail” has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people. Worse still, the network is on the brink of technical collapse. The mechanisms that should have prevented this outcome have broken down, and as a result there’s no longer much reason to think Bitcoin can actually be better than the existing financial system.
In the short period of time since Mr. Hearn wrote his post, it's been interesting to watch the response. Certain people seem to revel in some strange form of "told ya so" schadenfreude, while others are ignoring/dismissing Mr. Hearn's proclamation.
I will never understand the mindset of a person who would actively root against a technology with such great potential - unless, of course, that person benefits from the current state of technology; as I discussed in an article entitled: Bitcoin Can't Save The Music Industry Because The Music Industry Will Resist Transparency.
I also am skeptical of people who blithely disregard the challenges facing any new technological advancement, and who make light of the difficulties of crossing the chasm from early adopters to a more mainstream adoption.
So, is the Bitcoin Blockchain over? Is it now in an inexorable slow-moving death spiral towards obsolescence?
I don't know. Could be. Might not be.
Of course, no one else knows with any degree of certainty either, but I (and others) put a lot of stock in what the Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson thinks about emergent technologies, and he had this to say about Mr. Hearn's post:
The Bitcoin experiment is six years old. There has been a significant amount of venture capital investment in the Bitcoin ecosystem. There are a number of well funded companies competing to build valuable businesses on top of this technology. We are invested in at least one of them. And the competition between these various companies and their visions has played a part in the stalemate. These companies have a lot to gain or lose if Bitcoin survives or fails. So I expect that there will be some rationality, brought on by capitalist behavior, that will emerge or maybe is already emerging.
But, for a moment, let's step back from the prognostication, and instead imagine that, yes (to the odd delight of some people), the Bitcoin Blockchain has failed. It's over.
Where would that leave us?
Anyone who has spent any time in the tech or start up world knows and understands that success and adoption is an iterative process.
While the Apple Newton and the Rio PMP300 mp3 player were "failures," the technologies related to their development and launch (and, yes, failure) endured and were instrumental in terms of the development of future successful products.
Some of the most enduring posts I've written speak to this type of creeping, iterative development that largely goes unnoticed by the masses - until these same masses wake up one day to a deeply changed world:
The Stream that Snuck up on You - About how streaming music and video services "suddenly" became prevalent in peoples' lives.
The Cloud That Snuck up on You - About how cloud services "suddenly" became prevalent in peoples' lives.
I'm currently working on similar articles on technologies that are following this same trajectory:
The Internet of Things that Snuck up on You
The Artificial Intelligence that Snuck up on You
The above articles will, of course, address that fact that both IoT and AI are already here and upon us; that they - via a long, iterative process - have crossed the chasm from early adopter land to early majority, and will soon be squarely in the middle/majority of the distribution curve.
The Bitcoin Blockchain - success or failure - has similarly established a durable beachhead upon which technology will continue to build upon.
In other words, in the larger scheme of things, it doesn't really matter if the Bitcoin Blockchain "fails," because it has already attained a sense of permanence to the degree that it's inconceivable that other technologies will not be built upon its principles and technologies. And, perhaps, more importantly the ethos of Bitcoin Blockchain - transparency, disintermediation - will similarly endure and be built upon.
And so, even if the Bitcoin Blockchain does "fail," some variant of the Bitcoin Blockchain will not be a failure.
Specifically, the Bitcoin Blockchain has either more widely established or completely originated certain core technological and conceptual components, such as:
Decentralized Registries
Smart Contracts
Transparent (or not, users decide) and Immutable Records of creation/creators
Transparent records of transactions
Disintermediated Payments
Payments with little-to-no transaction costs
The Mining system of incentive
Proof of Work/Hash systems
Incented sharing (as illustrated by Imogen Heap's Mycelia)
Does any rational person think that any/all of these things are going to - poof - disappear and retreat to some troglodytic cave?
Suggesting such a thing is no more reasonable than asserting that CDs will make a comeback.
And guess what, some of us knew that CDs were done the moment we laid eyes on the Rio MP3 player ("failure" that it was). I'll never forget that moment; I was running a record label at the time.
So...sure, the Bitcoin Blockchain may very well go the way of the Rio, but be very clear, the technological innovations and the general shift in mindset that have been developed and occurred because of the Bitcoin Blockchain can not and will not ever die. In fact, it's just getting started. Ignore at your peril.Teotihuacan |Researchers at the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico say they have evidence of a secret tunnel dug under the Teotihuacan Moon Pyramid.According to archaeologists, the tunnel would symbolize a passage to the “Underworld”
The top three positions in the top pyramids of the world are occupied, in decreasing order, by the Keops Pyramid in Egypt, by Cholula, Mexico, and by the Teotihuacan Sun Pyramid.
If this last name tells you a few things, the time is right to find out that it refers to one of the most important archaeological sites in the world and the most visited in Mexico.
The Pyramid of the Moon
Although there are more entries in the site, guides prefer the tour to the Pyramid of the Moon, because from its platform you can best imagine the grandeur of the old city.
From more than 40 meters high, it is seen that the impressive Death Avenue leaves in front of the pyramid and extends straight to Templo del Quetzalcóatl Temple, leaving the Pyramid of the Sun on the left.
Other temples and edifices accompany the 2.5 km high road, lined up by the stars, and seems to lose its end in the mountains.
The discovery was made possible by a CT scan made in the pyramid area.
Thus, archaeologists have noticed the presence of an underground tunnel dug 10 meters (33 feet) deep.
Specialists believe that there are offerings in this secret passage. Similar tunnels have also been discovered in other areas of the Teotihuacan archaeological site.
This tunnel links the pyramid of the central square of the complex, the Plaza de la Luna, where religious rituals and human sacrifices took place, involving about 100,000 people, writes Daily Mail.
The tunnel under The Pyramid Of The Moon would have played a symbolic role for the ancient inhabitants of the area, believes Veronica Ortega, the archaeologist who coordinates the research.
Thus, the tunnel would actually symbolize the road to the “Underworld”, which is why it was filled with offerings – plants and food – for the gods.
The Pyramid of the Moon was built in several successive stages, being completed in 450 BC. It has a height of 46 meters and a base of 168 square meters.
Archaeological evidence shows that there have been human sacrifices since the year 200 BC. The tombs of the pyramid contain human and animal remains and various funerary objects.
The pyramid was dedicated to the Goddess of the Moon, considered the supreme goddess, the one who created the world, a symbol of life and fertility.Late last week, three different newspapers published three different articles about Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. While each article looked at a different portion of Romney’s time at Bain, all three shared a consistent picture of Mitt Romney’s approach to leadership, one that should remind voters just who will benefit from a Romney presidency. Hint: It won’t be the voters.
The first, from Friday’s Post, described how Romney’s Bain was an early supporter of companies that outsourced American jobs. “While Bain was not the largest player in the outsourcing field,” The Post reported, “the private equity firm was involved early on, at a time when the departure of jobs from the United States was beginning to accelerate and new companies were emerging as handmaidens to this outflow of employment.” That outsourcing damaged American job creation was no matter; Bain made its profit.
The second, in Saturday’s New York Times, outlined how, again and again, Romney’s Bain reaped revenue from companies even as they were failing. “At least seven [of the 40 U.S.-based companies that Bain held a majority stake in while Romney was active at Bain] eventually filed for bankruptcy while Bain remained involved, or shortly afterward... In some instances, hundreds of employees lost their jobs. In most of those cases, however, records and interviews suggest that Bain and its executives still found a way to make money.” In several of the bankruptcies, companies made their situation worse by borrowing more to return money to Bain and its investors. And even when both outside investors and the companies themselves failed to do well, “lucrative fees helped insulate Bain and its executives.” Again, Bain made its profit.
The third, and perhaps most damning article, came from Sunday’s Boston Globe, depicting Romney’s work with disgraced junk-bond king Michael Milken. In 1988, Romney was searching for money to finance a heavily-leveraged buyout of two small department store chains. “At the time of the deal, it was widely known that Milken and his company were under federal investigation” for insider trading and stock manipulation. Despite this, Romney and his partners, after personally meeting with Milken, went ahead with the deal. With financing from Milken’s shady business, Romney and Bain were able to make a $10 billion investment, not long before Milken was sentenced to 22 months in prison. Bain eventually profited to the tune of $175 million (although the merged department stores later went bankrupt, shortly after dumping its Bain-appointed chief executive). Sure, an important chunk of the financing may have come from questionable sources, but Bain made its profit.
The Romney these three articles portray is not new to us, but the common trait is nevertheless worth repeating. The Romney of Bain Capital had little time for anything beyond profits. Efficiency and the bottom line ruled. Who cared about the jobs lost, the livelihoods destroyed and the lines crossed, as long as Bain got its money?
While there is room for debate about the effect of Romney’s business approach on the health of the American economy, what’s important for the election is how Romney’s approach to running Bain translates to what he’d do as president. Politicians from both sides, but especially Republicans, declare time and again that government should be run like a business. (That running a government as a business ignores numerous principles of statecraft is of no concern to them.) There’s no reason to think Romney believes otherwise — observers of his political career agree Romney lies in the technocratic wing of the Republican Party. It is reasonable to conclude, then, that a Romney presidency would have as its top priority returning a profit for its investors.
Now, no doubt some voters will assure themselves that they are like the Bain investors: If they vote for Romney, he will get them their returns. But, particularly in this post-Citizens United world, the voters of America are not Bain’s investors, but the workers at companies Romney’s Bain took over. The wealthy donors who are financing Romney’s campaign are the investors. No doubt many of you have seen story after story about Romney’s reliance on a small group of rich donors, but the numbers continue to grow: Republican super PACs now plan to spend $1 billion this election cycle. Yes, $1,000 million. Compared to this avalanche of money, one person’s vote pales into nothingness. The donors and the profit will once again come first, even if citizens’ livelihoods must be sacrificed. We’ve seen this script play out at the state level already, in Wisconsin, Florida and elsewhere: Rich donors invested in governors Scott Walker, Rick Scott and others, and then demanded returns, without regard to the lines crossed (as demonstrated by Republicans’ widespread campaign to keep largely Democratic blocs from voting). The same will happen at the presidential level. (Indeed, investors will be first priority whatever side wins, but at least President Obama’s voters overlap far more with his donors.) And if his record as a business leader is any indication, don’t think for a moment President Romney will put your vote, or our laws, above his investors.(h/t Heather)
The Republican Party has always had amazing message discipline when it comes to their talking heads. They have their talking points and dutifully repeat them verbatim, echoing throughout the media until they become accepted conventional wisdom, regardless of the truth of the matter.
That's what makes this segment from The Larry King Show so fascinating. The inclusion of Sarah Palin on the Hate Talk Express appears to have actually derailed the Republican Party too. And these talking heads, columnist Kathleen Parker, consultant Michelle Laxalt and Bay Buchanan, once so reliably in tune with the GOP, are imploding and scattering in different directions. Buchanan, sticks with the party line, even making up stats (90% of Republicans are behind this ticket? Uh, not even close). Parker sticks with her well-documented assertion that Palin should leave the ticket for the good of the party. And Laxalt takes feminist umbrage (seriously, what's a feminist doing in the GOP anyway) with the misogynistic bent of the McCain handlers, who send out a neophyte female politician but aren't "man" enough to not back her up:
In my estimation, she is being used unfairly as a tool by a team who, by the way, do not even support, nor does their candidate, equal pay for women for equal work. So if she is going to be the traditional vice presidential attack dog -- which I concur with Bay, that's very much a traditional role -- why didn't her male running mate, i.e. the candidate himself, man up and speak to those issues, calling his opponent essentially unpatriotic, calling him a terrorist? I'm sorry. This is not the Republican Party that Bill Buckley, that Paul Laxalt, that Ronald Reagan raised me on. And I don't believe the American people like this kind of dirty politics. If they can't win fair and square, they shouldn't trash the other guy.
Transcripts below the fold
KING: Michelle, the last time you were with us, you had doubts about the ticket because of her.
Where do you stand now?
MICHELLE LAXALT, GOP CONSULTANT: I have increasing doubts, Larry, about the ticket. And my doubts center around what I see the McCain management team doing with Governor Palin. I see a team who brought a young governor onto a national scene, tossed her into the deep end five weeks before November. I see them managing her. I hear from inside the McCain campaign that she is essentially being treated like a secretary or a staffer, not a genuine vice presidential running mate. And I think it is absolutely confirmed that when they send her out, this good 'ole boy team -- some of whom, parenthetically, Governor Reagan and my father, Senator Laxalt, fired from the Reagan campaign for these kinds of dirty tricks.
They have sent this young, naive, very confident, perhaps, in Alaska, young woman out with the most incendiary talking points, the most dangerous...
KING: All right...
LAXALT:...racist talking points. And I think they should be ashamed of themselves.
KING: All right. The content of her -- Bay, the concept of her being an attack dog, let's watch this and get Bay to comment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PALIN: I think the phoniest claim in a campaign that's been full of them is that Barack Obama is going to cut your taxes.
(LAUGHTER)
PALIN: He's not willing to drill for energy, but he's sure willing to drill for votes.
(LAUGHTER)
PALIN: And you mean to tell me that he didn't know that he had launched his own political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: All right, Bay, is all fair in love and war?
Is that fair?
BAY BUCHANAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, SUPPORTS MCCAIN: Sarah Palin is point for this campaign. She is doing a remarkable job. It is the vice presidential's job to be the attack dog. And she does an exceptional one -- with a sense of humor, with grace, but she makes the point extremely tough. I mean she goes right for the throat against this guy, raises very, very legitimate issues and causes the national media to start to talk about this, something they've seemed, up to this point, refused to do...
KING: All right, is she...
BUCHANAN:...what's the true character of Barack Obama?
KING: Is she helping?
BUCHANAN: Oh, I mean you can't -- there's no argument there whatsoever. She has clearly done a remarkable job. Not only did she energize the base, she delivered the base to John McCain. What she now still holds, over 90 percent of Republicans behind this ticket.
KING: But...
BUCHANAN: She basically brought tens of thousands of people to rallies -- Obama level rallies now, because of Sarah Palin. Seventy million people, Larry, turned in to see that debate. Seventy million. They weren't looking at Biden, I'll guarantee you.
KING: But, Kathleen, since the debate, Obama is 9 points ahead.
PARKER: Yes. I don't think Sarah Palin is helping McCain. I really don't. Absolutely, she's animating the base. The base is practically hysterical with animation. But he already has the base. You know, the base is not going to vote for Obama.
So she's not helping him with people he needs, which are women voters, who have left him en masse to go back to Obama and with Independents and moderates, who are leaving the McCain camp. And I think many of them were leaning toward him, but now because of her and because of some of this incendiary language, they're moving the other way.
So I don't think that's helpful...
BUCHANAN: Larry...
PARKER: And...
UNIDENTIFIED |
national security, the White House has moved to keep secret the president’s interactions. Unlike the Obama administration, the Trump White House does not disclose the president’s golf partners, or whether he played. The Trump team also ended an Obama administration practice of releasing White House visitor logs.
This is both shocking and totally expected.
On one level, the blatant nature of the unscrupulousness of this arrangement is jaw-dropping. Anyone who complained about Hillary Clinton’s corruption should be beside themselves over this. Had Hillary engaged in this activity, rage on the right would have been stratospheric — and appropriately so.
On the other hand, there is absolutely nothing surprising about this. A President who retains a financial stake in any business is putting out a huge “bribe me!” sign on the White House lawn. If you elect an immoral rich guy with a 70-year history of putting himself first, don’t be surprised when he puts himself first.
Donald Trump was going to drain the swamp. The swamp now looks about as drained as Houston after Harvey.
This is banana republic stuff. The way we do stuff here in America is we have lobbyists bribe politicians’ campaigns. That alone supposedly enraged people to the point where — the story goes — they rose up, rejected the establishment, and... elected a guy who has lobbyists pay him personally.
And the same rubes who were supposedly upset about the pay-for-play nature of the old system will shrug their shoulders at all of this. They’ll cry #FAKENEWS!! and issue absurd and laughable partisan defenses of this corruption.
Great, great journalism by USA Today.
Too bad nobody will care.
[Disclaimer]Just over twelve years ago, I wrote a piece asking, “What’s with Trump’s weird voiceovers?” Discussing the star of NBC’s The Apprentice, I wrote that its “boardroom is also where [that] billionaire, Donald Trump, shines,” and where “he demands answers and casts judgments” and where “sometimes irrational decision-making” was on display. But there was something unusual:
“Listen carefully during the boardroom sequences, especially when Trump issues his rationale for firing, and you’ll notice that the sound quality and audio changes frequently. While Trump speaks in a weird, slower, overlord voice, we don’t see his face and hair, but instead watch reaction shots of the candidates, George, and Carolyn. It seems apparent that some of the audio is being dubbed, replaced by voiceovers Trump records later. … Are these redubbed lines scripted? Rerecorded to be smoother than the original version? If not, why is the production so bad that Trump’s audio cuts out so frequently, both in the boardroom and elsewhere?”
This was among the earliest instances I’d observed what’s now a common practice: recording new audio in post-production and then layering it over actual footage to make it seem like it was spoken in the moment. As with any editing technique, it can be used ethically or to completely change reality.
So what was happening on The Apprentice? Twelve years later, thanks to Donald Trump’s run for the presidency as the Republican party’s nominee, we have an answer.
How Apprentice’s editing covered for Trump
CineMontage, the “Journal of the Motion Picture Editors Guild,” published a story last month that I missed until hearing its author, A.J. Catoline, discussing it on The Jay and Tony Show Show.
Catoline interviewed editors who worked on The Apprentice from 2004 to 2007. One of them, Jonathon Braun, ACE, said they were told to, “‘Make Trump look good, make him look wealthy, legitimate.’ That was our objective. But that’s what we do as editors anyway, right?”
Part of their task was to ensure that Trump’s decision-making make sense. As those of us who watched The Apprentice know, and as a different, unidentified editor told the magazine, “Trump would often make arbitrary decisions which had nothing to do with people’s merit. He’d make decisions based on whom he liked or disliked personally, whether it be for looks or lifestyle, or he’d keep someone that ‘would make good TV’.”
The editors had to fix this with what CineMontage calls “editorial gymnastics” that “proved a tremendous feat” with Trump.
Braun said the team of editors would have to “reverse-engineer the show to make it look like his judgment had some basis in reality. Sometimes it would be very hard to do, because the person he chose did nothing. We had to figure out how to edit the show to make it work, to show the people he chose to fire as looking bad—even if they had done a great job.”
Trump’s frequent lies also presented a problem. Braun explained:
“He would say things like, ‘We had a million applicants and we chose this small group to be contestants on the show,’” Braun recalled. “And I would turn to my producer and say, ‘A million applicants? Really?’ And the producer would shake his head no. Trump would just take numbers and throw them around. I mean, from Season One to Season Two, he said his net worth tripled. One day he said he had a billion dollars and then later it would become three billion; he just made stuff up.”
Sound familiar?
Trump’s propensity to exaggerate, to distort, and to outright lie about the most basic, obviously false things is now common knowledge. Donald Trump lies so much—almost 500 different lies over the past few months, as one analysis found—that his active denial of reality is the status quo now. (Just watch Trump’s version of reality versus actual footage of the event he’s describing.)
Watching The Apprentice, I was entertained by the contestants, the tasks, and yes, Donald Trump. But it also now seems clear that the show, and viewers like me, enabled and encouraged the worst in him.
The reality of watching Donald Trump
Over the past few months, a few readers have directly communicated that I should avoid political stories—and by that, they meant my coverage of The Apprentice, which I wrote about when Donald Trump’s behavior on that show became news as part of the election. My coverage ranged from an accusation that he’d sexually assaulted an Apprentice candidate to an unfair attempt to blame him for language in the show’s contract.
I understand the discomfort that comes from being confronted with facts that do not make one’s candidate look good—and it’s perhaps especially discomforting to come across that kind of information when reading about reality television.
So here’s a disclaimer: discomfort ahead.
I was hooked on The Apprentice from its first season, drawn in to its urban version on Survivor. From the tasks that challenged the contestants to the Boardroom and Trump’s final verdict, it was engrossing television.
In 2011, however, Donald Trump crossed a line: denying that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, and even absurdly claiming that Obama “came out of nowhere” and was never seen at law school.
This was not Donald Trump expressing a political view I disagreed with. This was Trump denying factual reality, and doing so to challenge the legitimacy of a black president. And yes, the president’s race has everything to do with the birther movement, because it’s fueled by racism, as researchers have found.
Trump was encouraging racists—and encouraged by them, he became increasingly emboldened, even as he tried to pretend otherwise.
Yet I continued to watch and cover The Apprentice. Some readers commented publicly and privately that they’d given up, and wondered why I was still giving attention to Donald Trump and his show. It was a fair question.
Eventually, I wrote about this: How to watch and enjoy The Apprentice even though Donald Trump is an ass.
One of the reasons I gave was “all the good the show does in terms of raising money for charity.” The Celebrity Apprentice was not just about bolstering Donald Trump’s brand, but it was about giving—and Trump himself often showered charities with his own money.
Except: he did not. As we learned from exceptional reporting over the past few months, Trump never once paid what he promised. The money he said he’d pay personally came from either the production or his foundation—to which he has not contributed since The Celebrity Apprentice debuted. In other words, he took credit for giving away other people’s money.
But my primary argument was that “The Apprentice has always held Donald Trump up as a hypocritical, ridiculous reality show cast member who has more ego than self-awareness.” So, the show was mocking him, and so could we, no harm done.
If only.
On Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver said that Trump has “unleashed a river of racism and misogyny.” Trump certainly didn’t create either, but by being so publicly and unashamedly racist and misogynistic, he gave others permission to be that way more publicly than before.
His candidacy has fueled incredible hatred. Saturday, at a rally in Tampa, a mother and her children protesting were escorted out, and Trump’s supporters kicked her son’s wheelchair (he has cerebral palsy). Another supporter wore a t-shirt that advocating lynching journalists—never mind how much relentless harassment journalists who cover Trump’s rallies have been subjected to. There’s also a “surge of Trump-fueled anti-Semitism.” There are endless examples.
The river is flowing, and it is horrifying.
And to watch The Apprentice in its later years was to see the dam leaking.
It’s one thing to watch the irrational decisions, the desperate need for validation, the dismissal of his own responsibility—I really had no choice—and laugh.
But it was another to see things such as his objectification of women and denial of facts, and moments like the above, and keep watching because the rest was entertaining. To observe his vile treatment of Rosie O’Donnell, which went beyond criticism to personal insults based on her body and sex.
What created Trump and allowed his rise is complex, and more than I fully understand. But I now deeply regret watching The Apprentice while looking the other way at behavior like his sexism and racist pandering.
Too many people, I fear, are doing that now.
I know that tomorrow, or during the past few weeks, many people will vote for Donald Trump because he has an R next to his name. Others will vote for him because they cannot stand Hillary Clinton, both because of her own mistakes and because of the ire she earns for being ambitious and transgressing expectations about a woman’s role in our society.
My objection to Trump—and my horror over his rise over the past year—has nothing to do with policy or with political party. It has to do with human decency.
Eight years ago, when a woman at a town hall told John McCain that Barack Obama is “an Arab. He’s not—” she was interrupted by McCain, who said, “No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign’s all about.”
That’s what a campaign should be about: disagreements, often passionate, even angry. That’s democracy.
But from day one of his campaign, when Trump said of Mexican immigrants, “they’re rapists,” Trump has made his run for the presidency about hating other people, and encouraging hatred of others. He’s demonstrated that he feels entitled not just to unlimited power, but also to women’s bodies, to assault them and do whatever he likes.
That did not start with The Apprentice, but The Apprentice empowered Trump, and then Trump became liquid fuel poured on the embers of bigotry and misogyny.
I should have fired Trump’s version of The Apprentice from my DVR and recaps long ago. And I hope that, on Tuesday, the country will choose to do what I did not.NEWS Front Page
Being a musician/guitarist, it is always inspirational to experience a musical performance by musicians who are masters of their instruments. From the opening arpeggios to the final chord that was played during the second evening of competition during the sixth bi-annual JoAnn Falletta Guitar Concerto Competition, the entire evening was very inspirational.
The guitar concerto competition was broadcast live on WNED Classical FM 94.5 from the WNED-TV studio in downtown Buffalo on Thurs., June 5. Marcin Kuzniar (one of eight contestants selected from a world-wide field of guitarists) was the second performer of the evening.
As each guitarist was introduced, the studio ran a brief taped interview before they came out to perform. During Marcin’s interview he stated that “he loves the classical guitar, as opposed to an electric or acoustic steel-string, it is the most sophisticated.”
As Marcin entered the studio to take his place on the stage and fine-tune his guitar to the piano, I noticed he had a support for this guitar attached to the bottom of it. He was the only guitarist I saw that had this type of device which puts the guitar in the proper playing position of classical guitar. The other guitarists used a small, folding foot support to raise their left leg on which the guitar would then rest, putting the guitar in the proper playing position.
The competition included a guitar concerto, a musical piece performed with a guitar and accompaniment (piano) and a musical piece performed solo (artist’s choice).
Marcin first played the "Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra" by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos with Roland E. Martin as his piano accompanist.
Then, his solo encore or "free choice" piece was "Variations on a Theme by Sor, Opus 15" by Spanish composer Miguel Llobet. "Sor" refers to Spanish composer Fernando Sor.
During Marcin’s performance, he appeared to be very focused but relaxed and enjoying the music. Very much “in-the-moment” and seemed to be one-with-the-guitar. His performance included a wide range of techniques including: soft passages, 1/16 note runs, beautiful bell like harmonics and flamenco style flourishes.
Although it has been 12 years since Marcin Dylla had competed and won the first JoAnn Falletta competition, I clearly saw his influence in Marcin Kuzniar’s performance.
This year’s competition was not to be his. The distinguished panel of judges chose Chad Ibion from the USA, Ekachai Jearakul from Thailand and Marko Topchii from Ukraine as the three finalists to compete at Kleinhans Music Hall with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
On Saturday evening, Marko Topchii from Ukraine went on to win the overall competition for 2014.Perhaps the forces that ultimately stymied President Trump’s health care overhaul were less political and more…supernatural.
After one of their spells worked just days ahead of the American Health Care Act's defeat, a group of self-proclaimed witches are set to cast another “binding spell” on Sunday night in an effort to kick Trump out of office, according to the official “Bind Trump” Facebook page. The group plans to perform the spell against “Trump and All Those Who Abet Him” at midnight “on every waning crescent moon.”
Some components of the spell include a small “unflattering” photo of Trump, a Tower tarot card – ostensibly to represent Trump Tower – and a “tiny stub of an orange candle” or a “baby carrot.”
“I call upon you to bind Donald J. Trump so that his malignant works may fail utterly, that he may do not harm to any human soul, not any tree, animal, rock, stream or sea,” a sentence of the spell says.
At the end, a grounding exercise is recommended, including “a good, hearty laugh” because “remember – he hates people laughing at him.”
A variant of the spell suggests using one of Trump’s most famous catchphrases against him.
“In place of ‘So mote it be,’ instead say, ‘You’re fired!’ with increasing vehemence,” the Facebook instructions say. “This should be particularly beautiful as the flames consume his image.”
Science says the spell is a lot of hocus pocus. But anecdotal evidence might keep the cacklers casting.
One of the “witches” wrote on the Facebook page that she performed her own spell on March 20 “to save” ObamaCare.
Four days later, Republican leadership pulled its replacement bill prior to a House vote, effectively leaving ObamaCare in place.Ursula Haverbeck sits head and shoulders above the ruling political parties in Germany, secure in knowing she speaks from the pristine realm of truth.
By Carolyn Yeager
JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ABOUT THE "HOLOCAUST" NON-HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, trying to get an accurate picture of the persecution of Ursula Haverbeck is made very difficult by the mainstream media.
Even Wikipedia is not up to date on Haverbeck in 2016!
Deutsche Welle, Germany's state news service, ran a September 2nd article (quickly removed from the "Top Stories" page - I caught it just in time!) reporting the 87-year old “Nazi Grandma” was sentenced to 8 months in jail for a letter she sent to Detmold Mayor Rainer Heller complaining about the trial of Reinhold Hanning in that city. This is different from the 10-month sentence she was given late last year for a TV interview.
As you will recall, and I wrote about extensively, Hanning is the 94 year old former Auschwitz guard who was sentenced to five years in prison in June for simply being there (no requirement for specific charges of criminal behavior and no witnesses). His trial in the city of Detmold aroused world-wide publicity over a 4 to 5-month period earlier this year.
In her letter, Haverbeck said that the witnesses at the trial were set up to prove the existence of the concentration camp, according to the DW article. She also said it was “clearly recognizable” that Auschwitz was nothing more than a labor camp, not an extermination camp. This is considered serious “holocaust denial” under German law, based on the constitution that was given to the Germany people (never voted on) by the Allied Control Council after the war. She is expected to appeal the sentence.
Apparently, the 10-month sentence given to Frau Haverbeck in November 2015 was suspended, although that fact was never reported by any media that I saw, and I looked diligently for further news since then. In today's article, DW wrote:
“her [prior] punishments include two fines and another suspended sedition sentence. She was on trial last year for saying that the Holocaust was "the biggest and longest-lasting lie in history."
I said at that time they would never actually put her in a jail cell and they didn't. Now DW is doing its best to make Ursula as unsympathetic as possible by calling her names like “Nazi”, criminal, seditionist, and right-wing extremist in case the state does feel the need to carry out its sentence. But it is a losing battle. Haverbeck has a world-wide reputation as a beautiful, brave truth-teller of many years – if she is actually put in prison this time, there will be a global uprising against “Holocaust” enforcement laws and a further reading and spread of Frau Haverbeck's beliefs.
What a quandry for the Federal Republic. It's a joy to behold.A drunk driver who killed three children and their grandfather in a collision north of Toronto in 2015 says he is liable for the crash, but argues the amount of damages sought by the family of his victims is too high.
The Neville-Lake family is seeking more than $25-million from Marco Muzzo and his family's drywall company, Marel Contractors. The suit argues their negligence caused the crash that killed nine-year-old Daniel Neville-Lake, his five-year-old brother Harrison, their two-year-old sister Milly and the children's 65-year-old grandfather, Gary Neville.
Muzzo says in a statement of defence that the Neville-Lake family's damages should be reduced because he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison and therefore they are not entitled to punitive, exemplary or aggravated damages.
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The children's grandmother, Neriza Neville, and great-grandmother, Josefina Frias, were also seriously hurt in the September 2015 collision in Vaughan, Ont.
In its statement of claim, the Neville-Lake family says Muzzo was drunk, speeding and driving without corrective lenses after returning from his bachelor party in Miami in September 2015 and "created a situation of danger and emergency."
Muzzo denies many of the assertions in the family's statement of claim, which contains allegations that have not been proven in civil court.
The lawsuit – which was filed by Neville, the children's parents, Jennifer Neville-Lake and Edward Lake, and Neville-Lake's brother and sister – alleges Muzzo "was conscious of the probable consequences of his carelessness and was indifferent or worse to the danger of injury or death to the occupants of the Neville-Lake vehicle."
"This motor vehicle accident has had a profound, significant and catastrophic impact upon the lives and well-being of all of the plaintiffs," causing them enduring pain and suffering, affecting their quality of life and their ability to earn a living, it says.
The loss of four relatives has left the family reeling with shock and grief and deprived them of the support, care and companionship they would have received from their loved ones, the suit alleges.
It has also saddled them with bills for hospitalization, therapy, rehabilitation and attendant care, among others, the document says.
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The suit was filed in April, just weeks after Muzzo was sentenced on four counts of impaired driving causing death and two of impaired driving causing bodily harm.
During Muzzo's criminal trial, court heard he picked up his Jeep from the airport parking lot and drove through a stop sign shortly afterward, plowing into the driver's side of the minivan carrying the Neville-Lake family. He was speeding at the time.
The court heard he was so drunk at the time of the crash that he urinated on himself and needed help standing.
The Neville-Lake's lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.The Department of Education needs to go back to school.
Or at least whoever is in charge of the its Twitter account does - after they committed a series of embarrassing blunders on Sunday morning.
Throughout February, the department has been posting links and quotes that pay tribute to African-American icons to celebrate Black History Month.
It was W.E.B. Du Bois' turn to be recognized on Sunday, but things did not go according to plan.
The Department of Education has been mocked for incorrectly spelling W.E.B Du Bois' name in a tweet celebrating Black History Month
'Education must not simply teach work - it must teach life. – W.E.B. DeBois,' a tweet read.
It would seem that being the first African-American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University and being a co-founder of the NAACP in 1909 is not enough to ensure your name it spelled correctly in a tweet in 2017.
Chelsea Clinton was quick to call out the typo, tweeting: 'Is it funny sad or sad funny that our Dept. of Education misspelled the name of the great W. E. B. Du Bois?'
MSNBC host Chris Hayes joined in, saying: 'We all make mistakes, but c'mon now.'
'Welp, this is a foreshadowing of what #BetsyDeVos is going to usher in @usedgov. FFS! It's #BlackHistoryMonth too!' former Democratic congressional candidate in Wisconsin Khary Penebaker wrote.
This is the tweet the Department of Education sent on Sunday morning including the embarrassing misspelling
A number of people, including Chelsea Clinton and Keith Olbermann, were quick to blast the Department of Education for the typo
Political pundit Keith Olbermann also chimed in, tweeting: 'Thanks, Betsy DeVos. His name is W.E.B. DuBois. And to anticipate your next illiteracy, no, you don't pronounce it "web." #DeptOfUneducation.'
The blunder quickly spread across social media, with others taking the time to poke fun at DeVos' department.
'OMG, it's DuBois. Who is in charge over there?...oh, wait, I get it,' Jennifer Morgan said.
'I see they left Ms. "DuVos" in charge of the @usedgov Twitter feed,' Jason Tocci wrote.
The department eventually corrected the mistake by sending out a new tweet - however in the first message apologizing for the error it made another mistake by giving its 'deepest apologizes for the typo'
'Pretty perfect for this misspelling to take place right after DeVos took the reins,' Jesse Singal added.
The incorrect tweet was published at 8:45am, and it wasn't until 12:14pm the account mentioned the mistake - but even that did not go according to plan.
'Post updated - our deepest apologizes for the earlier typo,' a tweet read, before it sent out the same quote and picture as earlier with the correct spelling.
Minutes later, a correction for the incorrect previous correction was sent, reading: 'Post updated - our deepest apologies for the earlier typo.'
The original blunder has been retweeted more than 1,250 times.
People were quick to link the blunder to Betsy DeVos (pictured) - who was one of Trump's most controversial cabinet picks
DeVos was one of the most controversial picks for Trump's cabinet, with vice-president Mike Pence having to historically vote to break the tie to see her confirmed.
Every single Democrat voted against DeVos getting the gig, as well as two Republicans - Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.
DeVos' critics have accused her of not being a supporter of public schools, with many saying public education will be under threat during her time in charge of the department.
The mistake around William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, who died in 1963, is the second high profile blunder for the Trump team during Black History Month.
Trump himself came under fire on February 1 after he spoke of Frederick Douglass, and appeared to not know the civil rights icon was dead.
'Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice,' the president said at the time.
Douglass died in 1895.Get the biggest MyWestLondon News stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
A champion canoeist and former police officer has been named as UKIP's candidate for Brentford and Isleworth.
Richard Hendron served with the Metropolitan Police for nine years, rising to the rank of inspector, before becoming a barrister.
He is the commodore of Richmond Canoe Club and a five-time winner of the 125-mile Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Race, in which some 600 people compete each year.
The 34-year-old, of Ealing, was on the Conservative candidate list, having helped with Oliver Letwin's successful campaign at the 2010 General Election. But he switched ranks two years ago as he felt the party had lost touch sight of what it stood for.
"I felt the Tories were moving away from their policies and abandoning what they stood for, and I wasn't particularly impressed with David Cameron's premiership," he said. "There are probably two issues most people realise UKIP stands for, which is controls on immigration and withdrawal from the European Union, but they don't always appreciate the knock-on effect immigration has on so many other policy areas.
"When I was with the Met, I would see on a pretty much daily basis the huge demand for schools, housing and hospitals caused by uncontrolled immigration.
"It's only sensible you have control over the numbers coming in because otherwise it's impossible to plan for the impact."
Mr Hendron grew up in west London and has always lived between Ealing and Richmond. He attended Gunnersbury Catholic School, in Brentford, and West Thames College, in Isleworth, before joining the Met aged 19 and serving on the front line in Southall and Hounslow, among other areas.
His time in the force means he inevitably has strong views on policing.
He believes there are far too many unwarranted PCSOs today, although he says they do have their place like manning police cordons.
He also opposes short-term prison sentences, which he says often end up alienating criminals and making them more likely to reoffend. He insists the focus should be on rehabilitation, and says community service is a more effective punishment.
Away from policing, another big bugbear of his is hospital parking charges, which he described as "a tax on the unwell" and said UKIP would move to scrap.
He remains on the fence when it comes to expansion at Heathrow, saying he is not against a third runway in principle provided those living under the flight paths are properly compensated.
He claimed it was important to keep an open mind until the Airports Commission, which is weighing up the relative merits of expanding Heathrow or Gatwick, announces it conclusions after the election.
Away from the turbulent political waters, Mr Hendron's big passion is canoeing. He first picked up a paddle in his teens and has won numerous medals, including victory in the world's longest canoe race, the 1,000-mile Yukon 1000 Canoe and Kayak Race in Canada, for which he said he still holds the fastest time ever recorded.
UKIP failed to win a seat on Hounslow Council at last year's local election, despite a number of Tory councillors defecting to the party.
Former Hounslow UKIP group leader Colin Botterill, himself a Tory defector, said last year the party should not risk "watering down" the Conservative vote by putting forward a candidate for Brentford and Isleworth.
UKIP has yet to announce its candidate to stand in Feltham and Heston at the General Election on May 7.The new life of dead trees
Dani Tinker, with the National Wildlife Federation, on the wonderful weird things growing in that felled log out back.
I recently learned that dead trees provide vital habitat for more than 1,000 species of wildlife nationwide. The two most common types of dead wood you’ll find in your yard, along a trail or at a park are snags (upright) and logs (on the ground). Despite their name, dead trees are crawling with life. From the basking lizards on top to the beetles underneath, the list of wildlife that depend on logs feels endless. Here’s a sampling of what you may find if you explore a log more closely.
Atop
Summer is a fantastic time to find lizards, turtles and other cold-blooded species basking in the sun. This behavior is primarily a matter of thermoregulation, but may also be a means to regulate Vitamin D. Ants, snails and other insects are often found crawling along a log, while chipmunks and squirrels may use it as a place to rest.
Inside
Logs provide great cover for small mammals like foxes, rabbits, bobcats, skunks and raccoons. Bobcats are known to nap inside logs, while foxes may use it as a place to build their den. The inside of a log also provides protection from some predators. The picture below is of a red-tail hawk attempting to get a squirrel, who cleverly took refuge inside a log.
Under
A nature walk rarely feels complete without flipping at least one log. The treasures beneath a log may include beetles, worms, spiders, salamanders, newts or centipedes. What you find on your flipping adventure will depend on the time of year, weather, moisture, and a number of other factors, but it’s all worth it. As you flip, roll the log back toward you, using it as a barrier and giving critters a chance to get away.
Beside
Snakes will often use the space next to a log to rest or look for food. Since logs are crawling with life (prey to a snake), it’s a good place to find a meal. They might also curl up against or inside a log to rest and stay hidden from predators. Egg-laying snake species may deposit their clutches in or under a logs to keep them protected.
Attached To
Moss, fungi and lichen are a few special organisms that can be found growing on logs. The simple structure of mosses (a type of bryophyte) allow them to grow where other plants may not be able. Dead wood is a place where many species of lichen and fungi thrive as well.
Appreciate Logs
Whether you explore logs along your next nature walk. or decide to keep one in your backyard, logs need some appreciation. They provide both cover and a place for wildlife to raise their young. It’s also a step toward qualifying your yard as an official Certified Wildlife Habitat.
Understandably, not everyone wants or has space for dead wood in their yard. You can visit a local nature site and investigate the wildlife that depend on logs near you. Enter your zip code into Nature Find to get a list of parks and trails nearby.
What have you observed on, under or near a dead tree?
This article was originally published by The National Wildlife Federation.Ethel Easter arrived at the Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston last year after finding blood in her urine and suffering from excruciating abdominal pain.
She was dealing with a hiatal hernia, a condition where the upper part of a person’s stomach punches through the diaphragm into their chest cavity. In her case, the rupture was causing deep internal bruising that was visible from the outside of her stomach.
Though Easter, 44, assumed that her constant pain and worrisome symptoms would demand immediate attention, the surgeon that she initially met with, she said, was dismissive of her condition and informed her that she would have to wait two months. In an interview with The Washington Post, she described that when she insisted to the surgeon that she couldn’t wait that long, he began to yell at her.
“Well, who do you think you are?” Easter recalled the doctor saying. “You’re gonna wait like everybody else.”
Easter told ABC News that even after her allegedly poor experience with the surgeon—and learning from another doctor during a separate visit that the surgeon had left “bad notes” in her file—she didn’t want to reschedule her surgery at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, a member of the Harris Health System. A month after her first meeting, she was scheduled to have the necessary operation at Lyndon B. Johnson, albeit with doctors from the University of Texas Health Science Center.
But she returned to the hospital with a plan: before going under anesthesia, she tucked a small audio recorder into her ponytail in case anything inappropriate was said or done to her while she was unconscious.
“I was fearful,” she told the Washington Post. “I didn’t know if I was going to come out of the surgery, so I just wanted my family to know if something went on.”
As Easter went under, the recorder began to pick up the surgeon’s conversation with other doctors in the room. She later learned that what they said was awful.
The doctors began by recalling Easter’s earlier displeasure with her surgeon who mockingly said that she’s threatened to find a lawyer.
“That doesn’t seem like the thing to say to the person who’s going to do your surgery,” another doctor in the room replied.
But Easter insists that she never mentioned seeking legal assistance. As the recording goes on, the doctors’ comments become less and less professional, eventually turning into cruel, racially-charge jokes about her body.
“Precious, yes, this is Precious over here,” the surgeon repeatedly said. “Saying hi to Precious over there.”
Easter believes that the surgeon was making references to the 2009 film about an overweight, mentally disabled woman who is sexually abused by her parents. Later, toward the end of the procedure, the surgeons describe Easter’s surgery as having ben full of “teachable moments” and suggest that perhaps they touch and take pictures of her.
When the anesthesiologist asks the surgeon if he should “touch her,” the surgeon replies that he’ll do it.
“That’s a Bill Cosby suggestion,” an unidentified person says. “Everybody’s got things on phones these days. Everybody’s got a camera.”
From Easter’s perspective, the doctors’ comments were sexual in nature, but what ultimately prompted her to raise issue with the hospital was the fact that her surgeon spoke on his cellphone during the surgery and seemingly ignored the fact that she’d informed him of her allergy to penicillin.
After the surgery, she was given a drug known to have adverse side-effects on people with penicillin allergies that caused Easter’s arms to swell dramatically and required her to go to the emergency room days later.
“He jeopardized my life,” she told The Washington Post. “It’s just by the grace of God that I’m even alive right now. It was an unnecessary risk that he took with me.”
Not long after her recovery, she wrote a letter to Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital detailing her ordeal along with a copy of the audio. The hospital issued a deflective response:
“With regards to the recording, as I explained in my prior correspondence, we reminded the OR staff and physicians to be mindful of their comments at all times,” Stacey Mitchell, head of risk management and patient safety forHarris Health System, responded. “After carefully listening to the recording that you provided, Harris Health does not believe further action is warranted at this time.”
When asked about their employees’ involvement in Easter’s surgery, the University of Texas Health Science Center told ABC News that it was not in a position to comment due to patient confidentiality laws.
Now, Easter says that all she wants is an apology from the hospital and for them to own up to what they did.
“This is for all the workers and the doctors: Don’t do this,” she told the paper. “Just treat people the way they would like their mother, their sister, their wives to be treated.”Conservatives and Lib Dems publish document explaining what the two parties have agreed
David Cameron and Nick Clegg published a seven-page document detailing the key policy agreements of Britain's first peacetime coalition government since the 1930s.
The document is the first step towards a full coalition deal that will cover the five-year parliament.
The parties have reached agreement on the most difficult areas first and will address less contentious areas in the coming weeks.
In the initial document the parties have agreed:
• Reducing Britain's £163bn fiscal deficit will be the first priority. There will be a "significantly accelerated reduction" in the structural element of the deficit over the parliament.
• Tory plans to raise the threshold for inheritance tax to £1m has been dropped. Plans for a marriage tax break survive but the Lib Dems will be free to abstain.
• A cap on immigration will be imposed after the Lib Dems dropped their plans for earned citizenship for illegal immigrants.
• A referendum on the alternative vote system will be held.
• Tory plans to repatriate the social chapter from the EU have been dropped.
• Educational resources will be directed at disadvantaged pupils.
• A "freedom bill" or "great reform bill" will be introduced to scrap ID cards.
The new foreign secretary, William Hague, described |
Blingo is still pretty fun regardless. There are a few unique twists to the classic Bingo game to make it a bit more interesting, as well as daily tournaments/leagues to compete in to see who is the best bingo player on iOS. You can also unlock a handful of boosts to increase your odds of winning the game.
#4 – Farkle Live – Free
I was introduced to Farkle a couple of years ago, and I really enjoyed the board game version. The mobile version is great as well, and features an exact replication of the original. There is a multiplayer mode on this game, but it uses a dated Energy system which I personally do not care for one bit. It is still a fun game to play against the AI, and can keep you entertained for hours.
The mobile version of Stone Age allows players to complete a game much quicker than the table-top version, and it’s one of the few board games which is almost a little bit better on mobile. Of course nothing can beat the physical experience, but Stone Age is a prime example of what a mobile adaptation of a board game should look like.
There is a great tutorial that will help new players get acquainted quickly, and a variety of options in regards to how the game is played — such as online, single player vs AI, or even single-device/multiple people play. It is a bit more expensive than other board games on iOS, but definitely worth the money.
Fortunately, the most epic board game of all-time received a proper mobile port. Dungeons and Dragons: Lords of Waterdeep, offers the full D&D experience and then some. You can do pass and play with your friends, as well as real-time multiplayer online, or you can use AI. There is tons of customization, and a near endless amount of content to play through.
There are even expansions available for this game, so you can keep playing through new and exciting content with your friends. Like Stone Age, it’s a bit spendy, but if you want a really solid mobile board game you’ve gotta fork up the cash.
#1 – Words With Friends – Free
Since Words with Friends didn’t show up anywhere else on the list, I’m sure you expected to see it here at #1. I know there are quite a few people who are against this game for some reason, but it is one of the few mobile board games that is free, and actually works. Connect to Facebook and you can challenge anyone on your friends list to a game of Scrab — er, I mean, “Words with Friends”.
That does it for our list of the Top 10 Board Games for iOS! Let us know what you think of this list in the comment section below, and share your favorite mobile board game with the Pocketmeta community.Over the weekend, Ohio-based jam band The Werks hosted its 7th annual Werk Out Music & Arts Festival at Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio. With headlining sets from STS9, Lettuce, Greensky Bluegrass, and The Werks, as well as amazing performances from Dopapod, Twiddle, The Motet, Earphunk (performing as 'Daft Phunk'), Turkuaz, CBDB, Backup Planet, and so many more, this year's Werk Out was wildly successful.
The Werk Out has often been known for its unique tribute sets, such as The Werks, Dopapod, and Papadosio performing Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" in its entirety in 2014. This year's tribute came in the form of Twerkapod, which featured The Werks, Twiddle, and Dopapod performing many of the greatest hits from the 90's from 2:30AM - 4:00AM. Fortunately, select video footage has surfaced on YouTube via Izeoftheworldphotos and Amanda Siedner, which can be seen below.
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Green Day - "Basket Case" (Rob Chafin of The Werks on vocals)
Blink 182 - "All The Small Things" (Chuck Jones of Dopapod on vocals)
Sublime - "Date Rape" (Mihali Savoulidis of Twiddle on vocals)
Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Mihali Savoulidis of Twiddle on vocals)
Harvey Danger - "Flagpole Sitta" (Dan Shaw of The Werks on vocals)
Coolio - "Gangster's Paradise" (Dino & Rob of The Werks on vocals)
Rage Against The Machine - "Killing In The Name" (Dino of The Werks on vocals)
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Give It Away" (Mihali Savoulidis of Twiddle on vocals)
Britney Spears - "Hit Me Baby One More Time (Chuck Jones of Dopapod on vocals)
Third Eye Blind - "Semi-Charmed Life" (Rob Chafin of The Werks on vocals)
Hanson - "Mmm Bop" (Scotty Zwang of Dopapod on vocals)
Spin Doctors - "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" (Rob Chafin of The Werks on vocals)
Blues Traveler - "Run Around" (Mihali Savoulidis of Twiddle on vocals)
Radiohead - "Creep" (Eli Winderman of Dopapod on vocals)
Foo Fighters - "I'll Stick Around" (Scotty Zwang of Dopapod on vocals)
TLC - "Waterfalls" (Mihali Savouldis of Twiddle & Scotty Zwang of Dopapod on vocals
Encore: The Verve - "Bittersweet Symphony" (Chris Houser of The Werks on vocals)
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Watch footage of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Nirvana) here:
Watch footage of "Flagpole Sitta" (Harvey Danger) here:
Watch footage of Gangster's Paradise (Coolio) here:
Watch footage of "Killing In The Name" (RATM) here:
Watch footage of "Hit Me Baby One More Time" (Britney Spears) here:
Watch footage of "Run Around" (Blues Traveler) here:
Watch footage of "Creep" (Radiohead) here:
Watch footage of "Waterfalls" (TLC) here:Think of North Korea, and repression, starvation and military provocation are probably the first things that come to mind. But beyond the geopolitical posturing, North Korea has also been quietly building up its IT industry.
Offshoring: The 25 Most Dangerous Cities for Outsourcing in 2010
Universities have been graduating computer engineers and scientists for several years, and companies have recently sprung up to pair the local talent with foreign needs, making the country perhaps the world's most unusual place for IT outsourcing.
With a few exceptions, such as in India, outsourcing companies in developing nations tend to be small, with fewer than 100 employees, said Paul Tija, a Rotterdam-based consultant on offshoring and outsourcing. But North Korea already has several outsourcers with more then 1,000 employees.
"The government is putting an emphasis on building the IT industry," he said. "The availability of staff is quite large."
At present, the country's outsourcers appear to be targeting several niche areas, including computer animation, data input and software design for mobile phones. U.S. government restrictions prevent American companies from working with North Korean companies, but most other nations don't have such restrictions.
The path to IT modernization began in the 1990s but was cemented in the early 2000s when Kim Jong Il, the de-facto leader of the country, declared people who couldn't use computers to be one of the three fools of the 21st century. (The others, he said, are smokers and those ignorant of music.)
But outsourcing in North Korea isn't always easy.
Language can be a problem, and a lack of experience dealing with foreign companies can sometimes slow business dealings, said Tija. But the country has one big advantage.
"It is one of the most competitive places in the world. There are not many other countries where you can find the same level of knowledge for the price," said Tija.
The outsourcer with the highest profile is probably Nosotek. The company, established in 2007, is also one of the few Western IT ventures in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.
"I understood that the North Korean IT industry had good potential because of their skilled software engineers, but due to the lack of communication it was almost impossible to work with them productively from outside," said Volker Eloesser, president of Nosotek. "So I took the next logical step and started a company here."
Nosotek uses foreign expats as project managers to provide an interface between customers and local workers. In doing so it can deliver the level of communication and service its customers expect, Eloesser said.
On its Web site the company boasts access to the best programmers in Pyongyang.
"You find experts in all major programming languages, 3D software development, 3D modelling and design, various kind of server technologies, Linux, Windows and Mac," he said.
Nosotek's main work revolves around development of Flash games and games for mobile phones. It's had some success and claims that one iPhone title made the Apple Store Germany's top 10 for at least a week, though it wouldn't say which one.
Several Nosotek-developed games are distributed by Germany's Exonet Games, including one block-based game called "Bobby's Blocks."
"They did a great job with their latest games and the communication was always smooth," said Marc Busse, manager of digital distribution at the Leipzig-based company. "There's no doubt I would recommend Nosotek if someone wants to outsource their game development to them."
Eloesser admits there are some challenges to doing business from North Korea.
"The normal engineer has no direct access to the Internet due to government restrictions. This is one of the main obstacles when doing IT business here," he said. Development work that requires an Internet connection is transferred across the border to China.
But perhaps the biggest problem faced by North Korea's nascent outsourcing industry is politics.
Sanctions imposed on the country by the United States make it all but impossible for American companies to trade with North Korea.
"I know several American companies that would love to start doing IT outsourcing in North Korea, but because of political reasons and trade embargoes they can't," Tija said.
Things aren't so strict for companies based elsewhere, including those in the European Union, but the possible stigma of being linked to North Korea and its ruling regime is enough to make some companies think twice.
The North Korean government routinely practices arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and ill treatment of detainees, and allows no political opposition, free media or religious freedom, according to the most recent annual report from Human Rights Watch. Hundreds of thousands of citizens are kept in political prison camps, and the country carries out public executions, the organization said.
With this reputation some companies might shy away from doing business with the country, but Exonet Games didn't have any such qualms, said Busse.
"It's not like we worked with the government," he said. "We just worked with great people who have nothing to do with the dictatorship."Ibogaine is an alkaloid purported to be an effective drug dependence treatment. However, its efficacy has been hard to evaluate, partly because it is illegal in some countries. In such places, treatments are conducted in underground settings where fatalities have occurred. In Brazil ibogaine is unregulated and a combined approach of psychotherapy and ibogaine is being practiced to treat addiction. To evaluate the safety and efficacy of ibogaine, we conducted a retrospective analysis of data from 75 previous alcohol, cannabis, cocaine and crack users (72% poly-drug users). We observed no serious adverse reactions or fatalities, and found 61% of participants abstinent. Participants treated with ibogaine only once reported abstinence for a median of 5.5 months and those treated multiple times for a median of 8.4 months. This increase was statistically significant ( p < 0.001), and both single or multiple treatments led to longer abstinence periods than before the first ibogaine session ( p < 0.001). These results suggest that the use of ibogaine supervised by a physician and accompanied by psychotherapy can facilitate prolonged periods of abstinence, without the occurrence of fatalities or complications. These results suggest that ibogaine can be a safe and effective treatment for dependence on stimulant and other non-opiate drugs.
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Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI“IT got really bad.”
Wallabies superstar Israel Folau has opened up on his issues with depression, alcohol and women in an extraordinary interview with New Zealand’s 1News.
Folau, the NRL, AFL and rugby code-hopper, is on a tour of NZ with Warriors cult hero Manu Vatuvei as the high profile duo try to raise awareness of mental health issues.
Now 27-years-old and recognised as a wonderful role model for young sportspeople, Folau has revealed the demons he battled when first breaking into the limelight.
He made his NRL debut for the Storm as a 17-year-old and quickly conquered the league world with a grand final victory, State of Origin triumphs and a Kangaroos Test call-up.
“I was taught some very good life lessons and morals as a young kid growing up,” Folau said.
“As soon as I achieved all those things, it kind of went out the window.
“I got caught up in all the party things and I guess I’d say my head was above the clouds.
“I just thought that I was untouchable.”
Folau moved to Brisbane for family reasons in 2009 but got caught up in the Broncos’ drinking culture of the time, getting “plastered” with teammates and meeting “random women.”
Israel Folau of the Wallabies looks dejected after losing at AAMI Park. Source: Getty Images
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“It got really bad,” Folau said.
“Most people don’t realise there’s certain things that players go through off the field.
“Most times guys are good at hiding things.
“I just got caught up in the alcohol, women and all that sort of stuff.
“I was almost like a different person.”
He then took up a $4 million deal with the AFL’s Greater Western Sydney Giants.
But Folau’s depression battles continued as he struggled to meet the enormous public expectations in a completely new code.
Wallabies player Israel Folau arrives at Sydney Airport. Source: AFP
“No-one else could help me,” Folau said.
“I can only get so much from my family and my friends and they can only say so much to make me feel good
“But when you go to sleep at night you’re by yourself and your head is racing a thousand miles an hour.”
After hitting rock bottom in 2011, Folau was able to reconnect with his spiritual side and started putting his life back on the right path.
Now a global rugby star, Folau was a mentor for young Reds prospect Taniela Tupou — also of Tongan heritage — during the Wallabies’ spring tour of the UK and France.
“Obviously I didn’t know what he was going through beforehand but we started to open up and he felt like he needed to get a few things right in his life,” Folau said.
“It was just the two of us and it was a touching experience for me, sharing and him wanting to give his life to Christ and I prayed for him.”
Maria Tutaia and Israel Folau have announced their engagement. Source: Twitter
Folau is now engaged to Auckland-based Kiwi netball star Maria Tutaia and the pair are unsure where they will live after their wedding.
Although he is contracted to the Waratahs and Australian Rugby Union till 2018, he offered a cheeky hint at a Super Rugby switch during the 1News interview, saying: “See you at the Blues!”
Folau has scored 20 tries in 51 Tests for the Wallabies since making his debut in 2013.
Live stream the Brisbane Global Rugby Tens Tournament on FOX SPORTS. Get your free 2-week FOXTEL PLAY trial and start watching in minutes. SIGN UP NOW >Dungeon Overview
The Shadows of the Innocents update introduces three new pieces of instanced content, including the expansive open world 24-member Twisted Grimhorn Wilds.
See more on the Shadows of the Innocents Dungeons overview article.
Shadows of the Innocents 2.4 Patch Notes
General
A new Daily Dash is available and will run from 7/20 through 8/24.
The Tidal Treasures event is live and will run from 7/20 through 8/24. Earn Corallite by completing Daily Quests for specific Heroic Dungeons. Additional Corallite will also be available through various bundles on the Hongmoon Store. Use the Corallite to upgrade your Oceanic Weapons. If the upgrade is unsuccessful, you will receive Coral Fragments based on the weapon stage reached. Trade in Oceanic Weapons and Coral Fragments for rewards in Dragon Express including: Asura Ember Taikhan's Skin Flawless Sparkling Hongmoon Hexagonal Peridot Flawless Sparkling Hongmoon Hexagonal Sapphire Oceanic Nebula Stone Summer Time Cool for the Summer
The Seeds of Growth event is live and will run from 7/20 through 8/24. Complete the following quests to earn Growth Seeds Quest Name Quest Type Dungeon Reward Into the Tomb Daily Tomb of the Exiles Moonwater Growth Seed x1 Run and Gun Dynamic Blackram Supply Chain Moonwater Growth Seed x2 Do What You Want, 'Cause A Pirate Is Free Dynamic Bloodshade Harbor Moonwater Growth Seed x2 Grimhorn Reaper Daily Twisted Grimhorn Wilds Silverfrost Growth Seed x1 Doom and Gloomdross Dynamic Gloomdross Incursion Silverfrost Growth Seed x1 The Protean Lord Dynamic The Shattered Masts Silverfrost Growth Seed x2 Silverfrost Growth Seeds also have a chance to drop from Umbral Lord Baruk in Gloomdross Incursion and Protean Lord Taikhan in The Shattered Masts Use your hard-earned Growth Seeds to create Life Chests in the Transmutation menu to earn rewards including but not limited to: Moonwater Life Chest Moonwater Tear Hae Mujin's Machismo Poharan's Perfume Moonwater Transformation Stone Silverfrost Life Chest Frozen Stinger Soulstone Moonstone
Increased the amount of experience gained from story quests.
A new Hongmoon skill is available for every class and can be unlocked by consuming an Offal of Silence, Offal of Darkness, and Offal of Luminance.
Fixed an issue where the resize button was not appearing properly in the B&S TV UI.
PvP
The title for equipping Indomitable Will has been updated to Indomitable Warrior
The title for equipping Steel WIll has been updated to Warrior of the Realm
Season 3 PvP Rewards have been updated to provide more Moonstones and have a smoother overall distribution of value.
Items
Offal of Silence, Darkness, and Luminance are now available from the Zen Bean and Whirlwind Valley Trader NPCs as well as the Premium Membership Tab on Dragon Express.
Flawless Sparkling Hongmoon Hexagonal Aquamarine is now Bound to Account and can be transmuted.
Moonstones are now available from Ironheart (Floor 14) and Naksun (Floor 15) in Mushin's Tower.
Removed Soulstone costs required to craft most Moonwater Plains items including Moonwater Transformation Stone and Purifciation Jar.
Slightly increased the acquisition rate of Hae Mujin's Machismo from the following dungeons: Awakened Necropolis Avalanche Den Lair of the Frozen Fang
Moonwater Tears are now available from the following dungeons: Hall of Ogong Shrieking Caverns Talus Dungeon Chuanka Frost Cavern
Reduced the acquisition rate of Petal of Lament from the following dungeons: Sogun's Lament Cold Storage Heaven's Mandate
Localization(UPDATED) Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr stresses the Philippines' 'pragmatic approach' toward the West Philippine Sea dispute
Published 3:05 PM, January 11, 2017
MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – While hosting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit this year, the Philippines rejected the prospect of raising Manila's legal victory against Beijing during the regional meeting.
"We are not going to raise this issue…because there is really no useful benefit," Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr said in a news conference on Wednesday, January 11.
Yasay was referring to the ruling by an arbitral tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration against China's expansive claim over the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
Yasay explained that the arbitral ruling "is something that's there."
"It's a final and binding decision to the parties. Whatever is said or discussed by anyone outside, and third parties to the case, will not change the decision," the Philippines' top diplomat said.
"We have used the decision as the firm legal basis for us to pursue our claims and move forward when we are able to engage China in negotiating for the implementation of that ruling," he added.
At the same time, Yasay hailed the Duterte administration's "pragmatic approach" toward the sea dispute. He said one of its positive effects is "the return of our Filipino fishermen to the Scarborough Shoal without the Philippines asking China to let them go back."
"The return of our Filipino fishermen to the shoal proves the effectiveness of our pragmatic approach in dealing with China concerning this highly contentious issue," he said.
"This approach had meant working on other aspects of our bilateral relations with China as confidence-building measures until such time that both sides are ready to tackle the South China Sea issue hopefully with greater flexiblity and openness in resolving the dispute," he added.
Framework COC eyed
In Thursday's news conference, Yasay also said ASEAN and China plan to finalize a framework code of conduct (COC) in the South China Sea by mid-2017.
"The framework COC, if we are able to complete this by mid-2017, will somehow be part of the report to our ASEAN meetings for the year," Yasay said.
The proposed COC is a binding agreement to ensure peace and stability in the South China Sea, parts of which the Philippines claims as the West Philippine Sea.
Before |
also leads to an improvement in attention, reasoning and higher functioning.
There is evidence also that the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease goes up significantly with weight gain. Fasting is the best way to reduce body fat levels. It may also help to stop Alzheimer’s Disease from developing. Deep Link
Easing Into Fasting
Intermittent fasting – the periodic, short-term voluntary cessation of food intake – is the solution to getting rid of the stored food that takes the form of unsightly body fat on your body. But there are a number of variations of intermittent fasting that you can select from.
You may choose to ease into intermittent fasting slowly, or you may decide to jump in with both feet. Going slowly is probably the wisest courses for newbies. You can begin by gradually lengthening the time between when you get up in the morning and when you have your breakfast.
Let’s say that you had your last meal the previous evening at 8pm. You get up at 7am and usually eat breakfast at 7:30. That means that you’ve already been fasting for 11.5 hours. Start to extend this fasting period by moving out your breakfast. LifeExtension.com
Take it to 9am in the first week.
Then extend it to 10am.
At the end of the first month, you should have extended your fast until midday. That will provide you with a 16 hour fast and an 8 hour feeding window each day. This is, in fact, the most common pattern of intermittent fasting.
Alternatively, you can dive straight into a 24 hour fast. Here you stop eating in the early evening, usually around 6pm. You then go right through into the next day without eating anything until 6pm. You haven’t eaten for 24 hours, but you have taken in calories on both days. If you prefer this type of fast, you should work up to doing it 2-3 times per week.
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To really speed up your fat loss, you can progress to multiple consecutive days of fasting. Of course, if you are on medication, you should consult your physician before attempting Intermittent Fasting. You will still be able to benefit from fasting, but your doctor will be able to help you to adjust your medications timing to suit.
Why You Should Stop Eating Breakfast
Once you get your body used to the concept of fasting, you should ease into the habit of skipping breakfast. Doing so will automatically out you into a 16 / 8 fast.
Of course, we’ve been conditioned in the belief that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Yet, there is no validity in that statement. It is no more important than any other meal. The fact that most people’s breakfasts are filled with processed carbs makes the claim even more dubious.
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Breakfast is the meal that breaks our overnight fast. However, there is no rule that dictates at what time we have to do that. If you want to break your fast at midday, you’re not going to be struck by lightning. Of course, when you do so, you have in effect skipped breakfast and gone directly into lunch.
Skipping your breakfast makes sense beyond a fasting level. Early in the morning, people are rushed. As a result, they grab the quickest, most convenient breakfast food at their disposal – usually some form of highly processed cereal. That means that they are pouring a tome of sugar down their throat, which is going to massively spike their insulin and lead to even more fat storage.
Skipping breakfast, then, makes your life a whole lot simpler while helping your body to eat away at its fat stores.
Be Prepared for Challenges
As with anything new, intermittent fasting will be challenging to break into. One of the biggest challenges will probably be the negative comments of other people. With the best of intentions, they’ll tell you that what you’re doing is crazy. People will use bro science to try to convince you that you’ll be forcing your body into starvation mode. BulletProof Coffee
You can rest assured, however, that intermittent fasting is a scientifically sound, perfectly logical and natural method of reversing insulin levels in order to combat obesity. Many thousands of people have used it and are using it to get their bodies back – and so can you.
Will I Be Constantly Hungry?
Many people think that going on a fast will cause them to be in a constant state of hunger. The truth is that the majority of people find the exact opposite – fasting actually leads to a reduction in hunger. How can this be? Deep Link
There are many reasons that a person may become hungry –and most of them have nothing to do with us actually being hungry. One of the biggest reason we get hungry is because we have become conditioned to eat at certain times. When the clock hits 7am, 12pm and 6pm, the majority of us expect to be eating. We tell ourselves that we need to eat and then convince ourselves that we are hungry.
There are many more conditioned responses that make us think that we are hungry. Try going to a movie and not having popcorn and a coke. It’s not easy because that is what we have been conditioned to do. It’ got nothing to do with hunger at all.
So, how can we break out of the conditioned response to eating trap?
With intermittent fasting, when you begin on an intermittent fasting eating pattern, you are forced to break yourself out of the breakfast, lunch and dinner pattern. It’s usually the breakfast that goes, with the other two meals being compressed into a 6-hour time frame.
Confused about your body type? > > >
This will be tough at the start. You will get hungry at the conditioned breakfast, lunch and dinner times. It won’t take long, however, for this conditioned response to go away. When you do, you will have transitioned to an unconditioned response to food. That means that you will finally be eating because you are hungry.
When you discipline yourself to stick to your Intermittent Fasting periods of not eating, you will break yourself away from all of those other unhealthy conditioned responses.
By fitting overnight sleeping into your daily fast, you will find it much easier to stick to without having hunger pangs. All you have to do is to skip breakfast.
Will I lose Muscle When I Fast?
A lot of people who are keen to begin Intermittent Fasting in order to benefit from it’s potential to get rid of body fat are worried about losing muscle tissue.
They don’t need to worry. Shop Bulletproof Brain Octane oil
Intermittent Fasting and a low carb high fat dieting will help you to lose the fat. Resistance exercise will help you to build the muscle. The two are separate issues.
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Even though the bodybuilding supplement companies would love to convince you otherwise, muscle gain is the result of working out. Of course, you also require a certain amount of protein. But, it is nowhere near the amount that the bodybuilding magazines (who are funded by the supplement companies) would try to convince us to that we need.
You can, in fact, build all the muscle you’ll ever need by taking in half a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. By eating a low carb, high fat, medium protein diet, you’ll get that amount of protein with ease.
What about the concern that fasting will cause your body to burn muscle for energy when it runs out of glucose?
The answer is that it doesn’t. When you start your fast, your energy will come from a mix of carbohydrates, fat, and protein as you utilize the food that you have been eating previously. Because the body has a limited ability to store sugar, however, you will soon deplete the glycogen levels in your muscles cells. When that happens, you will begin to burn fat for energy.
At the same time, you will conserve, rather than burn up, muscle. Unlike fat, the consumption of protein does not go up. In a 2010 study, researchers studied the effect on muscle mass on a group of men who undertook alternate daily fasting.
The average level of lean body mass of the group at the beginning of the period was 52.9 kg. At the end of 70 days of alternate fasting (one day on / one day off), the average lean body mass was 51.9 kg.
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From this study, we can see that fasting does not make us lose muscle mass. However, there was a significant amount of fat loss in the study group. That is what we would expect because the body is programmed to store fat for emergency energy stores. That is not the function of muscle tissue.
Can You Exercise While Fasting?
A lot of people believe that you cannot do justice to an exercise session if you go into it fasted. They base their belief on the idea that you need carbs for energy. If you don’t eat, you’ll be sluggish and lack training oomph.
Whenever we consume food, no matter what food it is, our insulin levels will go up. That insulin will direct the body utilize some of the food energy immediately. What isn’t used up straight away is stored as glycogen in our liver. But after the liver has run out of room to store glycogen, the remainder is stored as body fat.
Any protein that we eat is broken down into amino acids and either used to repair proteins or turned into glucose. Fats that are consumed go straight to the liver.
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One of the main functions of insulin is to prevent the burning of body fat. All of the glucose that comes into the body from the foods we eat is sent around the body to be used for energy.
When you go on a fast, the opposite will happen to when you eat. The stored glucose in the form of fat will be burned up as energy. The fact that you aren’t eating doesn’t mean that you’ll be lacking energy. It simply means that you will be getting that energy from a different source.
When you’re fasting, your basal metabolic rate (BMR) stays the same as when you’re eating. The BMR refers to the amount of energy required to maintain our organs, breathing, and the operation of the circulatory system.
So, what happens when you have a fasted workout?
Your body begins to burn sugar in the form of glycogen. This occurs as a result of the liver breaking down sugar molecules. Glycogen stored in the liver will provide energy for 24 hours. This will be plenty to fuel you through your workout.
What about people who are involved in long-term athletic events, such as a triathlon? Well, there are things that you can do to tap into another energy source while exercising long term.
People who follow a keto diet, which is characterized by very low levels of carbohydrates, train their bodies to switch from using carbs as energy to using stored body fat. When your body transitions to burning body fat, you are not limited by the amount of glycogen in your liver. Deep Link
The more you follow a low carb diet – of which fasting is the ultimate form – the more efficient your body becomes at burning body fat for energy.
It is interesting to note that many top level athletes are turning to low carb diets, often in conjunction with intermittent fasting, in order to achieve their best bodies and their most effective training sessions.
Confused about your body type? > > >
A 1987 study by Knapik et. al considered whether a 3.5 day fast would negatively impact on athletic performance. It was shown that all of the key measures were not impaired in any way. These included anaerobic capacity, strength, and endurance.
There is, however, an adaptive period during which the body transitions from a carbohydrate burner to a fat burner. Often this takes about two weeks. During this time, athletic performance may decrease. That’s because the body isn’t yet used to tapping into stored fat as energy. But, once it does, you will have a virtually unlimited supply of energy to fuel your future workouts.
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Simply lighten your exercise workload during the transition period. If you do weight training, lighten the loads and increase your reps for a couple of weeks or even take a week off from your training.
Why Fasting is the Easiest Option to Lower Insulin
If you have the choice between intermittent fasting and going on a low-carb, high-fat diet, which one should you choose?
Here are five reasons why intermittent fasting is the better option...
It is Easy to Follow – when you try to follow a certain dietary pattern, you can easily become confused. Has this food got carbs in it? What about sugar? Can I eat fruits? Despite your best intentions, it’s easy to let the wrong thing slip in. Yet, when you fast, it’s easy – you simply stop eating! It is Free – When you try to eat a more healthy, low carb diet, you will inevitably find that your food will cost more. But going on a fast, doesn’t cost you anything at all. It’s the most cost-effective diet on the planet! It’s Convenient – Let’s face it, preparing meals can be a chore, especially after a long day at the office. Then there’s the time it takes to do your grocery shopping. Fasting frees up all of that time. It Gives You Choices – Maintaining an intermittent fasting lifestyle gives you the freedom to enjoy certain treats occasionally. Being on top of your food intake 98% of the time makes that piece of cheesecake that much more enjoyable – and it’s guilt free. – Maintaining an intermittent fasting lifestyle gives you the freedom to enjoy certain treats occasionally. Being on top of your food intake 98% of the time makes that piece of cheesecake that much more enjoyable – and it’s guilt free. Shop Bulletproof Brain Octane oil It is Flexible – If you are following a 16/8 fasting pattern, you are able to plan ahead to allow yourself to fit in special events. Let’s say you know that you’re going out for dinner on Saturday, but you normally stop eating at 6pm. You can simply change your cut off time to 9pm on that night and then, instead of fasting until 10 am on Sunday, extend that time out to 2pm. You’ll still be sticking to your 16/8 pattern – and you’ll be able to enjoy your night out.
Combining Intermittent Fasting with LCHF
We now know very clearly that they key to fat loss is the lowering of insulin levels. We have also identified that fasting is the best way to bring down insulin levels. The second best way is to eat a low-carb, high-fat diet.
Carbohydrates stimulate insulin release. High amounts of protein also boost insulin release. But fat does not release insulin at all. So, with very levels of carbs, moderate amounts of proteins and high levels of fats, we can control overall insulin levels. And nothing will keep insulin levels lower than the complete abstinence of food.
Confused about your body type? > > >
Combining Intermittent Fasting with a Low Carb, High Fat Diet is the ultimate one-two punch against fat. If you are on a 16 / 8 intermittent fasting plan, then eat a very low carb diet during your 8 hour re-feeding time. Rely on leafy green vegetables, meats, bacon, eggs and vegetable and coconut oil as your main food sources.
The two forms of eating control complement each other perfectly. When you maintain a very low carb diet, your body will go into a ketogenic state in which you will be burning body fat for energy.
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When you are in this state, your hunger pangs disappear. You don’t even think about eating and meal planning or where your next meal is going to come from. The reason is that your body already has ready access to all the food it wants in the form of your stored body fat. This makes it much easier to maintain your fasting and your low carb eating plan.
When we realize that the average person has about 40,000 calories that your body can access at any time, there is always plenty of energy available. It’s no surprise, then, that you won’t need as much food as when you are a glucose burner.
Summary
In this article, we have identified that the real cause of weight gain is, not consuming too many calories, but elevated levels of insulin. In order to lose weight, we need to forget about the calories in /calories out mentality that keeps so many people on an endless spiral of weight gain.
Driving down our level of insulin will cause us to lose weight. BulletProof Coffee
In order to drive down insulin, we need to stop eating the way that the Western world has been conditioned to eat. That means no longer eating multiple meals each day in the belief that it will speed up the metabolism (it won’t). All it will do is to spike your insulin levels.
The way to lower your insulin levels is to stop eating the foods that elevate it. Of the three macronutrients, carbohydrates have the greatest ability to spike insulin. Taking in too much protein can also bring insulin levels up. However, eating fat has no effect on insulin. Deep Link
Following a very low carb, moderate protein and high-fat diet is the best way to eat to bring down insulin levels. Even better still, is to take in zero carbs and protein. You could conceivably do that with a 100% fat diet, but that is not practical. But intermittent fasting is.
The combination of intermittent fasting and a low carb, high fat diet is, therefore, the very best way to drive down your levels of insulin. In the process, it will allow you to use your stored energy reserves (body fat) for energy.
There is nothing else that will get you leaner, quicker.
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Fattest Cities in America 2016
1. Austin, Texas
2. San Francisco, California
3. Dallas, Texas
4. Seattle, Washington
5. Salt Lake City, Utah
6. Ogden, Utah
7. Orlando, Florida
8. San Jose, California
9. Raleigh, North Carolina
10. Cape Coral, Florida
11. Denver, Colorado
12. San Diego, California
13. Oakland, California
14. Charlotte, North Carolina
15. Phoenix, Arizona
16. Portland, Oregon
17. Boise, Idaho
18. Las Vegas, Nevada
[two_column_block style=”1″] [content1][/content1] [content2][/content2] [/two_column_block]Yes to make it even more clear:
You cannot move over the old wallet to the new app (not the file nor the seed). We use a BIP 44 wallet now which has another internal structure. Simply make a normal bitcoin transaction to move funds.
You cannot export and import the account data. We use Protobuffer as file format instead of Java Serialization for the local data base files. Please setup the new account manually.
If you want to keep your onion address you can copy over the old one from the data directory.
You can only do that if you have not created an offer or trade, otherwise you cannot get contacted anymore!
It is also not tested yet if it has any side effect. I am not aware of any but who knows… So use it at your own risk. I will try to have a look into it soon if there is a good solution to migrate the P2P reputation (nr. of trades with past traders).
You can find the data directory under those locations (the new one used Bisq instead of Bitsquare):
Mac OSX: /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Bitsquare
Linux: /home/username/.local/share/Bitsquare
Windows 7,8: C:\Documents and Settings\username\AppData\Roaming\Bitsquare
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Bitsquare
The key for the tor onion address is here:
[APP DIR]/[NETWORK]/tor/hiddenservice/hostname
[APP DIR]/[NETWORK]/tor/hiddenservice/private_key
We are aware that breaking backward compatibility is nothing what people like, but it would have required quite an effort to build tools for migration. I think most users will prefer that we get soon to the DAO release and to implement new features instead of spending a lot of effort for a one-time event.
We did not break backward compatibility since the initial launch (April 2016).
Sometimes it is required to make bigger changes otherwise one cannot move forward in an efficient way.
Hope you understand that.I just posted this in the OT for Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, but thought the sheer gall at hand here warranted it's own thread.
Paper Jam implements amiibos by letting you scan them and unlocking random cards that provide benefits in battles. You can also make stronger cards by scanning two different amiibos. It's actually a neat mechanic, and a good use of amiibos.
However, there are also "sparkle" cards, which you can only create by scanning two different amiibos of the same character. In other words, the game outright incentivizes buying two of the same amiibo character. Sure, you can borrow one from a friend, but that may not be an option for many people. And why should you need to when you already own that character?
I'm actually quite enjoying the collecting aspect of creating cards by scanning amiibos (you have to find/buy blank cards in the game before you can create them, so it's not just a matter of scanning all your amiibos repeatedly right off the bat), but this means that I can say goodbye to any hope of completing any character's set, because I'm sure as hell not buying the same amiibo twice.
What, you aren't making enough money from people buying these things, Nintendo?Image caption Mr Hester was appointed after RBS was bailed out by the taxpayer
Labour says it will force a Commons vote calling for RBS chief executive Stephen Hester to be stripped of his near-£1m bonus.
It will hold a debate early next month to pressure the government over the £963,000 shares-only payment.
Although not binding, the vote could put the coalition under further pressure to intervene.
The government said it would have caused "chaos" if it had blocked the bonus at the part-publicly owned bank.
A Labour source told BBC political correspondent Vicky Young that David Cameron and the government had failed to act and it was right for Parliament to voice its opinion.
He said this was "one of those moments" when the public was so outraged that Parliament had to assert itself.
Labour can hold a debate on an issue of its choice on one of its allocated "Opposition Days." The next one is scheduled for the week after next.
The coalition is free to ignore the result but it could be uncomfortable for some Lib Dem and Conservative MPs, our correspondent says.
'Up to him'
Earlier on Sunday, cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith said there would have been "chaos" if the government had overruled RBS over the bonus.
Speaking on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show he said it was for Mr Hester to decide whether or not to take his bonus.
"Nobody would be happier than the government if he took such decisions. But it's up to him."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Iain Duncan Smith: "The board takes the decision on this"
He argued that Mr Hester's contract, drawn up under the previous Labour government, meant that the RBS board took the bonus decision.
"If we didn't like that, of course the only option would be to get rid of the board," he said.
"If you do that, imagine what would happen in the banking sector and imagine what would happen to RBS. You would have chaos."
Mr Hester was appointed as the Royal Bank of Scotland's chief executive at the end of 2008 to replace Sir Fred Goodwin, after the bank had to be bailed out by the government, which now owns 82% of the bank.
The bank said the bonus was to recognise his "substantial progress in making RBS safer, rebuilding performance in many businesses and improving customer service and support".
But news of the bonus - to be paid in share options currently worth £963,000, deferred for three years - has annoyed people across the political spectrum.
'Politically inconvenient'
The coalition's Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, was asked on the BBC's Sunday Politics whether the government had considered stopping the bonus.
He said they had given RBS a "strong steer" that they had wanted a big change - and had "looked at all the options" to use their influence. The bonus was less than half what it had been last year, he added.
A bonus on this kind of scale is just not appropriate right now Liam Byrne, Labour
But he said while it had been "politically less convenient" for the government, the alternative was worse.
To have taken direct control over RBS posed greater risks for the "tens of billions" of pounds of taxpayers' money tied up in the bank, he said.
Mr Alexander was not able to confirm if the board had threatened to resign. He said he had not spoken to members of the board directly because the taxpayer's stake in RBS is actually overseen by the arm's length body, UK Financial Investments.
"The view that we took was that by ripping up the terms of the relationship... we would put at much greater risk the very serious amounts of taxpayers' money that are tied up in this bank."
'Loath to act'
Labour reject the government's claims that its hands were tied by Mr Hester's contract.
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne told the BBC's Sunday Politics that a bonus "might be appropriate but certainly not a bonus on this kind of scale".
He said he believed that the government should block the payment.
"The government should be saying to the board, look, we helped put this board in place because the taxpayer owns the company, surely you must see that a bonus on this kind of scale is just not appropriate right now?"
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond blamed both Labour and the Conservatives for the situation.
He said: "I believe the Westminster parties are culpable - Labour made this arrangement in the first place.
"The Conservatives, after calling on shareholders and private companies to do something, seem loath to do something themselves."IN A BID to counter the neknomination phenomenon that has caused controversy in recent weeks, independent TD Luke Ming Flanagan has taken part in #shrednomination – a new video nomination challenge that’s aiming to go viral.
The idea is to do intense and physically demanding exercises and then nominate someone else to take part.
Niamh and Korina from Shred to Toe did their own squat challenge before nominating the Roscommon South Leitrim TD as they aim to “turn a negative into a positive” following the much-debated neknomination controversy.
“You are a healthy, fit guy, you should know what a squat is. Make sure they are deep and low. You have 24 hours,” Niamh told Flanagan.
The deputy duly obliged before nominating Roscommon GAA goalkeeper Shane Curran, The Rubber Bandits and Newstalk presenter Sean Moncrieff to do 20 chin ups:
Over to you lads.Where do you get your protein as a plant-based eater? Many people know that soy products such as tofu and tempeh are a great source of plant-based protein. They also understand that nuts, seeds, and beans make up a bulk of our protein intake. Unfortunately, this leads some to think that all we eat is tofu and beans. This is simply untrue! Here’s a list of 10 vegan foods that are packed with protein.
1. Hummus
Hummus is loaded with protein, courtesy of its two main ingredients, garbanzo beans and tahini. Bored by the plain variety? Try some new hummus flavors that are out of the box, such as this Spicy Sweet Potato Hummus, Fresh Pumpkin and Kale Hummus or Roasted Red Pepper Hummus. Looking for even more protein for your post-workout snack? Try spinach, tofu, avocado or black bean hummus. Get creative!
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Wondering what to do with that leftover jar of homemade tahini? Fortunately, there are many other uses for it besides hummus. Sesame seed paste, or tahini, can be used in salad dressings, dipping sauces, baked goods, spreads, and dips. Use tahini in place of mayonnaise in potato salad or Asian slaw. Another option is to make a warm dressing and serve it over steamed or grilled vegetables.
Garbanzo beans (also known as chickpeas) are extremely versatile. Read all about them in our Spotlight on Chickpeas. Look for garbanzo bean or chickpea flour in the grocery store. It can usually be found in the gluten-free section. Add it to baked goods for a creamy, rich flavor. The flour can also be used as a thickening agent for soups, sauces, and gravies. The traditional Middle Eastern dish falafel is a delicious example of the use of chickpeas. They are also great on salads or simply baked as a snack. Toss them with a little olive oil and the seasonings of your choice. Bake in a 400°F oven until golden and crispy. You now have a healthy alternative to popcorn! This Baked Falafel Salad is AMAZING!
2. Avocado
Avocado contains healthy, monounsaturated fats, which have been shown to slow brain aging. Avocado has also been shown to help protect against certain types of cancer, and are a great source of antioxidant vitamin E. They provide all eight essential amino acids necessary for the body to form a complete protein. When most people think of avocados, the first thing that comes to mind is guacamole. While delicious, it’s not the only thing avocados are good for.
Try adding some avocado in your morning green smoothie. Trust us, it will add an unbeatable creamy texture. If you real fan then add it into an avocado “alfredo” sauce for pasta or blend it into a soup like this delicious Raw Creamy Mushroom Soup with Avocado. Don’t forget about dessert, this amazing fruit can quickly turn into a superb creamy icing for any cake!
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3. Pistachios
Pistachios are a low-calorie nut and are an excellent source of protein and fiber. A single ounce of roasted pistachio nuts delivers 13 percent of the recommended daily intake of protein and 12 percent of the recommended daily intake of fiber. A great way to use them is in homemade granola. Oats contain protein too. In fact, oat protein is almost equal in quality to soy protein. Add some soy or almond milk to the mix and you have a delicious, high-protein breakfast! Pistachios are also great in salads, pilaf, trail mix, and desserts! For a twist, substitute pistachios for pine nuts in pesto. Don’t forget about pistachio pudding for dessert!
4. Quinoa
Quinoa contains significant quantities of essential vitamins and minerals including manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, folate, and copper. A cup of cooked quinoa also contains 8 grams of complete protein and 5 grams of fiber! Read all about this superseed in our guide to quinoa. Use it in place of rice for a much more nutritious side dish. Try it cold in a salad or warm in a burrito or pilaf and don’t forget to check out these amazing quinoa recipes.
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5. Chia Seeds
Remember those Chia Pet commercials you used to always see as a kid? Ch-ch-ch-chia! Yes, those are the chia seeds I’m referring to. Besides being a fun novelty item, chia seeds are also a protein powerhouse. Just 1 tablespoon of chia seeds contains 5 grams of fiber, 3 grams of protein, 2282 milligrams of Omega 3, and 752 milligrams of Omega-6 fatty acids! Read all about Chia seeds in our Chia Guide. You can blend the seeds into juice and smoothies, add them to soups, stews, and chillis, or roll the little guys into raw chocolate protein balls. They make a wonderful pudding, similar in consistency to tapioca, without needing to be cooked or use as a thickening agent for soups and gravies. Chia seeds also make a great egg substitute. You will need 1 tablespoon finely ground seeds and 3 tablespoons of water per egg called for in the recipe.
6. Green Peas
Eat your peas! Turns out, mom really did know what she was talking about. These little guys contain about 8 grams of protein per cup. If you think you don’t like peas, try them fresh out of the garden. They are actually quite sweet. Still not convinced? Sneak them into stir fries, soups and salads. Or, go for the gusto with this raw pea soup. Our favorites are these two knock-off pea dishes; the Sweet Pea Hummus and the Knock-off-amole!
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7. Lentils
With about 30 percent of their calories from protein, lentils have the third-highest level of protein, by weight, of any legume or nut, after soybeans and hemp. Lentils are the easiest legumes to work with. They do not need to be soaked overnight and can be on your table in as little as 20 minutes. While, soups, stews and, salads are common dishes that contain lentils. For your next cookout, try lentil veggie burgers, lentil tacos, or this out-of-the-world lentil loaf!
8. Hemp Seeds
The amino acid profile of hemp seeds is close to “complete” when compared to more common sources of proteins such as meat, milk, eggs, and soy. Hemp protein contains all 21 known amino acids, including the nine essential ones adult bodies cannot produce. You can sprinkle them on just about anything. They impart a rich, nutty flavor. Try using hemp seed oil in your salad dressing or hemp milk on your granola. Want to pump up the protein factor in your pesto? Try this killer Creamy Hemp Pesto.
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9. Almonds
Almonds, like all nuts, are very high in protein. A 1/4-cup serving of almonds contains 8 grams of protein. You can add them to your cereal, salad, trail mix, or granola. My favorite way to use them is in almond butter (Check out this video guide on how to make it yourself!). Spread it on apple slices or toast and you have the perfect protein snack! Experiment with other nut butters such as cashew, pecan, macadamia or a combination. Be sure to try almond yogurt and almond cheese as well! Here are 10 amazing vegan recipes infused with almonds.
10. Soy
A list of vegan foods packed with protein would not be complete without the mention of soy in some form. Try dry roasted edamame for a healthy snack on the go. We’ve seen them covered in dark chocolate, which would up your protein intake even more. Another thing to try is tofu noodles. They are great because the noodles are gluten-free, extremely low in calories and ready-to-eat. Think tofu is tasteless? Think again! Read this guide to learn how to cook with tofu, with some delicious recipes. Try serving them with an avocado “alfredo” sauce for a protein-packed meal.
This shows that a well-balanced plant-based diet is anything but devoid of protein. It also doesn’t consist of eating the same thing every day. Share this list with all skeptics you know and maybe one day, the question of, “But where do you get your protein?” will be a remnant of the past.
We also highly recommend downloading our Food Monster App, which is available for both Android and iPhone, and can also be found on Instagram and Facebook. The app has more than 8,000 plant-based, allergy-friendly recipes, and subscribers gain access to ten new recipes per day. Check it out!
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Lead image source: How to Make Homemade Almond ButterEl fuerte olor a marihuana procedente de una vivienda en la parroquia de Torneiros, en O Porriño, fue el detonante de una operación de la Guardia Civil que se saldó con 3 detenidos y más de 3.000 plantas intervenidos.
Tras varias semanas vigilando la vivienda, los agentes comprobaron que la vivienda había sido alquilada por tres vecinos de Vigo que no residían en ella. Además, observaron que tenía varias puertas tapiadas y tres equipos de ventilación industriales.
Las sospechas eran más que razonables, pero aún así los agentes se quedaron "perplejos" cuando accedieron a la vivienda. No sólo por el gran volumen de plantas, que ocupaban todas las estancias de la casa y un cobertizo aparte, sino por la complejidad de la instalación eléctrica, los equipos de refrigeración y ventilación, y la cantidad de abono y fertilizantes. "Eran instalaciones profesionales, tenían todo lo necesario para el crecimiento más rápido posible de las plantas", ha indicado el teniente responsable del cuartel de O Porriño, Javier Martín,
CULTIVO INTENSIVO
Así, los agentes se incautaron de 3,5 kilos de cogollos de marihuana preparados para su comercialización, 3.007 plantas, sacos de abono y fertilizantes, y material eléctrico valorado en unos 30.000 euros (60 transformadores, dos torres de ventilación, 3 aparatos de aire acondicionado, 54 portalámparas, 56 lámparas de sodio de 600 vatios cada una y una báscula de precisión).
Con estas instalaciones y equipos, los responsables de la plantación (la mayor desmantelada en Galicia en los últimos años) tenían luz y calor 24 horas al día, riego automatizado y la temperatura controlada para que las plantas produjeran unas tres o cuatro "cosechas" al año.
TRES DETENIDOS
Esta operación policial, que sigue abierta, se ha saldado con tres detenidos por el momento, dos de nacionalidad española y un alemán, y todos vecinos de Vigo: F.G., de 33 años de edad; J.V.O., de 38 años; y R.D.B.M., de 37 años.
Según ha |
I think we all were at one time. I remember in the early 1990s, I was in Frankfurt and I saw someone parking a Proton 412 (the Wira). I ran up to him and proudly told him that I was from the country that made his car. I asked him how it was and he gave me a thumbs-up and I thanked him for buying our car. I felt proud at that moment.
I believe that Malaysians are not shunning Proton because they are not proud of it. They want to be but it is hard for them to give their support in the way you expect – by buying more cars. If you can make Quality and Reliability the main objective and prove that Protons are truly reliable, I am sure that the indifference and reluctance will change.
Respectfully yours,
Chips YapAs Forbes lists Jack Ma, founder and chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, as China's richest man, a video has re-emerged on social media of the moment Bill Gates and Warren Buffett suggest he 'donate all his money.'
Language English
According to Forbes, Jack Ma has surpassed Wanda Group Chairman, Wang Jianlin, as China's richest man, with a $30.9 billion fortune compared to Wang's $30.7 billion.
The now billionaire was last in Australia in February of this year where he made his first philanthropic contribution of $26 million to the University of Newcastle as a tribute to his connection to the city and Novocastrian Ken Morley. Ma had stayed with the Morley family as a teenager in the 1980s.
"I am very thankful for Australia and the time I spent there in my youth," Ma said during his visit.
"The culture, the landscape and most importantly its people had a profound positive impact on my view of the world at that time.”
SBS Mandarin has been unable to confirm the date of the video that has re-surfaced on Chinese social media, but it shows Mr Ma recounting what happened when two of the world's richest men suggested he donate his fortune to charities.
In the video, which is filmed in a panel-like setting, Mr Ma says that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet tried to convince him to donate all the money years ago.
"And I asked, well, how old are you Warren? He said 80."
"I said when I'm 80, I will donate my money."
Ma's words were followed by a big round of laughter and applause from the audience.
"I'm only 40! What is my philanthropy?"
Ma then pointed out that rich places in Beijing and Shanghai are "only a small part of China" and that there are so many "poor terrible" places in the west of China.
"As a business guy, create jobs, build more businesses, making sure people have jobs, making sure people have good life conditions, this is the key."
Ma then explained his view of philanthropy.
"Spending money is more difficult than making money, especially for philanthropy, where we have a good heart, you should also have good knowledge and capability to spend money. Otherwise you are doing good things with good heart in a terrible way."
"Training people, develop people on how to manage money, how to manage projects, how to do things better."
He further added that it was important to "work with the government to make a good policy for charity work or to build up the infrastructure."
According to Forbes, Ma's latest fortune growth comes from a surge in the value of his holdings as Alibaba shares have climbed 28 percent since the end of December, while Wang’s wealth mainly comes from real estate and the entertainment industry.Get Used To The Idea Of A Democratic Socialist President
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Will There Be A President Bernie Sanders In Our Future?
Poll numbers mean everything. Then they mean nothing. Then they mean everything again. It all depends on whose favor they’re in. Right now, the pendulum has swung toward that infamous, wild-haired democratic-socialist from Vermont. He couldn’t really become president, could he? Bernie Sanders is a cool guy, but he’s just not electable, right?
I’d like to ask you to stop having that conversation. No, really—stop having it right now. It’s pointless. It answers no questions, nor does it pose any new ones. It’s a topic that has guaranteed readers, viewers and listeners for the media (and thus, for this liberal blogger, enough TV dinners to survive another month) this last year. It was an addendum to every respectable editorial on Sanders. It prefaced or superseded every bit of punditry about the Clinton/Sanders rivalry. It’s a talking point that’s grown wearisome and trite.
Bernie Sanders not only has a shot at winning the primary, he stands a fair chance of becoming the country’s next president. I’d even argue he’s in a better position to do so than Clinton. The last week has been a triumph for Bernie’s campaign, and the good news just keeps on rolling in.
Positivity In The Polls.
As my colleague Darien Cavanaugh pointed out in a recent editorial, Sanders is surging ahead in the battleground states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Furthermore, Cavanaugh points out his significant edge with independents, a group which called Bernie their own until his presidential run with the Democrats.
“The ARG poll also shows Sanders with a 24 percent lead among independents who are likely to participate in the Iowa caucuses. Independent voters are sure to be crucial in the Iowa caucuses, especially since party registration is available on caucus night.”
But polls alone are poor predictors of the future. Indeed, George Gallup himself spent much of his career with egg on his face. Confirmation of Sanders’ front-runner status comes from elsewhere.
A Surge Of Endorsements.
This week, MoveOn.org and Political People Blog, two influential activism websites, joined the host of wonderfully random celebrities who’ve endorsed Sanders for president. Even sitting Vice President Joe Biden offered tempered praise for Sanders in an interview with CNN:
“I think that Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real—and he has credibility on it. And that is the absolute enormous concentration of wealth in a small group of people, with the middle class now able to be shown being left out. There used to be a basic bargain. If you contributed to the profitability of an enterprise, you got to share in the profit. That’s been broken. Productivity is up, wages are stagnant.”
The interviewer pointed out Clinton’s adoption of the income inequality issue into her platform. Biden’s retort, while respectful, must nonetheless be a sting to Clinton supporters:
“It’s relatively new for Hillary to talk about that. Hillary’s focus has been on other things up until now […] No one questions Bernie’s authenticity on those issues.”
On Winning Iowa and New Hampshire.
What if Sanders loses Iowa but wins New Hampshire? What if Nate Silver, that overrated number-cruncher who won the hearts of millions by being right once, correctly predicted Sanders winning Iowa and New Hampshire and losing everywhere else? Sanders’ campaign manager, Ted Devine, believes the infrastructure is in place to secure a win, nonetheless:
“The momentum that comes from an early victory is huge, and I believe that Bernie’s campaign is in position to take advantage of that momentum. We have strong campaigns on the ground in Nevada and South Carolina, and we have been on radio in Nevada since November and on TV in Nevada since late December. “
That isn’t to say Devine is right. It’s his job to be optimistic. Martin O’Malley’s campaign manager deserves a medal for this very reason. But Devine does raise a good point: Sanders’ ground game has grown significantly in the final months of the race, and so has his support among minorities.
“As to support from Latinos and African-Americans, I think that support is growing by the day. For example, in the most recent Field poll in California, Bernie’s support with Latinos grew from 3.2 percent in May to 35.3 percent in the poll they released last week. And that all occurred in a state where we have had no paid media. I think it bodes well for our potential to win substantial support from Latinos, African-Americans and others as they come to know more about Bernie and his plans for their future.”
Democratic Socialist or Old-Fashioned Social Democrat? Voters Don’t Know. Voters Don’t Care.
Now we’ve come back to that pesky electability question. Ugh — what an awful abuse of language. It’s right up there with synergy and wellness on my list of words English could do without. To begin with, it’s a non-issue. It’s political jargon. It’s filler for pundits when nothing of any significance is happening. If the majority of Democrats and left-leaning voters choose a candidate to represent their party, they’ve already countered the narrative that nobody will vote for them. But let’s not reject the premise outright; on its own terms, Sanders still looks good.
If the issue is one of appealing to middle-of-the-road Americans, I’d first like to remind you who Sanders would be running against. It doesn’t really matter which Republican snags the nomination—they all represent an increasingly disjointed voting bloc with little appeal to moderates. Surveys suggest Sanders’ ideas are popular with a majority of Americans. Polling also points to Bernie trouncing top Republican contenders in hypothetical general election mashups.
But what about that whole socialism business? Will Americans really put a self-described Democratic Socialist in the White House? From a policy standpoint, Sanders is hardly what he claims be. His ideas are more in line with those of the Social Democrats and the American tradition of socialism. It’s a slight but important distinction for those of us who care. As it happens, Americans increasingly agree with basic socialist ideas, even if some of them are still too apprehensive to embrace the term itself. Biden may have said it best:
“You know, if Bernie Sanders never said he was a Democratic Socialist, based on what he’s saying, people wouldn’t be calling him a Democratic Socialist. That’s how he characterizes himself—in sort of European terms.”
I’m weary of making predictions, but from where I’m standing—it sure looks like Americans will elect the long-shot Senator from Vermont in 2016. If proven wrong, I cordially invite you to the eating of my hat.Alex Job Racing is set for an additional race with its Audi R8 LMS, with Bill Sweedler and Townsend Bell set to take part in the Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park later this month.
Sweedler confirmed to Sportscar365 they will enter the GT Daytona class contender in the GT-only round on July 21-22, adding to their Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup program with the Florida-based team.
“It’s a home race, I live in Connecticut and have a lot of friends and family there,” Sweedler told Sportscar365.
“Strangely, Lime Rock is not a place we’ve actually podiumed and done well. I think I podiumed back in 2009. We’d like to do well for the home town.”
The 2015 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship-winning pairing have had an up-and-down year, having scored a sixth place class finish at Daytona, followed up by issues at Sebring and 14th in last weekend’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, alongside Frankie Montecalvo.
“Frankie, Townsend and I haven’t done well but as a team we’ve really gelled well.”
Sweedler said there’s been preliminary discussions to potentially also contest the GT-only round at Virginia International Raceway next month, although a decision has not yet been made.BUCHAREST, Romania — Olga Dogaru, the Romanian woman who told investigators that she had incinerated seven works of art by Matisse, Picasso and other modern masters in an effort to protect her son, denied in court on Monday that she had burned the works.
Standing alongside her son, Radu, 29, who has admitted stealing the paintings in October from the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam, Mrs. Dogaru, 50, told a panel of three judges that her earlier account of destroying the works in a stove at her house in the tiny village of Carcaliu was untrue. “I did not burn them,” she said in a soft voice.
Alarm swept the art world last week when it appeared that the theft in the Netherlands had ended with a spasm of wanton destruction in a remote corner of Romania. The head of Romania’s National History Museum, Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu, described the supposed burning as a “barbarian crime against humanity.”
The artworks — paintings and drawings signed by Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Gauguin, Lucian Freud and Meyer de Haan — were stolen from the Kunsthal in a brazen nighttime robbery led, according to prosecutors, by Mrs. Dogaru’s son, who was arrested in Romania in January. Mrs. Dogaru told investigators in May that months earlier, in February, she had shoved the stolen artworks into a stove used to heat a sauna at her family home and then set them alight, in a desperate attempt to destroy evidence and save her son from going to jail. News of her account circulated widely last week, along with reports that forensic scientists had found trace evidence to support it.Cleverely: ‘I can replace Scholes’
Manchester United midfielder Tom Cleverely is setting the bar high as he aims to fill the void left by the retirement of Paul Scholes.Scholes, 36, called time on his United career at the end of last season after 17 years as a mainstay of the first team at Old Trafford.
Cleverely, 21, is yet to establish himself with United – he has spent time on loan at Leicester City, Watford and Wigan Athletic in the past two seasons.
But despite his relative inexperience, the former Bradford City youth team player is confident United manager Sir Alex Ferguson will give him the chance to impress with the English Premier League champions.
“Paul Scholes’ boots are very big ones to fill,” Cleverely told the Manchester Evening News.
“He’s been a winner and a great player.”
“Any team is going to miss a player of that ability. But as always somebody has to step up.”
“You hope that given the chance you can, along with everyone else, give something so he is not missed as much.”
United have been linked with big-money moves for Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Luka Modric and Inter Milan playmaker Wesley Sneijder in the off-season.
While acknowledging the need to recruit at the highest level, Cleverely also hopes the solution to strengthening the United midfield could come from within Old Trafford.
“I hope I can put my case forward and save the club some money,” he said.
“Wigan have helped me and I feel I am ready to tackle the job at United.”
“I have spoken to the manager. We have had two or three discussions. They were good chats and he will be speaking to me again after the European Championships.”
“I know United will be buying players this summer. The reality is that United are the biggest club in the world so they are going to be interested in the best.”
“They will be linked with players and they will buy top players. You grow up at the club knowing that will be the case. That is part of the challenge.”
“But we all know the manager promotes young home grown players so you have to show you are good enough.”
“After the experiences at Wigan I know what it takes now at Premier League level. I want to be part of the manager’s plans.”The big F-35 news this week is the announcement that the military’s full compliment was grounded pending the investigation of an engine blade malfunction. It’s far from the only mishap the program has faced. But of arguably greater importance is a Reuters report that the chief heading up the project castigated some of the program’s contractors, Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney, during a speech at the Australian International Airshow in which he tried to convince the Australians to stick by their commitment to buy 100 of the planes. According to Reuters,
The Pentagon program chief for the F-35 warplane slammed its commercial partners Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney on Wednesday, accusing them of trying to “squeeze every nickel” out of the U.S. government and failing to see the long-term benefits of the project. U.S. Lieutenant-General Christopher Bogdan made the comments during a visit to Australia, where he has sought to convince lawmakers and generals to stick to a plan to buy 100 of the jets, an exercise complicated by the second grounding of the plane this year and looming U.S. defense cuts.
Several of many setbacks in the rolling boondoggle that is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program have been the significant reductions or cancellations of orders by partner countries.
Canadian F-35 procurement has been a disaster, not least because it’s become a major political issue for the Harper government, which has backtracked from its initial commitment to buy 65. Late last year a source said Canada wouldn’t be ordering any, and though the government has disputed that characterization, budget reductions and political battles over the jet have been fierce.
Due to budget austerity, Italy reduced its order by a third in February 2012, to 90 out of 131, becoming the first country to reduce its overall order.
Last year UK Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond announced that his government would purchase 48 of the F-35B variant, fewer than expected according to Jane’s. The previous government committed to 138.
Turkey cancelled its first order last month.
Israel is the only country that has upped its orders over time.
Norway and Denmark have been relatively unwavering so far, but the Dutch have been wary of ongoing cost increases.
It’s a truly terrible record for a project whose total cost to U.S. taxpayers is more than $1 trillion.
The price tag per plane of America’s closest ally? $161.6 million, close to initial estimates. America’s? More than double that.
Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Lockheed Martin has suppliers in nine countries, but only two have been cleared to manufacture the plane, Italy and Japan, the latter of which would like to produce most of its compliment domestically.
Follow @j_arthur_bloomHak Ja Han had to stand in the archangel position while Moon restored the first three wives as a condition for the “Marriage Supper of the Lamb.”
The first three couples after they were restored. Left to right: Young-whi Kim with Dae-hwa Chung, Hyo-won Eu with Gil-ja Sa and Won-pil Kim with Dal-ok Chung.
updated November 22, 2017
Hak Ja Han had to stand in the archangel position while Sun Myung Moon restored the first three wives through pikareum sex as a condition for the “Marriage Supper of the Lamb.”
The first three husbands did not need a three-day ceremony. Young-whi Kim explained:
“The thirty-three couples who were blessed in 1961 went through a forty-day period of sanctification and the three-day ceremony, but when we were blessed we didn’t have these ceremonies.” (Dec 2010)
http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/Kim-09/Kim-101200.htm
How, then, were the three husbands restored? As men from the fallen world, how could their original sin be cleansed? What unique ceremony did they go through? It was called the “Ceremony for the Restoration of Children.”
A Unification Church Workshop to explain pikareum was held January 9-12, 1992 at the Miyazaki Kenshu Center (near Tokyo). UC lecturers, Mr. Yoshiaki Hiro and Director Ueyama, explained that Sun Myung Moon had pikareum sex with the first three wives as a condition for the Holy Wedding of True Parents to take place. Hak Ja Han had to take the position of the archangel and overcome any feelings of jealousy as this took place. The first three husbands could then have pikareum sex with their wives and become restored archangels.
Special four days workshop
○ period – 1992 (meet on evening of 8th, 9-12th January)
○ location – Miyazaki Training Center
○ purpose – Measures to deal with the opposing Christian pastors
○ 300 participants, 172 brothers
○ lecturers:
Director 上山 Ueyama (Senior Managing Director of Happy – Legal Affairs)
白井康友 Yasutomo Shirai lecturer (Education Department)
佐野邦雄 Kunio Sano, Director of Education
広義昭 Yoshiaki Hiro, lecturer
Rev. 広義 Matsuzaki (returned home from the United States)
Lecture notes from a participant:
Chairman 神山 Kamiyama was scheduled to come on the 12th of January, but he was was suddenly admitted to 一心病院 Isshin Hospital with a food blockage between his small and large intestines. Mr. Matsuzaki kindly stepped in as a substitute lecturer.
I was surprised by the new contents from lecturer Mr. Hiro about formula for the “restoration of original sin”, how prior to the Holy Wedding of Father and Mother, the Mother of Heaven and Earth had to restore the heart by taking the position of the archangel. True Father had to give the blessing to the three couples and they had to have sexual relationships (that was in fact pikareum) before the Holy Wedding.
At the closing ceremony Director Ueyama repeated the point about the formula by explaining that Father could not stand in the position of the Messiah unless the three couples had this relationship.
Pastor Yokomizo Yozo of the Japan Church of Christ gave a press conference in December 1992. He said in January that year [there had been a workshop] at the Unification Church’s “Miyazaki Dai Training Center” in Kawasaki City, at which the Unification Church lecturer Hiro Yoshiaki acknowledged, before nearly 200 followers, that it was a fact Sun Myung Moon had “blood separation chiwake / pikareum (sexual relations)” with the wives of the first three couples.
Mr. Hiro Yoshiaki was in the UC marriage of 1800 couples.
The real purpose of the workshops, which were held in a number of cities, was to inoculate the members against the reports of pikareum being circulated in documents, magazines and books. The reports were becoming more and more undeniable. In the 1980s there had also been pikareum workshops in Japan.
Following the workshops, some Japanese members left the UC.
Young-whi Kim explained this in December 2010
“True Parents’ engagement ceremony was held on 3.1, and our engagement was announced on the same day. The members at the time were aware that True Father had to establish three spiritual children, and that he could only hold his Holy Wedding on the foundation of three son’s having become engaged. Won-pil Kim, Hyo-won Eu, and I were chosen as those three spiritual children. Won-pil Kim had started a family and had a child. With Father’s permission, Hyo-won Eu was already engaged. Only my wife and I were matched right before the Blessing Ceremony. Father said that Won-pil Kim and his wife were the Adam-type couple; Hyo-won Eu and his wife, the Noah-type couple; and my wife and I, the Jacob-type couple. …
On April 16, 1960 (twenty-first day, third month of the lunar calendar) at 10 AM, the Holy Blessing Ceremony of the “three sons,” that is, the Three-Couple Blessing Ceremony, for Won-pil Kim and Dal-ok Chung; Hyo-won Eu and Gil-ja Sa; and Young-whi Kim and Dae-hwa Chung was carried out at the headquarters church. Rev. Hyo-won Eu recorded in his diary that the ceremony corresponding to the “global wedding ceremony of the three sons” was carried out from 10 AM to 1 PM.
… The first part of the ceremony was the Ceremony of the Restoration of All Things. …
The second part of the ceremony; the Blessing Ceremony, was subdivided into two smaller ceremonies. The first of those was the Ceremony of the Restoration of the Children. … [This must have taken place before the wedding of True Parents.]
The second subdivision of the Blessing Ceremony was the main wedding ceremony. … A heavenly choir then sang a congratulatory song, “Festival of the Three Sons,” following which True Parents sat down.”
http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/Kim-09/Kim-101200.htm
The husbands were restored to the position of sons and restored in spirit AND BODY together through a “Ceremony for the Restoration of Children”:
Sun Myung Moon – Blessing and Ideal Family
“Jesus is to replace Adam, and the Lord of the Second Advent is to replace Jesus. The returning Lord cannot stand in the True Parent’s position without having three absolutely obedient spiritual children. Those three disciples are to be sons of filial piety (to the Lord), who can go over the boundary of life and death and who can follow their Abel in the midst of severe persecution. In April 1960, Father established three such disciples.”
Sun Myung Moon – Preparation for Blessing (I) May 20, 1978
“That is why my first mission in the dispensation was to restore three major disciples, three disciples not the spirit alone but spirit and body together and give them the blessing. Why three disciples? Three disciples blessed as couples become six members of the family. Six members of the family plus Adam and Eve as the parents makes eight members of the family.”
“On the following day, April 17, the Day of Resurrection of Shimjung was proclaimed at Samchung Park so that the historical significance of the ceremony could be deeply appreciated.”
http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Publications/Ffwpui/indexfae8.html
Sun Myung Moon from the book, “Blessing and Ideal Family:
Chapter Six – THE HOLY WEDDING OF TRUE PARENTS AND THE BLESSED FAMILY
2. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THREE DISCIPLES PRIOR TO THE HOLY WEDDING CEREMONY OF THE TRUE PARENTS
Jesus definitely needed three disciples. Adam and Eve had three archangels, but they didn’t serve Adam and Eve. As a result, the fallen world was formed. In order to stand in the position of perfected parents, the Messiah and his bride must have three absolutely obedient disciples in place of the three archangels. Otherwise, we cannot drive Satan out of the physical world. People who symbolize the three archangels and the three ages (Old Testament Age, New Testament Age, and Completed Testament Age), and who indemnify all the Cain-side problems in history, are definitely needed. Those three people are to be completely obedient to the returning Lord, who comes to indemnify at one time horizontally the vertical history of the Old Testament Age, New Testament Age and Completed Testament Age.”
The fall took place through the conjugal relationships of the archangel and Adam and Eve. Three ages had to be restored, the Old Testament Age, the New Testament Age and the Completed Testament Age. Each of the three husbands represented one of the three ages, and each husband must be restored through a conjugal relationship initiated by the Heavenly side.
Sun Myung Moon explains further in Chapter Six:
“In order for Father to hold the Holy Wedding Ceremony, he had to restore the three disciples who betrayed Jesus. One more purpose of the Holy Wedding Ceremony was to indemnify Adam’s family. Adam and Eve fell through the conjugal relationship. The fall took place through a couple, so restoration cannot be done alone. Man alone cannot be restored or saved completely. A woman alone cannot go to the Kingdom of Heaven, either. Two are needed to solve the problem. The standard of True Parents should be established on earth by restoring the fallen Adam and Eve. In order to do that, the problem should be solved centering upon the three disciples representing the three archangels.”
The Spiritual Basis Of The 3-Day Ceremony’s Procedure
American Blessed Family Department, New York
(June 1986 / revised December 1990)
“During the first two days of the Three-Day ceremony, the woman is in the position of the “Bride of the Messiah” and “mother” to her spouse. Therefore, she initiates each part of the ceremony. Through the ceremony of the first day, the man is raised from his position of archangel (being reborn as the son of the Messiah and his wife) to the position of sinless Adam in the formation stage.
Through the ceremony of the second day the man is raised from the position of ‘Newborn Adam’ to the ‘Adam before the fall’ position. Each part of the ceremony of the third day is therefore initiated by the man in his position of Adam. The man takes the leadership role to restore dominion. Through this ceremony, they become one as the eternal ideal couple and husband and wife.
The Third Day
(3) For the Act of Love
The man, in the position of subject, lies above the woman and takes the initiative. The woman cooperates and responds to the man.
(4) Care of the Holy Handkerchief …
(5) After the Act of Love
Both husband and wife put on the Holy Gowns. The woman bows to the man once. The man then offers a prayer of thanks for the 3-day ceremony. (Both stand for this prayer) The contents of the man’s prayer should include:
A prayer of thanks for having been able to be reborn as the original Adam and Eve and for having been able to have the relationship as the eternal husband and wife.”
A few notes:
“(2) The act of love should be a complete act (penetration and ejaculation). In the event that it is difficult to achieve this, strive to achieve as much penetration as possible and continue with the remainder of the ceremony.”
http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/topics/traditn/3-DayCeremonya.htm
The first three husbands had a special ceremony, called “Ceremony for the Restoration of Children,” with True Parents and so could be restored in “spirit and body.” Their special ceremony was greater in significance compared to the three-day ceremony.
Sun Myung Moon’s ceremonies are the shaman yongch’e ceremony for a new spirit and the pikareum ‘change of blood lineage’ ceremony for a restored body.
Sun Myung Moon explains pikareum
Moon “snatched her out of the Satanic world” and taught her to obey.
Hyo-won Eu told them the real story of Sun Myung Moon
36 Couples – many left the Unification Church
Moon had sex ceremonies with the wives of all the first 36 couples.
Moon “must have sexual relations with 70 virgins, 70 widows and 70 men’s wives”
The original notes for the Japanese 1992 pikareum workshops
The 36 couples and the 72 couples, known as the ‘Royal Couples’ and other early Korean and Japanese members have always known about Sun Myung Moon’s pikareum sex rituals.By now many of us know in the Spring of 2015, Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto will be launching the Naruto Part 3 mini-series (official title not yet announced) that will focus on the next generation. The new manga will run in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump, just as his previous Naruto work did. In an interview with Entermix magazine, Kishimoto-sensei reveals he has work left to do in Naruto until next summer, which means Naruto part 3 will likely only last a few months.
No exact date for the beginning or end has been officially announced, but Spring in Japan begins on February 5 and summer ends on August 8, so by that calculation, Naruto part 3 will last for six months at max. Of course, things can change, but sometime in Spring to sometime in Summer is the latest word by Kishimoto-sensei.
Afterwards, he has plans for a new project, which will be a non-Naruto title. Kishimoto-sensei mentions he has various ideas planned and would like fans to stay tuned for them. He notes that he is turning 40, so serializing a weekly manga may be a bit challenging so his next title might have a different circulation schedule.
Before working on his next title, Kishimoto-sensei wants to take care of other important life activities such as his honeymoon and playing with his child. He was married over a decade ago, but has been working non-stop thanks to Naruto. He jokingly says that he, like Naruto and the other characters, had to gradually come to treasure his own family.
Source: ANNFrom a “critique” of my work on the recently launched website Professor Watchlist, I learned that I’m a threat to my students for contending that we won’t end men’s violence against women unless we “address the toxic notions about masculinity in patriarchy … rooted in control, conquest, aggression.”
Readers can judge the threat level for themselves.
That quote is supposedly evidence for why I am one of those college professors who, according to the watch list’s mission statement, “discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” Perhaps I could take such a claim more seriously were it not coming from a project of conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA, which has its own political agenda—namely educating students “about the importance of fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government.”
This rather thin accusation appears to be a reaction to my published work instead of an evaluation of my teaching, which confuses a teacher’s role in public with the classroom. So, I’ll help out the watch list and describe how I address these issues at the University of Texas at Austin, where I’m finishing my 25th year of teaching. Readers can judge the threat level for themselves.
I just completed a unit on the feminist critique of the contemporary pornography industry in my course Freedom: Philosophy, History, Law. We began the semester with On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill (I’ll assume the Professor Watchlist approves of that classic book), examining how various philosophers have conceptualized freedom. We then studied how the term has been defined and deployed politically throughout U.S. history, ending with questions about how living in a society saturated with sexually explicit material affects our understanding of freedom. I provided context about feminist intellectual and political projects of the past half-century, including the feminist critique of men’s violence and of mass media’s role in the sexual abuse and exploitation of women in a society based on institutionalized male dominance (that is, patriarchy).
The revelations about Donald Trump’s sexual behavior during the campaign provided a “teachable moment” that I didn’t think should be ignored. I began that particular lecture, a week after the election, by emphasizing that my job was not to tell students how to act in the world, but to help them understand the world in which they make choices.
Toward that goal, I pointed out that we have a president-elect who has bragged about being sexually aggressive and treating women like sexual objects, and that several women have testified about behavior that—depending on one’s evaluation of the evidence—could constitute sexual assault. “Does it seem fair,” I asked the class, “to describe him as a sexual predator?” No one disagreed.
Trump sometimes responded by contending that President Bill Clinton was even worse. Citing someone else’s bad behavior to avoid accountability is a weak defense (most people learn that as children), and, of course, Trump wasn’t running against Bill, but we can learn from examining the claim.
“Reasonable people can disagree.”
As president, Clinton abused his authority by having sex with a younger woman who was first an intern and then a junior employee. He settled a sexual harassment lawsuit out of court, and he has been accused of rape. Does it seem fair to describe Bill Clinton as a sexual predator? No one disagreed.
So, we live in a world in which a former president, a Democrat, has been a sexual predator, yet he continues to be treated as a respected statesman and philanthropist. Our next president, a Republican, was elected with the nearly universal understanding that he has been a sexual predator. How can we make sense of this? A feminist critique of toxic conceptions of masculinity and men’s sexual exploitation of women in patriarchy seems like a good place to start.
In that class, I spent considerable time reminding students that I didn’t expect them all to come to the same conclusions, but that they all should consider relevant arguments in forming judgments. I repeated often my favorite phrase in teaching: “Reasonable people can disagree.” Student reactions to this unit of the class varied, but no one suggested that the feminist critique offered nothing of value in understanding our society.
Is presenting a feminist framework to analyze a violent and pornographic culture politicizing the classroom, as the watch list implies? If that’s the case, then the decision not to present a feminist framework also politicizes the classroom, in a different direction. The question isn’t whether professors will make such choices—that’s inevitable, given the nature of university teaching—but how we defend our intellectual work (with evidence and reasoned argument, I hope) and how we present the material to students (encouraging critical reflection).
It would be easier to dismiss this rather silly project if the United States had not just elected both a president who shouts over attempts at rational discourse and a reactionary majority in both houses of Congress. I’m a tenured full professor (and White, male, and a U.S. citizen by birth) and am not worried. Yet, even though the group behind the watch list has no formal power over me or my university, the attempt at bullying professors—no matter how weakly supported—may well inhibit professors without my security and privilege.
If the folks who compiled the watch list had presented any evidence that I was teaching irresponsibly, I would take the challenge seriously. At least in my case, the watch list didn’t. But rather than assign a failing grade, I’ll be charitable and give the project an incomplete, with an opportunity to turn in better work in the future.Health Canada has revoked approval of Avastin as a treatment for metastatic breast cancer, following closely in the footsteps of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA announced in mid-November that it was withdrawing approval of the drug for breast cancer, saying there is no evidence it extends the lives of women with metastatic breast cancer and use of the drug is associated with some serious risks.
After studying the data, Health Canada has come to the same conclusion. It has told drug maker Hoffman-La Roche to remove the breast cancer indication from Avastin's label. The company says it will comply.
"Suspending an authorization for a drug on the market is not a decision taken lightly," the department said in a statement.
"Health Canada has concluded that Avastin does not significantly reduce tumour size or extend lives, while it may cause serious and potentially life-threatening risks, such as heart attacks, severe high blood pressure, bleeding and the development of small tears in parts of the body such as the nose, stomach or intestines."
The statement noted that there are several alternatives available in Canada for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer that deliver equal or more benefit than Avastin, and with fewer risks. Metastatic cancers are cancers that have |
Similar cases of anterograde amnesia have appeared over the years, often caused by Korsakoff’s Syndrome, a thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency brought on by chronic alcoholism, malnutrition, eating disorders, or poisoning. This strongly suggests that thiamine is necessary to maintain the memory-writing features of the brain. Some abnormal viral infections can also produce the affliction, as is the case with a famed music expert named Clive Wearing. His ability to store memories was destroyed by a rogue infection of the herpes simplex 1 virus which attacked his brain’s hippocampus rather than triggering the typical cold sores. Other known causes include brain tumors, oxygen deprivation, and dementia-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s. In each instance it is found that the hippocampi have been compromised, indicating that these small structures are vital in laying down long-term memories. The hippocampus does not seem to play a role in recollection, however, since existing memories remain accessible.
Though anterograde amnesiacs are blocked from storing new information, researchers were astonished to discover that subjects are nonetheless capable of mastering new and complex tasks over time. Subjects who repeatedly practice skills such as backwards writing or guitar-playing can demonstrate measurable improvement, though in each instance the subject believes that he or she is attempting the task for the first time. This insight cast serious doubt upon the long-held belief that all memory is stored in a common mental reservoir. It also demonstrated that procedural memory— the “how to” memory of motor skills— is not governed by the exact same circuitry as episodic memory (autobiographical events) and semantic memory (general knowledge and facts). Additionally, some patients have experienced the Tetris Effect hours or days after playing the game during experiments; they describe vivid dreams of falling Tetris shapes though they possess no conscious memory of the game’s existence.
A diagram of one of Henry M's living spaces, and his depiction of it three years after moving out.
A neuroscientist named Suzanne Corkin has been following Henry’s M.’s progress for about forty-three years, but each time she introduces herself he greets her as though he is meeting her for the first time. One one occasion, however, a nurse mentioned to Henry that “Dr. Corkin” had been asking about him, and he responded by asking, “Suzanne?” Though he could not say who she was, he had somehow managed to associate her first and last name.
Over the years a modest amount of semantic information has actually managed to seep into Henry’s long-term memory, suggesting that his brain may be struggling to find alternate pathways with sporadic success. He knows that a president named John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and he can draw a roughly accurate diagram of a home where he lived for a few years following his surgery. Henry seems untroubled by the elderly face which stares back at him from the mirror, suggesting that he is unsurprised by the notion that decades that have passed since his life-changing operation. When asked what he thought about how he looked, he responded matter-of-factly, “I’m not a boy.” He also seems to have learned that his memory is broken and that scientists are studying him to discover more about the human mind. Once, when asked whether he is happy, Henry responded “Yes” without hesitation. He followed with, “the way I figure it is, what they find out about me helps them to help other people.”
Small talk with H.M. tends to be a bit repetitive, but occasionally revealing. During a visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to conduct memory tests, Dr. Corkin asked Henry if he knew where he was as they strolled down a nondescript corridor. “Why of course,” he replied with a grin, “I’m at MIT!”
Taken aback, Dr. Corkin asked, “How do you know that?”
Laughing, Henry pointed at a nearby student wearing an MIT sweater. “Got you that time!”
Not only did the event demonstrate his intact sense of humor, but it showed that his powers of deduction are unhindered by his memory malady. On another occasion Henry was asked what he does to try to remember things. “Well,” he replied with a chuckle, “That I don’t know ’cause I don’t remember what I tried.”
H.M. undergoing testing at MIT
In a rare example of scientific correctness in Hollywood, the reality of anterograde amnesia was depicted with reasonable accuracy in the 2001 film Memento. The filmmakers applied the concept of reverse chronology to mimic the effects of the condition, allowing viewers to share in the protagonist’s confusion regarding prior events.
Owing to his unfortunate ailment Henry M. will never be able to understand the inestimable gift he has given to the field of neurology. The amnesic octogenarian presently resides in a Connecticut nursing home, where even today he continues to help researchers to coax secrets from the human mind. Furthermore, Henry’s lifelong contribution to science will not cease upon his death; he and his court-appointed guardian have agreed to donate his brain to science so that neurologists may one day examine the offending lesions in detail.
Though science still possesses a poor understanding of memory’s machinations, Henry and other sufferers of anterograde amnesia have provided a considerable number of indispensable clues. Their unwitting contributions will not be soon forgotten.
Update 02 December 2008, in memoriam: Sadly, the infamous and mysterious “H.M.” has passed on. R.I.P., Henry Gustav Molaison. This article has been updated with subsequently released photos of Henry.Special prosecutor Robert Mueller zeroed in on President Donald Trump’s business dealings with Deutsche Bank AG as his investigation into alleged Russian meddling in U.S. elections widens.
Mueller issued a subpoena to Germany’s largest lender several weeks ago, forcing the bank to submit documents on its relationship with Trump and his family, according to a person briefed on the matter, who asked not to be identified because the action has not been announced.
“Deutsche Bank always cooperates with investigating authorities in all countries,” the lender said in a statement to Bloomberg Tuesday, declining to provide additional information.
Deutsche Bank for months has rebuffed calls by Democratic lawmakers to provide more transparency over the roughly $300 million Trump owed to the bank for his real estate dealings prior to becoming president. Representative Maxine Waters of California and other Democrats have asked whether the bank’s loans to Trump, made years before he ran for president, were in any way connected to Russia. The bank previously rejectedthose demands, saying sharing client data would be illegal unless it received a formal request to do so. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
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Cowboys running back Joseph Randle shared his opinion about how much the Cowboys might miss running back DeMarco Murray this week by saying that he thought Murray “left a lot of meat on the bone” on his way to a league-leading 1,845 rushing yards in 2014.
That comment made its way to Murray on Thursday, but Murray didn’t fire back at Randle or try to make the case that he gnawed all the way down to the bone while carrying the ball the seventh-most times in league history last year. Instead, Murray wished Randle well in his opportunity to do a little feasting of his own behind the Cowboys offensive line.
“Hopefully he can taste some of that meat this year,” Murray said, via CSNPhilly.com. “They’re a good team. Hopefully he can get a chance to run behind that line and do some good things. But I’m not worried about it. I didn’t hear about it until now. It’s not a big deal.”
It’s a good response to Randle since Murray has no need to defend himself for his 2014 performance. His chief concern now should be making sure that he wasn’t worn down to the bone after being used so heavily last season because the Eagles will need Murray to play well to vault themselves above the Cowboys and the rest of the NFC East in 2015.4 Chicago Running Paths to Get Your Heart Pumping
Chicago is basically a runner’s paradise, and now is the time of year to get outside and enjoy the warm temps while getting in a solid workout.
There’s no shortage of picturesque scenes to serve as a backdrop for your daily jog. Here are a few of the more memorable routes to try out.
Chicago Riverwalk
Distance: 2.5 miles
With an almost nine-block distance, the Chicago Riverwalk is a comfortable run path that’s a good start for more intense distances. The path is under Wacker Drive and goes through the downtown stretch of the Chicago River. Although it’s simple and short, a few stops by fountains or benches provide ample time for stretching. It may be more congested during the summer, but it’s still one of the more iconic routes due to its amazing skyline views.
The 606
Distance: 2.7 miles
This route is all about elevation and urban beauty. Starting from Ashland Avenue to Ridgeway Avenue, the path will have runners 20 feet above Logan Square, Bucktown, Humboldt Park and Wicker Park. With plenty of access points, any experienced runner can appreciate the less strenuous distance. Bridges and slight elevation allow runners to enjoy the community art projects around the path, or the neighborhoods’ architecture from below.
Lakefront
Distance: 18 miles
Although one of the longest trails on this list, runners will undoubtedly love the workout and sights to see on this path. Extending from the North Side at Ardmore Street to 71st street on the South Side, the path shows off the best of Chicago. Runners will pass by attractions like Navy Pier, Soldier Field, Lincoln Park Zoo and many more. Of course, it’s not as quiet as other routes, as bikers, skaters and tourists tend to flood the place during the summer time. However, much of the route is great for those training for a marathon or experiencing much of Chicago’s scenic views.
Horner Park
Distance: 1 mile
Horner Park is located on the North Side of California Avenue between Montrose Avenue and Irving Park Road. A paved circular path populated by trees and a sweet view of the Chicago River is a calming experience. For those looking to warm-up or work some laps, this is the perfect route. If you like to bring your pooch on your runs, there’s a dog park where your four-legged friend can enjoy a break. Runners with some spare time can also relax with a nice picnic as well.Java comes with McAfee Security Scan Plus. To catch the malware Java lets in?
Last month. This week it is McAfee. With every Java “security update” (what a joke!) Oracle tries to sneak who-knows-what-it-does crapware onto my computer. No more. Java is now removed from all my computers, and this goes a lot further than merely preventing me from seeing Oracle’s sneaky banner ever again.
Java is probably the single most serious security vulnerability for any computer today., and the best and simplest way to stop them is to uninstall Java. Not disable — UNINSTALL. Whether you believe that or, nobody has challenged the claim that a Java security vulnerability was used as the attack vector.
Don’t wait for Java to be banned – today.
[UPDATE 09/07/2012] This blog post generated a lively. Some readers agree with me, others do not. One guy thought “the end of the Article is stupid”. Hey, we are all entitled to our opinions.
[UPDATE 09/08/2012] A few more articles from around the web, all supporting my position that Java is a menace and must be treated as such:Underwater Hunger Artist: Giant Isopod Fasts For 4 Years
YouTube
From Japan comes news of a giant isopod that knows all there is to know about the hunger game. How else to explain the fasting behavior of the animal that, his minders say, hasn't eaten in more than 1,500 days? The male giant isopod, known simply as No. 1, last ate on Jan. 2, 2009 — or, to put it in perspective, 18 days before President Obama began his first term.
The giant isopod's last meal at the Toba Aquarium, reports Japan Times, was a horse mackerel, which it devoured in just five minutes.
But that was four years ago. Since then, No. 1 has only pretended to eat — going so far as to rub its face on dead fish before walking away, according to reports. The aquarium's Takaya Moritaki says he has tried everything he can think of to get the finicky giant isopod, which was caught in the Gulf of Mexico, to eat.
"I just want it to eat something somehow. It's weakened in this state," he tells the Japan Daily Press. He recently invited the media to witness the giant isopod's hunger strike, as it spurned several pieces of fish. The mysterious behavior has not taken an obvious toll on No. 1, which has reportedly remained healthy during its long period of abstaining.
Giant isopods are close relatives of rolly pollies and "pill bugs," with a few adaptations for living on the ocean floor in the deep, cold waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They have seven pairs of legs and four sets of jaws and can grow to more than two feet in length.
As scavengers, the animals are built to survive long periods between meals.
"Giant isopods are always in a state of semihibernation because they don't know when they can eat, so they limit their energy on breathing and other activities," marine ecologist Taeko Kimura tells Japan Times. "For that purpose they sometimes keep a large amount of fat in their livers, so maybe No. 1 still has a source of energy in its body, and that's why it still has no appetite."
But aquarium staff are concerned, especially as the tank No. 1 is in previously housed a healthy, and hungry, giant isopod. The artificial seawater it contains is "highly unlikely to generate organic substances" to sustain the animal, Japan Times notes.
Could someone be sneaking food to No. 1 — perhaps in an odd show of allegiance to the old British TV show The Prisoner? Or could it somehow be living on the err... effluvia of its fellows? Somehow, this mysterious animal, which Sea and Sky calls "without a doubt one of the strangest creatures found in the deep sea," has managed to keep some of its secrets.Plans announced by Britain's Labour party to investigate the impact robots will have on people's jobs has been blasted as "ignorant" and "patronizing" by robotics expert and futurologist, Ray Hammond.
According to Ray Hammond, the announcement by deputy leader Tom Watson that Labour would launch an investigation into the so-called "fourth industrial revolution" is "fear mongering."
Tom Watson announces commission on “fourth industrial revolution” https://t.co/4irCKwLpS6 — LabourList (@LabourList) September 27, 2016
The Fourth Industrial Revolution
Watson is set to unveil the inquiry into the future of Britain's workforce, as part of his speech at Labour's annual party conference in Liverpool.
"I understand why they may need to discuss the topic. But they're representing it as some kind of apocalypse — which it isn't," Mr. Hammond told Sputnik.
The inquiry will be co-chaired by Watson and barrister Helen Mountfield QC and joined by philosophy professor Michael Sandel, Naomi Climer, who is the president of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) and MP Jon Cruddas.
"The world of work — the heart of our lives and the center of our Labour identity — is getting ever more complex and uncertain," Watson will say in his speech.
"Complex,because new automated technologies are fusing with the Internet, and creating models of work and jobs we haven't seen before."
"Daily we hear stories of machines and systems that can do things we thought only humans could do: driving cars, drafting contracts, even composing music."
"It's been called the 'fourth industrial revolution,' a new era of fast technology driven change, which we're beginning to feel in everything we do," Watson will tell the audience in Liverpool.
Words, futurologist Ray Hammond describes as "patronizing" and "ignorant."
"It seems to be an extremely ignorant approach. But it may well be that the Labour party feels it needs to talk down or patronize its followers," Mr. Hammond told Sputnik.
"We already know about the automation of jobs and robotics and that they're going to free-up workers to do other work — rather than replicate jobs and take them over in the next ten years."
Mr. Hammond suggests that successive cycles of automation are already happening in industries which have seen workers moved into different areas rather than being replaced by robots, causing wholesale unemployment.
"Automation has already seen the end to bank clerks, type setters and yet there seems to be an unending demand for things we never knew we wanted. New jobs have clearly been created as our economy has grown with automation replacing old jobs."
Robot delivery pods to be trialled in Washington DC this year. #futurist — Ray Hammond (@hammondfuturist) September 26, 2016
This will continue for the next ten years, it will be the same process," sad the futurologist, who predicts that "20 years from now — it'll be a different story."We have useless facts. Useless facts interesting facts weird facts facts smoking facts. We have the most useless facts and interesting facts. We have random facts. Smoking facts, tornado facts, abortion facts, unbelievable facts, incredible facts, useless facts, interesting facts, amazing facts. Neat facts, health facts, weird facts, and random facts is what we provide to you. This site was invented for those people who cannot get enough random facts, amazing facts, and interesting facts. Hooked on Facts.com is the World's first dedicated fact engine that generates thousands of random facts that are interesting, weird, amazing, unbelievable, useless, incredible, and even funny. We have weird facts, and bizarre facts. We have so many facts, we are considered to be the best fact provider in the world. Please send us your amazing facts.ROME (AFP).- Lavishly frescoed rooms in the houses of the Roman Emperor Augustus and his wife Livia are opening for the first time to the public Thursday, after years of painstaking restoration.
The houses on Rome's Palatine hill where the emperor lived with his family are re-opening after a 2.5 million euro ($3.22 million) restoration to mark the 2,000 anniversary of Augustus's death -- with previously off-limit chambers on show for the first time.
From garlands of flowers on Pompeian red backgrounds to majestic temples and scenes of rural bliss, the rooms are adorned with vividly coloured frescoes, many in an exceptional condition.
Restorers said their task had been a complex one, with bad weather during excavation threating the prized relics of a golden era in the Eternal City.
"We had to tackle a host of problems which were all connected, from underground grottos to sewers -- and I'm talking about a sewer system stretching over 35 hectares (86 acres)," Mariarosaria Barbera, Rome's archaeological superintendent, told AFP.
To protect the site, tourists will have to book to join one of three daily groups of up to 20 people who will be taken around by a guide for a 15-minute visit.
Cinzia Conti, head restorer, said the plan was to allow people to enjoy "a more intimate, more attentive exploration of Augustus's spaces."
It will also mean "we restorers can keep an eye on and evaluate the consequences of the public walking through, for example the dust on their shoes and especially their breath," she said.
Augustus's decision to build his "domus" near a grotto where Romans worshipped Romulus -- one of the twins who legend has it founded Rome -- was no coincidence.
A man of power
The complex was intended to symbolise not only his power but that of his wife and advisor Livia, who is said to have wielded great influence over him and went on to play an important role in Roman politics after his death.
"Looking at the houses, the buildings he had built, we understand he was a man of power, of great strength, who knew what went into making a political man at the head of such a big empire," Conti said.
The frescoes in Livia's house in particular are one of the most important examples of the period's style, according to Barbera.
The founder of the Roman Empire was born Caius Octavius in 63 BC on the Palatine hill. The great-nephew of Julius Caesar, he was adopted as his son shortly before the latter was assassinated.
Caius Octavius went on to rule over Rome for 40 years, during which the Republic experienced an era of great wealth and relative peace.
Livia, the love of his life, was his third wife, whom he married when she was pregnant with her first husband's child. He adopted the baby, Tiberius, who would succeed him after his death.
Augustus died aged 75, after which the Senate raised him to the status of a god and appointed Livia his chief priestess.
As part of the 2,000 year celebrations, the Palatine Museum has dedicated a room to Augustus with objects connected to his life on show.
© 1994-2014 Agence France-PresseBAGHDAD (Reuters) - An al Qaeda-affiliated group claimed responsibility for a wave of bombings across Iraq that killed 60 people on Monday and the Interior Ministry said it was facing an “open war” from insurgents bent on plunging the country into sectarian strife.
Street cleaners remove debris on the road at the site of a car bomb attack in Basra, 420 km (260 miles) southeast of Baghdad, July 29, 2013. REUTERS/Stringer
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which was formed earlier this year through a merger between al Qaeda’s affiliates in Iraq and Syria, said in a statement posted online it had carefully selected its targets, which were mainly Shi’ites.
The 17 blasts were the latest in a relentless campaign of bombings and shootings that have killed more than 4,000 people since the start of the year. Nearly 900 people have lost their lives in militant attacks in July.
Another 26 people were killed in scattered attacks on Tuesday evening, and the bodies of two unidentified men were found in the northern city of Mosul with gunshot wounds and their hands bound behind their backs.
“The country is currently facing an open war from bloodthirsty sectarian forces that aim to plunge the country into chaos,” said the Interior Ministry, warning it would deal harshly with anyone found harboring insurgents.
The ministry said it was setting up a hotline for citizens to report information that uncovered “terrorist cells”, offering big cash rewards to anyone who came forward.
Hundreds of convicts ran free after simultaneous attacks on two high-security prisons last week, raising questions about the ability of Iraq’s security services to combat al Qaeda, which has been regaining momentum in its insurgency against the Shi’ite-led government.
“The latest operations came at the height of security deployment after the blessed operations to break the chains of the lions in Abu Ghraib and Taji jails,” read the statement by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The group said Monday’s attacks were part of a “heavy price” the government would pay for its mistreatment of the Sunni minority, which resents Shi’ite supremacy since the U.S.-led invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The jailbreaks came exactly one year after the leader of al Qaeda’s Iraqi branch, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, launched a “Breaking the Walls” campaign that made freeing its imprisoned members a top priority, the group said in a statement.
In a separate statement, a spokesman for the combined Syrian and Iraqi groups said the “Breaking the Walls” offensive was over and al Qaeda would move on to a new phase called “the Harvest of the Soldiers”, calling Sunnis to join their ranks.
Sectarian tensions in Iraq and the wider region have been inflamed by the civil war in neighboring Syria, where mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are fighting to overthrow a leader backed by Shi’ite Iran.
A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a Shi’ite mosque on the northern outskirts of Baghdad on Tuesday evening, killing six people, and another bomb in a Sunni mosque in the town of Tuz Khurmato killed three.
Six people were killed when a bomb exploded outside a cafe in central Baquba 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Baghdad.
In Baghdad, two blasts near a Sunni mosque in the western al-Jihad district killed two people, and three bombs went off in a busy street in the Turath neighborhood, killing three others, police said.
Gunmen attacked a police patrol in central Mosul, killing two, and in Tarmiya, north of Baghdad, a bomb struck another police patrol, also killing two. A bomb targeted a third police patrol in the town of Mishahda, killing two more.Today is a special day for Nextcloud and me because Nextcloud gets a cool and important new capability. This is end to end encryption for file sync and share. Nextcloud supports server side encryption for a long time and all file transfer over the internet is encrypted with
TLS/SSL of course. But there is still the need for full end to end encryption to make sure that the data is secure in all scenarios. One
example is that the current server side encryption doesn’t protect the data against an evil server admin or if the server is hacked. The new end to end solution does that.
This feature is more important then ever in the light of Trump and other governments including western ones like the UK who want to have access to the private data of users.
Please read this blog post about the upcoming dangers in the next few months. European datacenter is no solution, recent developments show
Most requested feature
End to end encryption is our most ever requested feature. Users and customers have been asking for this for many many years so I am super happy that we finally do this now. So you might ask “what took you so long?” There are many reasons.
The first is that it is hard. This needs to be done without compromising the user experience. Then we wanted to support as many core Nextcloud features as possible, for example sharing. And we wanted to do this in a way that doesn’t compromise performance. Obviously security is the highest priority and that is hard in itself. But another must have requirement is to make the feature truly enterprise ready. So real key management is necessary and it has to be designed with the assumption that users make mistakes. We don’t need another solution that is aimed at technical users, losing their data when they forget their password for example… Our solution doesn’t even let users pick their own password, taking away the risk of passwords that are easy to hack due to reuse or shortness! We also wanted to implement this feature fully transparent and native in all clients and fully open source instead of integrating a third party tool. It was hard to find a solution that balanced all these requirements. But I’m happy to say that Björn, who already designed and developed the server side architecture and Lukas our security lead, found a good architecture, with a lot of feedback from a number of other team members of course. This has been a real collaborative effort, building on our years of experience and a good understanding of the needs of our users and customers.
How does it work?
The feature consists of several components. There is the actual encryption and decryption code which is implemented in the Nextcloud iOS and Android apps and in the Mac, Windows and Linux clients. And then there is a server component which is implemented as a Nextcloud app to do the key management. This is useful to make it easy for the users to distribute private and public keys to all clients and share with each other. Obviously the private keys are encrypted with very strong auto generated passwords which are only known by the users and clients and are never accessible by the server. The key server also supports an optional recovery key which can be activated to make it possible to recover lost passwords/keys. This feature can be activated or deactivated to balance user convenience and security. The clients will warn users when the feature is or gets enabled.
End to end encryption can be activated by the users on a folder by folder basis. Once a user decided to encrypt a folder everything inside the folder will be encryption including the content of the files and folder and the metadata like filenames. From now on the folder is no longer accessible from the Nextcloud web-interface and WebDAV. But it is still fully readable and writable from iOS, Android and Mac, Windows, Linux. Sharing still works via public keys of other users. The full design is explained here and the architecture is further documented here
Enterprise ready
It was a key requirement to implement this feature in a way that it is not only useful for home users who want to protect their data on home-servers or at service providers. It had to be done in a way that it is useful for companies and other large organisation. We had conversations with some of our bigger customers over the last few month to make sure that this integrated nicely into the enterprise infrastructure and is compliant with existing policies. One example is that we will try to integrate this into Desktops like KDE, Gnome, Mac and Windows and will support Hardware Security Modules.
Where are we today?
This feature will be fully production ready and included in Nextcloud 13 which will be out later this year. But we didn’t want to wait until then and announce and release something as soon as possible so we can get feedback from encryption experts and the wider infosec community. So today we have our architecture document ready here. The server component is fully implemented and can be found in our github. There is a preview version of the Android app available which is fully working. The Desktop client and the iOS app are in the middle of the development. You can expect preview builds in the next few days. You can see the development and give feedback in the repositories in github.
More information can be found here:
The software can be found here:
So please give feedback about the architecture and the code if you want to get involved. This is a big step forward to protect the data of users and companies against hackers and organisations who want to abuse it in various ways!Hey everyone,
I wanted to ensure that we have at least ONE post for today, even if we seemed to be otherwise silent today. Our normal team of writers were all tied up working on various projects, other members of the team were working hard on pushing forward, and I ended up dealing with a lot more of the “business” side of the site than I would have liked. However, there should be a payoff for this in the end! Here is what to watch for over the weekend:
Streamlining the Digital Currency “Coin Representative” Onboarding Process
Our Coin Representative project has been quite successful thus far, and we are preparing to take it to the next level. We often tweet about it to our followers, or post on various digital currency subreddits, and that has worked for the trial phase. This method has resulted in some spectacular representatives, and interesting characters. Some are from well known digital currencies, and others from unknown niches (see Tacocoin)!
Over the weekend we will be releasing a more obvious process for members of the digital currency communities to become Coin Representatives, and provide more visibility to all of our users about the project itself. This will including what it means to be a “Coin Representative”, and why more communities should put forth at least one member to represent their coincommunity. However, until then, feel free to check out some of the recent articles from the Potcoin, Myriadcoin, Litecoin, Darkcoin, Vertcoin, NXT, and Monero communities!
Coin Brief’s Weekly Recap, Touching on All of the Bitcoin and Digital Currency News from the Previous Week
Kristi, who many of you have interacted with via our Twitter account, has been tweeting a short recap of Coin Brief’s articles for the past few weeks. I think that is a fantastic idea, and would like to take it a step farther. We will begin to publish a weekly recap article, which will not only recap events that we have written about, but include as many other relevant stories related to Bitcoin or other digital currencies.
Look forward to seeing that published sometime tomorrow, or by Sunday at the latest. In the future, we will try to set a specific day of the week on which to release these overviews.
Coin Brief’s Latest Podcast, and Shorts, from Evan and Sean
Evan and Sean, two of our regular authors, have been publishing a podcast for quite some time now. They have received great feedback, and our YouTube channel is beginning to pick up steam (especially after the interview with Erik Voorhees). Their latest work should be available tomorrow. Also, over the following weeks, we will be releasing a series of additional interviews that have now been officially scheduled, and should be recorded soon.
The Digital Currency Portfolio, Brought to you By Clay
While most of you likely have no idea who Clay is (and he seems to like it that way), I am going to out him now. He is my co-founder, and is the development side of Coin Brief. He has been working on a multitude of interesting tools for quite some time now, and one of the most useful is nearing completion. Without going into too much detail, our Coin Portfolio will make it much easier to keep tabs on all of your various digital currencies, and their combined value, without the need to trust us, or any other third party, with your personal data, or the coins themselves.
Digital Currency Contests and Giveaways!
We have been planning on hosting more contests for quite some time, as our original tagline contest went extremely well. While we may not officially begin a contest or giveaway over the weekend, expect an announcement about what the next contest or giveaway will be, and how to join in!
Bitcoin and Digital Currency News
Of course, this is still our central purpose, and alongside the other events, announcements, and upgrades announced here, expect to see plenty of our normal reports, analysis, reviews, and opinions popping up. Again, we apologize for the lack therein today. The perfect storm of busywork, real life, and other distractions lead to this down day.
As the editor, and one of the co-founders, I take full responsibility for that. I should have noticed it at an earlier point in the day, when I still had time to do something about it, and found a way to get out at least a few articles. I’ll make sure to be more vigilant in the future, and work out a system to handle this type of situation, should it arise again.
Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Don’t forget to check in on us.
Very Sincerely,
Dustin O’Bryant
Co-Founder and Editor of Coin BriefGoogle has unrivaled power to make waves on the Internet. From Gmail to Google search, YouTube to Blogger, Google products reach eyes all over the globe.
Wouldn't it be amazing if Google used its global influence to help us normalize breastfeeding? Of course the real normalization of nursing happens every time a mother breastfeeds a child. But nursing is also normalized each time we see it on TV, in books, on Facebook, and yes, on Google and the Internet as a whole. Sadly, nursing pairs still face discrimination and criticism. Each little step we make to celebrate and normalize breastfeeding can help.
Hygiea recently shared that the California Breastfeeding Coalition had an idea to petition Google to dedicate one of the Google Doodles to breastfeeding during World Breastfeeding Week.
I started brainstorming several ideas of what that Doodle might look like -- we could turn Google's oo's into breasts, and a simple outline of mama/baby would go above and below the word. We could turn the little "g" into the blue and white international breastfeeding symbol. We could transform the bottom of the "g" into a baby's head and have a mama nursing incorporated into the background.
Along with the Doodle ideas, I was inspired to come up with a list of several more ways Google could help us normalize breastfeeding. The beautiful artwork in this post is courtesy of my very talented friend, Joni Rae of Tales of a Kitchen Witch, who made the Doodle and the Pegwoman below. Thanks also go to my husband, Tom Ford, who created the fake Google street view, Calendar, and Gmail images.
You can help us get Google's attention by sending them an email -- there is an example email at the bottom of this post.
So, Google, what do you say? Will you help?
9 Ways Google Can Help Us Normalize Breastfeeding
PHOTO GALLERY
How You Can Help!
Would you love to see Google help us normalize breastfeeding? To get these ideas on Google's radar, send an email to proposals@google.com. Here is a sample email adapted from one at Hygeia:
Dear Google,
We, the breastfeeding support and promotion community, would be delighted to have Google help us normalize breastfeeding throughout the world. World Breastfeeding Week takes place from August 1-7, 2012, and Dionna at Code Name: Mama has brainstormed several ways Google can join the celebration:
Feature a Google Doodle Honoring Breastfeeding - Be sure to check out the suggested Doodle created by Joni Rae from Tales of a Kitchen Witch!
Include the Searcher's State Law on Breastfeeding on Every Search Result
Offer Free Advertising Space to Breastfeeding Organizations
List One of the Many Reasons to Breastfeed in Gmail's Sponsored Links
Add World Breastfeeding Week to the Holidays on Google Calendar
Put a Breastfeeding Pair in Street Views
Reject Advertising from Companies That Aren't Who Code Compliant
Turn the Google Map Pegman into a Breastfeeding Pegwoman
Feature a Breastfeeding Video on the Front Page of YouTube
(INCLUDE A FEW OF THE IDEAS BELOW, AND/OR ADD YOUR OWN IDEAS!)
World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year in over 176 countries around the world, and this year marks the 20th anniversary. We would love to have Google be a vital part of this milestone.
Thank you for considering this proposal.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAMEDEHRADUN: It was a random conversation at a tea shop overheard by a policeman that eventually led to busting of the kidney racket in Dehradun. The discussion in question happened between two drivers who were tasked to ferry kidney donors to Gangotri Charitable Hospital on the outskirts of Dehradun.Almost a month ago, constable Pankaj Sharma, posted at Ranipur police station in Haridwar, was sitting in a tea shop in plainclothes when he overheard two people discussing the “illegal things” happening in the hospital. Recalling the sequence of events, constable Sharma told TOI, “It was early August and I was having morning tea at a roadside shop, when I heard two people sitting next to me talking about the goings-on in their hospital |
political crisis in Northern Ireland if the British Supreme Court rules that Belfast’s regional assembly must approve an EU exit, a lawyer for a Brexit challenger said.
The Parliament Buildings at Stormont are seen behind railings, a day after deputy first minister Martin McGuinness resigned, throwing the devolved joint administration into crisis, in Belfast Northern Ireland, January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
Northern Ireland’s High Court ruled in October that the province’s laws did not restrict British Prime Minister Theresa May’s ability to trigger an exit from the European Union, and that the consent of the regional parliament was not required.
But human rights activist Raymond McCord appealed against the ruling to Britain’s highest judicial body, which will consider the argument when it rules in the next couple of weeks on whether May can begin the process without the approval of parliament in London.
A likely snap election in the British-run province that may be followed by lengthy renegotiations on the terms of the power-sharing regional government could delay May’s plans to begin the talks by the end of March, McCord’s lawyer told Reuters.
“In the current circumstances, where there is a potential suspension of the institutions, the approval of the devolved institutions would not be possible,” Paul Farrell, a partner at McIvor Farrell Solicitors, said in a telephone interview.
“Devolution has obviously added a layer of complexity to the constitutional arrangements within the United Kingdom and this case is addressing those complex relationships now.”
The risk of political paralysis in the region as Britain plans its exit from the EU resulted from Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness’ resignation on Monday, effectively collapsing the devolved government.
If the British government loses its appeal to the Supreme Court, then May’s timetable would come under pressure as lawmakers in London would get a vote on whether she should trigger formal Brexit talks by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.
It is unclear what the Supreme Court’s 11 judges will rule on the involvement of regional assemblies such as Northern Ireland’s before May can trigger Brexit.
Lawyers told the Supreme Court Northern Ireland’s assembly had to give its assent before May could trigger Article 50 and it would be contrary to the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which effectively ended decades of sectarian violence in the province, to begin Brexit without this.
Britain’s June 23 vote to leave the EU stirred political tension among the four nations of the United Kingdom - England and Wales, which voted in a majority to leave the EU, and Northern Ireland and Scotland, which voted to remain.
A spokeswoman for May said on Wednesday the timetable for Britain’s triggering of Article 50, which kicks off the EU divorce process, was clear, when asked whether anything in Northern Ireland could derail that process.
“There’s now this limbo before elections can be called, so we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. We have been clear on the timetable for triggering Article 50 and we will be sticking to that,” she said.The Comic Vine staff has put our noggins together to collect and codify the all-time greatest moments in comics.
We make no pretense at any academic objectivity here - - these aren't supposed to be the most "important" to the history of the medium. These are simply the times where we've been so wrapped up in a story that we literally had to say "Wow!" when we turned the page. These are the most-memorable pages or panels for readers like you (as decided by our highly-discriminating reckoning.)
These are the top fifty greatest moments in comics...
Lest we forget the time Ultimate Warrior made Santa humble.
We’re counting down moments #20-11 today. Catch up on moments #50-41, #40-31 & #30-21. [Major spoilers below!]
== TEASER ==
Well, here’s an older comic to put SCHISM in some perspective. Way before he ever hooked up with Emma Frost and way before he finally wed Jean Grey, Cyclops was married to Madelyne Pryor… and he was kind of a jerk to her. As in, he wasn’t around for the birth of their son, Nathan (the future Cable,) and he was actually even the last person to call to check up on her. It seemed rather clear that his attention was divided by his duties as the X-Men’s leaders, so Storm proposed a friendly match in the Danger Room to decide who should lead. Even though she'd lost her powers at the time, Ororo still bested Scott through cunning maneuvering, stealing his visor a crucial moment and proving that his mind was too distracted by his family to lead the X-Men properly. Do the results still ring true today?
Hal Jordan may be the greatest Green Lantern, and Sodam Yat might be the ultimate Green Lantern, but there ought to be an even more superlative description for Mogo, a living planet GL. Seriously, how do you even hurt a planet, let alone kill it? Well, when Mogo was brainwashed by the villainous Krona during WAR OF THE GREEN LANTERNS, John Stewart had to find a way. Using an Indigo Tribe ring to take on the powers of the Black Lanterns, he fired a death-charged missile into Mogo’s heart that finally slayed the creature, asserting how awesomely-outlandish comics can be by showing that planets are actually mortal, too.
This particular moment has far more significance then you probably realize. Sure, the new Flash meeting his predecessor cutely establishes the whole notion of heroic legacies, but there’s more to it than that. If you’ve ever wondered how alternate realities and timelines ever got so complex for DC and Marvel - - how there could be so many universes that crises are necessary every few years to sort them all out - - it’s because parallel worlds have been a part of superhero comics since the early Silver Age! And it all started here. It isn’t too hyperbolic to say that, without this auspicious meeting, we likely wouldn’t ever have seen the likes of Kingdom Come, Age of Apocalypse, ad infinitum.
17. Lori Grimes & her infant child gunned down in WALKING DEAD #48
We’ll see if the TV show ever gets this cruel...
You want to talk about the worst conceivable outcome for a love triangle and the suspicious paternity case lying right in the middle of it? Officer Rick Grimes woke from a coma to find that his wife, Lori, and his partner, Shane, had gotten a whole lot friendlier while he was sleeping during the zombie apocalypse. As in they’d gotten "friendly" enough that, when Lori realized she was pregnant, nobody (readers included) could be quite sure if the baby was Rick or Shane’s. She eventually did give birth to a little girl, Judith, and, as you really ought to expect things to go in a zombie apocalypse, the two were brutally killed soon after while everybody was fleeing from a sadistic “Governor.”
In case you didn't realize... nobody is safe in this series. Nobody.
16. Captain America points to his "A" in ULTIMATES #12
When a hero’s dressed up in the American flag, reactions to his patriotism will range. Some will see it as just a cool outfit without any political connotations, others will see it as an aggressive expression of jingoism. Cap’s attitude about the suit has been continually redefined by writers over the years, and the big "A" he insists on wearing on his forehead has gotten almost as many snickers as the wings on his temples. Thus, it's just cathartic to see Cap, in the heat of battle, finally expressing some RA-RA enthusiasm for one of his costume's potentially sillier design elements and for all the patriotic pride it exudes.
When Ennis and Dillon’s mega-series starts off with such a provocative, button-pushing premise - - that of disillusioned preacher, Jesse Custer, setting out to confront no less than the almighty - - it really just has to escalate until it reaches the utmost peak of the transgressive. Thus, Jesse’s sometimes foe, a “holy hitman” called the Saint of Killers finds a violent reckoning like no other in the series’ final issue. He barges into paradise, pistols blazing, and guns down the "man upstairs” who’d abandoned creation and caused the Saint and Jesse such anguish. Then, the Saint takes a seat on his throne… and you likely won’t ever see something as offensive again (not even in THE BOYS.)
Something tell us that this particular moment is going to be brought up a lot more so soon - - maybe even recreated by a couple actors come July 2012? The 90s were a time when many of our big heroes were falling on hard times. Some went clinically insane, other were murdered in public, but there’s something far more gut-wrenchingly visceral about a hero receiving an injury he can’t just walk off by the next issue, though. What’s maybe even scarier is how this wasn't an act of furious rage. No, this was the single, crowning moment of a cold, cunning plan Bane very calmly orchestrated over the course of a few months, spreading the Caped Crusader thin until he finally could finally break the Bat.
13. Hulk lifts a whole mountain in SECRET WARS #4
How strong is Hulk? HOW STRONG IS THE HULK?!?! THIS STRONG!!!!
Comics fans love the stats and figures of their favorite character to be hashed out clearly in stories, without any room for disagreement. Thus, this moment should be referenced any time anybody casts a doubt on whether Hulk actually is the strongest one there is. The Molecule Man drops an entire mountain falls on our heroes and the jade giant holds the thing up on his own - - all hundred and fifty billion tons of it, all by himself. When you've got a loose cannon with that much raw power, you can understand why the Illuminati found it in their best interest to get him off the planet.
12. Batman & Catwoman finally kiss in BATMAN #610
His back’s been broken, his body's a road map of pain, his loved ones have been murdered… can Batman ever catch a break, for once? Perhaps there’s no more welcome break from all that anguish than a break that comes in the release of decades of powerful, stewing sexual tension. While this didn’t answer the “Will they? Won’t they?” question as… thoroughly as some recent comics have, it stands out for being one of the few respites in both of those costume night ragers’ conflict-ridden lives. They might never be able to make a relationship such as this work in the long run, but at least we got a fleeting glimpse of what such a romance could look like, unencumbered.Many of today’s applications process large volumes of data. While GPU architectures have very fast HBM or GDDR memory, they have limited capacity. Making the most of GPU performance requires the data to be as close to the GPU as possible. This is especially important for applications that iterate over the same data multiple times or have a high flops/byte ratio. Many real-world codes have to selectively use data on the GPU due to its limited memory capacity, and it is the programmer’s responsibility to move only necessary parts of the working set to GPU memory.
Traditionally, developers have used explicit memory copies to transfer data. While this usually gives the best performance, it requires very careful management of GPU resources and predictable access patterns. Zero-copy access provides fine-grained direct access to the entire system memory, but the speed is limited by the interconnect (PCIe or NVLink) and it’s not possible to take advantage of data locality.
Unified Memory combines the advantages of explicit copies and zero-copy access: the GPU can access any page of the entire system memory and at the same time migrate the data on-demand to its own memory for high bandwidth access. To get the best Unified Memory performance it’s important to understand how on-demand page migration works. In this post I’ll break it down step by step and show you what you can do to optimize your code to get the most out of Unified Memory.
A Streaming Example
I will focus on a streaming example that reads or writes a contiguous range of data originally resident in the system memory. Although this type of access pattern is quite basic, it is fundamental for many applications. If Unified Memory performance is good on this common access pattern, we can remove all manual data transfers and just directly access the pointers relying on automatic migration. The following simple CUDA kernel reads or writes a chunk of memory in a contiguous fashion.
template <typename data_type, op_type op> __global__ void stream_thread(data_type *ptr, const size_t size, data_type *output, const data_type val) { size_t tid = threadIdx.x + blockIdx.x * blockDim.x; size_t n = size / sizeof(data_type); data_type accum = 0; for(; tid < n; tid += blockDim.x * gridDim.x) if (op == READ) accum += ptr[tid]; else ptr[tid] = val; if (op == READ) output[threadIdx.x + blockIdx.x * blockDim.x] = accum; }
This benchmark migrates data from CPU to GPU memory and accesses all data once on the GPU. The input data ( ptr ) is allocated with cudaMallocManaged or cudaMallocHost and initially populated on the CPU. I tested three different approaches to migrating the data.
On-demand migration by passing the cudaMallocManaged pointer directly to the kernel; Prefetching the data before the kernel launch by calling cudaMemPrefetchAsync on the cudaMallocManaged pointer; Copying the data from cudaMallocHost to a preallocated cudaMalloc buffer on the GPU using cudaMemcpyAsync.
In all three cases I measure any explicit data transfer time and the kernel time.
Figure 1 shows initial performance results for the GPU inbound (read) transfers when using different allocators for PCIe and NVLink systems. All systems are using the CUDA 9 toolkit and driver. There are two PCIe systems, one with Tesla P100 and another with Tesla V100. For both PCIe systems the peak bandwidth between the CPU and the GPU is 16GB/s. The NVink system is an IBM Minsky server with 2 links of NVLink connecting the CPU and the GPU with peak interconnect bandwidth of 40GB/s.
Considering that Unified Memory introduces a complex page fault handling mechanism, the on-demand streaming Unified Memory performance is quite reasonable. Still it’s almost 2x slower (5.4GB/s) than prefetching (10.9GB/s) or explicit memory copy (11.4GB/s) for PCIe. The difference is more profound for NVLink. The upside is that if you have a lot of compute in your kernel then the migrations can be amortized or overlapped with other computation, and in some scenarios Unified Memory performance may even be better than a non-overlapping cudaMemcpy and kernel approach. In my simple example there is a minimal amount of compute (only local per-thread accumulation) and the explicit prefetching and copy approaches set an upper bound for the achievable bandwidth. Let’s see if we can improve the pure streaming Unified Memory performance and understand how close we can get to the achieved bandwidth of explicit data transfers.
Page Migration Mechanism
Before diving into optimizations I want to explain what happens when a cudaMallocManaged allocation is accessed on the GPU. You can check out my GTC 2017 talk for more details.The sequence of operations (assuming no cudaMemAdvise hints are set and there is no thrashing) is:
Allocate new pages on the GPU; Unmap old pages on the CPU; Copy data from the CPU to the GPU; Map new pages on the GPU; Free old CPU pages.
Much like CPUs, GPUs have multiple levels of TLBs (Translation Lookaside Buffer: a memory cache that stores recent virtual to physical memory address translations) to perform address translations. When Pascal and Volta GPUs access a page that is not resident in the local GPU memory the translation for this page generates a fault message and locks the TLBs for the corresponding SM (on Tesla P100 it locks a pair of SMs that share a single TLB). This means any outstanding translations can proceed but any new translations will be stalled until all faults are resolved. This is necessary to make sure the SM’s view of memory is consistent since during page fault processing the driver may modify the page table and add or revoke access to pages. The GPU can generate many faults concurrently and it’s possible to get multiple fault messages for the same page. The Unified Memory driver processes these faults, remove duplicates, updates mappings and transfers the data. This fault handling adds significant overhead to streaming performance of Unified Memory on current generation GPU architectures.
Understanding Profiler Output
Since each fault increases the driver’s processing time it is important to minimize page faults during CUDA kernel execution. At the same time you want to provide enough information about your program’s access pattern to the driver so it can prefetch efficiently. Here’s the nvprof profiler output from running my initial streaming code on a small 64MB dataset.
==95657== Unified Memory profiling result: Device "Tesla P100-SXM2-16GB (0)" Count Avg Size Min Size Max Size Total Size Total Time Name 349 187.78KB 64.000KB 896.00KB 64.00000MB 2.568640ms Host To Device 88 - - - - 5.975872ms Gpu page fault groups
The total migration size is 64MB, which matches the setup. There are also the minimum and the maximum migration sizes. The minimum size usually equals the OS page size which is 64KB on the test system (IBM Power CPU). In practice, the transfer size is not fixed to the OS page size and can vary significantly. As you can see from the profiler output the driver has transferred chunks of up to 896 KB. The mechanism for this is called density prefetching, which works by testing how much of the predefined region has been or is being transferred; if it meets a certain threshold the driver prefetches the rest of the pages. In addition, the driver may also merge nearby smaller pages into larger pages on the GPU to improve TLB coverage. All this happens automatically during page fault processing (and outside of user control). Note that this is the current driver behavior and the performance heuristics might change in future. (Note that the Linux Unified Memory driver is open source, so keen developers can review what happens under the hood).
The number 88 above on the second line is not the total number of faults, but rather the number of page fault groups. The faults are written to a special buffer in system memory and multiple faults forming a group are processed simultaneously by the Unified Memory driver. You can get the total number of faults for each group by specifying --print-gpu-trace, as the following nvprof excerpt shows.
==32593== Profiling result:...,"Unified Memory","Virtual Address","Name"...,"114","0x3dffe6c00000","[Unified Memory GPU page faults]"......,"81","0x3dffe6c00000","[Unified Memory GPU page faults]"......,"12","0x3dffe6c40000","[Unified Memory GPU page faults]"...
The profiler shows that there are 114 faults reported just for a single page, and then more faults for the same address later. The driver must filter duplicate faults and transfer each page just once. Moreover, for this simple implementation very few different pages are accessed at the same time. Therefore, during fault processing the driver doesn’t have enough information about what data can be migrated to the GPU. Using vectorized load/store instructions up to 128 bits wide may reduce the overall number of faults and spread out the access pattern a bit, but it won’t change the big picture. So the question is how to increase the number of uniquely accessed pages to take advantage of the driver prefetching mechanism?
Warp-Per-Page Approach
Instead of having multiple hardware warps accessing the same page, we can divide pages between warps to have a one-to-one mapping and have each warp perform multiple iterations over the 64K region. Here is an updated kernel implementing this idea.
#define STRIDE_64K 65536 template __global__ void stream_warp(data_type *ptr, const size_t size, data_type *output, const data_type val) { int lane_id = threadIdx.x & 31; size_t warp_id = (threadIdx.x + blockIdx.x * blockDim.x) >> 5; int warps_per_grid = (blockDim.x * gridDim.x) >> 5; size_t warp_total = (size + STRIDE_64K-1) / STRIDE_64K; size_t n = size / sizeof(data_type); data_type accum = 0; for(; warp_id < warp_total; warp_id += warps_per_grid) { #pragma unroll for(int rep = 0; rep < STRIDE_64K/sizeof(data_type)/32; rep++) { size_t ind = warp_id * STRIDE_64K/sizeof(data_type) + rep * 32 + lane_id; if (ind < n) { if (op == READ) accum += ptr[ind]; else ptr[ind] = val; } } } if (op == READ) output[threadIdx.x + blockIdx.x * blockDim.x] = accum; }
The profiler output shows that now there is just one fault per page in most cases and overall the number of page fault groups is also reduced.
...,"Unified Memory","Virtual Address","Name"...,"1","0x3dffe6e00000","[Unified Memory GPU page faults]"...,"1","0x3dffe6e10000","[Unified Memory GPU page faults]"...
Figure 2 shows updated results for the streaming benchmark.
There is a solid speedup up to 2x compared to the original code and now on-demand migration is just 30% short of the maximum achieved bandwidth for both PCIe and NVLink. Note that this minor change in access pattern is not intrusive so you can easily wrap it into a lightweight macro or a C++ class to reuse in your applications. For many other access patterns it may be possible to apply similar techniques. As GPUs are getting wider with more SMs the number of concurrent page faults is increasing so it is even more important to process them efficiently.
Overlapping Kernels and Prefetches
On-demand migration is powerful in the way it enables fine-grain overlap between data transfers and kernel execution. However, as I explained previously this overlap is severely limited due to the SM stalls caused by page fault handling. Even with very sophisticated driver prefetching heuristics, on-demand access with migration will never beat explicit bulk data copies or prefetches in terms of performance for large contiguous memory regions. This is the price for simplicity and ease of use. If the application’s access pattern is well defined and structured you should prefetch using cudaMemPrefetchAsync. You can completely avoid stalls by manually tiling your data into contiguous memory regions and sending them to the GPU with cudaMemPrefetchAsync similar to cudaMemcpyAsync. This allows for more explicit control of what’s happening and at the same time provides a uniform view of memory by using a single address space, but there are some caveats.
Looking at Figure 2 it’s clear that cudaMemPrefetchAsync is on par with cudaMemcpyAsync for achieved bandwidth. However, prefetches and copies have different sequences of operations. While cudaMemcpyAsync only needs to submit copies over the interconnect, cudaMemPrefetchAsync also needs to traverse a list of pages and update corresponding mappings in the CPU and GPU page tables. Some of the operations have to be done in order, which limits concurrency and latency hiding opportunities. On the other hand, cudaMemcpyAsync requires the application to maintain host and device memory allocations separately.
There are specific rules on how prefetching interacts with CUDA streams. For busy CUDA streams, the call to prefetch is deferred to a separate background thread by the driver because the prefetch operation has to execute in stream order. The background thread performs the prefetch operation when all prior operations in the stream complete. For idle streams, the driver has a choice to either defer the operation or not, but the driver typically does not defer because of the associated overhead. The exact scenarios under which the driver may decide to defer can vary from driver to driver.
For host-to-device prefetches that are not deferred by the driver, the call returns after the pages have been unmapped from the CPU and the work to migrate those pages to the GPU and update the GPU’s page tables has been enqueued on the GPU. In other words, the call returns before the entire prefetch operation has completed. For device-to-host prefetches that are not deferred by the driver, the call doesn’t return until the entire prefetch operation has completed. This is because the CPU’s page tables cannot be updated asynchronously. So to unblock the CPU for device-to-host prefetches, the stream should not be idle when calling cudaMemPrefetchAsync. The tradeoff is that the deferred path has some additional overhead but it helps to enqueue more work without stalling the CPU, which may lead to better overlapping opportunities.
Achieving good one-way prefetch-kernel overlap is relatively easy as long as the kernel is submitted first. This may be counterintuitive, but it works because CUDA kernel launches are non-blocking and return almost immediately. Two-way prefetch overlap is more complicated because if you use the same CPU path (either deferred or non-deferred) for device-to-host and host-to-device prefetches they are likely to be serialized. Let’s look at a simple example.
for (int i = 0; i < num_tiles; i++) { // offload previous tile to the cpu if (i > 0) cudaMemPrefetchAsync(a + tile_size * (i-1), tile_size * sizeof(size_t), cudaCpuDeviceId, s1); // run multiple kernels on current tile for (int j = 0; j < num_kernels; j++) kernel<<<1024, 1024, 0, s2>>>(tile_size, a + tile_size * i); // prefetch next tile to the gpu if (i < num_tiles) cudaMemPrefetchAsync(a + tile_size * (i+1), tile_size * sizeof(size_t), 0, s3); // sync all streams cudaDeviceSynchronize(); }
This is a common tiling approach that partitions the working set into equal chunks and transfers the data for the previous and the next tiles in parallel with the processing of the current tile. For example, such a scheme is used in the NVIDIA cuBLAS XT library for out-of-core matrix multiplication. In the simple example here I have used a dummy kernel running multiple times to emulate real work happening on the GPU. All operations are submitted to three different streams so you would expect to get all three of them running concurrently. This would be the case for cudaMemcpyAsync but not for cudaMemPrefetchAsync. If you run it through the profiler you’ll see a timeline like the one in Figure 3, effectively showing no overlap between the transfers due to the device-to-host prefetch blocking the CPU.
Therefore, it’s important to make sure that we have the device-to-host prefetch issued in a busy stream while the host-to-device prefetch is issued in an idle stream. Here is a modified version that achieves the new overlapping strategy.
// prefetch first tile cudaMemPrefetchAsync(a, tile_size * sizeof(size_t), 0, s2); cudaEventRecord(e1, s2); for (int i = 0; i < num_tiles; i++) { // make sure previous kernel and current tile copy both completed cudaEventSynchronize(e1); cudaEventSynchronize(e2); // run multiple kernels on current tile for (int j = 0; j < num_kernels; j++) kernel<<<1024, 1024, 0, s1>>>(tile_size, a + tile_size * i); cudaEventRecord(e1, s1); // prefetch next tile to the gpu in a separate stream if (i < num_tiles-1) { // make sure the stream is idle to force non-deferred HtoD prefetches first cudaStreamSynchronize(s2); cudaMemPrefetchAsync(a + tile_size * (i+1), tile_size * sizeof(size_t), 0, s2); cudaEventRecord(e2, s2); } // offload current tile to the cpu after the kernel is completed using the deferred path cudaMemPrefetchAsync(a + tile_size * i, tile_size * sizeof(size_t), cudaCpuDeviceId, s1); // rotate streams and swap events st = s1; s1 = s2; s2 = st; st = s2; s2 = s3; s3 = st; et = e1; e1 = e2; e2 = et; }
Figure 4 shows the profiler timeline for this new code with almost perfect three-way overlap (compute, DtoH and HtoD).
The overall speedup from better overlapping will depend on your compute to copy ratio. I ran the benchmark by using 16 tiles of 256MB and varying the compute workload weight to see the performance impact. Figure 5 shows timings in ms for the naive and optimized methods and two additional lines: no overlap using a single stream (sum of kernel and prefetch times), and ideal overlap (maximum of kernel and prefetch times). The optimized approach is 1.3x-1.5x faster than the original multi-stream code. For compute intensive workloads (high compute to data transfer ratio) the optimized version is only 10% slower than the ideal scenario.
Future Unified Memory Performance Improvements
When using Unified Memory on Pascal or Volta in CUDA 9 all pages that are accessed by the GPU get migrated to that GPU by default. Although it is possible to modify this behavior by using explicit hints ( cudaMemAdvise ) for the Unified Memory driver, sometimes you just don’t know if your data is accessed often enough to ensure there will be benefit from moving it to the GPU.
Volta introduces new hardware access counters that can track remote accesses to pages. These counters can be used internally to notify the driver when a certain page is accessed too often remotely so the driver can decide to move it to local memory. This helps to resolve thrashing situations more elegantly by accurately capturing and moving only the hot pages to the processor’s local memory. For applications with a mixed access pattern you can imagine the pages that are accessed sparsely will not be migrated and it can help to save bandwidth. Stay tuned for future CUDA updates with more details on access counters and updated Unified Memory performance data.
Get Started with Unified Memory in CUDA
In this post I’ve aimed to provide experienced CUDA developers the knowledge needed to optimize applications to get the best Unified Memory performance. If you are new to CUDA and would like to get started with Unified Memory, please check out the posts An Even Easier Introduction to CUDA and Unified Memory for CUDA Beginners. To learn how Unified Memory makes it possible to build applications that process data sets much larger than GPU memory, read my previous post, Beyond GPU Memory Limits with Unified Memory on Pascal.Stacey Dooley travels to Greece to find out what it's like to be young and caught up in the economic crisis, attending a huge public demo outside parliament that turns into a riot.
The world is currently experiencing the worst financial meltdown in living memory, but what is it like to be young and caught up in this crisis, and what lessons can be learned in the UK? To find out, reporter Stacey Dooley travels to Greece, Ireland and Japan, three countries each facing very different and very difficult economic challenges.
Stacey begins her investigation in Greece, where for years successive governments have failed to balance the nation's books. Crippled with one of the biggest national debts in the world Greece recently needed a multi-billion bailout from Europe to avoid bankruptcy, but to secure this loan the Greek government was forced to implement massive spending cuts and tax hikes. These austerity measures have dramatically affected the lives of young Greeks, leaving more than half unemployed and many more in only part-time or temporary work.
Stacey's investigation into the Greek situation comes at a crucial time. Still on the brink of going bust the government must decide whether to accept another bailout and introduce even harsher austerity measures, or let the country go bankrupt and leave the Euro.
Her journey begins with a street tour of Athens where she quickly learns how badly affected normal Greeks are as she encounters scavengers, soup kitchens and witnesses a suicide attempt. The woman is one of 700 civil servants working in social housing, but with the government department being shut not only are their jobs under threat, but so too are the lives of the million Greeks who rely on the service.
Stacey's investigation continues with a look at how new charges for receiving even basic medical help are effectively denying many poor Greeks access to their national health service. She visits the town of Perama where a charity-run clinic now treats sick locals in their hundreds and pays a home visit to a couple facing huge medical bills after the complicated birth of their newborn baby.
Against this backdrop of poverty and desperation many young Greeks are choosing to battle against the government and its austerity measures. Stacey accompanies one recently-formed group, called We Do Not Pay, as they take over an underground station in protest at recent price increases imposed on many public services. But whilst many Greeks are choosing to stay and fight others are opting to give up their dreams of city life, instead fleeing to the country. Stacey travels to the island of Chios to visit two former civil servants who have taken a massive gamble in an attempt to earn a living - risking their family's entire life savings to set up a snail farm.
Stacey's investigation reaches its climax on the day politicians decide to vote in favour of a second bailout and a further wave of harsh austerity measures. She attends a massive public demonstration gathered outside parliament that dramatically turns into a violent riot. It offers her a glimpse of how angry and desperate a people can become when pushed to breaking point by economic policies, and it gives an insight into what could happen in the UK if our debt gets any worse.Nearly a year of discussion by the Denver City Council about how to build more sidewalks and fix many that are crumbling has shifted to a group of policymakers who are charged with putting together a plan.
The Sidewalk Affordability Working Group in coming months will wade through complex financial and legal issues that could result in greater enforcement of a longstanding ordinance that requires property owners to build and maintain the sidewalks out front.
The aim of several City Council members and now the mayor’s office is to couple that stepped-up crackdown on crumbling or missing concrete with more city investment and, possibly, an assistance program to aid homeowners, especially in lower-income neighborhoods. Those plans could rely in part on a new funding stream of millions of dollars a year — or even upwards of $10 million, the sum a city mobility task force plans to recommend for annual sidewalk spending.
How to pay for it? Options include a new fee or tax, though it’s not clear yet if all homeowners would have to pay or how much an assistance program would cost.
The sidewalk working group, created at the behest of Mayor Michael Hancock, met for the first time Thursday behind closed doors. The panel includes representatives from the city attorney’s office, the mayor’s office and the city’s departments of Finance and Public Works, along with Councilmen Paul Kashmann and Jolon Clark.
“It was actually a very encouraging discussion where, for the first time, we had all of the players at the table,” Kashmann said. Over the past year, he chaired a separate council panel that examined Denver’s sidewalk gaps, putting pressure on Hancock to advance an issue that the city estimates it would cost $475 million to tackle, likely over decades.
Public Works officials have estimated that 520 miles of city streets, or nearly 23 percent, have no sidewalks, while another 90 miles or so have a sidewalk on just one side. Many more sections have cracked or pavement shifting stone slabs that make them tough to navigate, especially with strollers and wheelchairs.
Kashmann said the new working group set out a timeline that calls for sending recommendations to the mayor by June for cost-sharing options with homeowners.
Among money-raising ideas that have been mentioned:
A new sidewalk fee. Assessment would be based on the length of property frontage or on square footage of pavement. It could be voluntary, like Englewood’s successful program, asking homeowners to opt-in to qualify for future assistance with repairs.
A property tax increase dedicated to sidewalks. Denver has some untapped taxing capacity remaining for possible activation without a citywide vote because of voters’ 2012 approval of a measure permanently relaxing some rules under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
One-time borrowing, perhaps as part of next year’s expected package of requests to voters for major bond issuances to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for various city building projects.
City officials also could opt for a multi-pronged approach.
“While I would hope that the 2017 bond issue lends a hand to pedestrian infrastructure as well, we have to have an ongoing funding stream for repairs and installation,” Kashmann said. “My preference would be that it’s some sort of a cost-sharing — whether it’s an opt-in fee or whether it’s a tax.
“From the talks that I’ve been having with the mayor, I would not at all be surprised if he takes a tack of a more broad-ranging infrastructure fee type of a thing.”
Other issues to sort out include whether to leave responsibility with property owners, as city attorneys advise; how to create a stronger enforcement system; what resources Public Works needs to evaluate sidewalks and prioritize assistance; and whether to offer homeowners the option to pay for their share of costs in installments.
Mike Krause, from the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute in Denver, recalled that a basement renovation at its Uptown headquarters resulted in a city order for the group to repair a sidewalk.
He opposed the council’s recent decision to raise $150 million for an affordable housing plan from property taxes and new development impact fees, but he said there was a better argument for a dedicated sidewalk fee or tax. Sidewalks, which serve everyone, are more justifiable as a basic city service, he said.
“So I think Denver might be on the right track if they can figure out some kind of opt-in impact fee,” said Krause, director of the institute’s Local Colorado Project. Even better, he said, would be to make the case to voters for a full-throated citywide tax that raises more money.
Jill Locantore, policy and program director for pedestrian advocacy group WalkDenver, said she’s encouraged by the city’s discussions.
“The ultimate goal that we’re focused on is treating sidewalks like any other type of infrastructure in the city,” she said, in “the same way we treat the streets or the sewer system — where the city takes a comprehensive approach to building a complete network and maintaining that network over time.”Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed a bill into law Wednesday allowing physicians to prescribe medical marijuana to treat health conditions.
The bill had passed the General Assembly on May 25, The Columbus Dispatch reported. The governor signed the bill within a couple if hours of it making it to his desk.
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According to the law, which will take effect in 90 days, the medical marijuana must be available within two years.
Marijuana products could be tested and available within 15 months, State Sen. Dave Burke said. The state senator said people could be growing marijuana in the state within a year.
The law creates a "seed-to-sale" system for growing, testing and |
August 17th 2012 - December 31st 2012
Japanese Distribution Time:
March 31st 2012 onwards
Restrictions: None Details
This event features the legendary pokémon Reshiram and how it ties to the leader Hideyoshi, similar to Zekrom being with Nobunaga. Okuni's Episode - A Date with Desti US Distribution Time: July 27th 2012 - December 31st 2012
Japanese Distribution Time:
April 14th 2012 - May 11th 2012
Restrictions: First Ending must be cleared Details
In the story, we learn how Okuni was made a leader by Princess No. It's labelled as a different kind of episode Ranmaru's Episode - "A Fate Born of Beauty". US Distribution Time:
July 2nd 2012 - December 31st 2012
Japanese Distribution Time:
May 11th 2012 - June 8th 2012
Restrictions: First Ending must be cleared Details
In the story, we learn how Ranmaru wishes to beat the female Warlords to being the most beautiful WarlordRefreshed for 2017, the compact Ford Escape SUV remains a strong model in its segment.
Mid-product cycle updates are supposed to provide a nip here and a tuck there. An engine or transmission change signals a more aggressive update, while tech changes seem to come yearly. As for the 2017 Ford Escape, this is no middling update. Instead, Ford poured vast resources into improving its compact SUV — that fact really should not surprise as the Escape is one of its top-selling models. To that end, we’ll take a look at the important “numbers” defining this model.
1 or First — SYNC 3 is the latest version of Ford’s connectivity suite. It seems like eons ago when the 2008 Ford Focus was outfitted with the first-generation system. The 2017 Escape will claim an important first among Ford brand models: it’ll have support for both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto – permitting drivers to seamlessly systematize their preferred devices.
1.5 — As before, Ford offers a family of three four-cylinder engine choices with the 2017 Escape. A normally aspirated 2.5-liter is one choice as is a turbocharged 2.0-liter four. Both engines are carryovers. What’s new is a 1.5-liter, four making 179 horsepower and 177 foot-pounds of torque. These numbers compare favorably to the previous 1.6-liter engine making 178 horsepower and 184 foot-pounds of torque. All three engines are paired with 6-speed automatic transmissions.
2 — The F-150 is Ford’s best-selling model year in and year out. In 2015, Ford sold more than 780,000 F-Series (including F-150 and Super Duty) according to GoodCarBadCar.net, more than twice that of any other model. There are only a few thousand sales separating the compact Escape SUV from the midsize Fusion sedan, but for right now the Escape is in the No. 2 position. That’s how important this model is to Ford.
3 or Third — Among compact SUVs, the Ford Escape is the third best-selling model in the country, coming in just behind the Toyota RAV4 and just ahead of the Nissan Rogue. What model is at the top of the heap? That would be none other than the perennial best-selling Honda CR-V. But take note as both Toyota and Ford have moved ahead of Honda through March 2016. The SUV tide is rising, but some manufacturers (including Ford) have newer or more desirable models to ride the crest.
5 or Fifth— The third-generation Ford Escape debuted in 2013, making 2017 its fifth model year. The latest version arrives in the fifth month of this year or approximately five months earlier than normal. In any case, Ford dealers should have plenty of new models on hand by this summer with a generous number of 2016 SUVs to mark down.
3,500 — Do you like to tow? If so, choose the Escape equipped with the 2.0-liter engine and the Class II Towing Package, and you’ll enjoy 3,500 pounds of towing capacity. The larger of the two EcoBoost (turbocharged) engines also cranks out 245 horsepower and 275 foot-pounds of torque, effectively matching what some V-6 engines deliver.
$35,000 — Spec out the top-of-the-line Escape Titanium model ($29,995) with driver assistance features ($1,995) and various trim upgrades, and your final price will push past $35,000. The 2017 Escape starts at $23,600 for the base S trim with front-wheel drive. That model is also equipped with the least powerful, but the largest engine in the lineup. Chances are you’ll be looking at the better-equipped SE ($25,100) and Titanium ($29,100) models, and find yourself enticed by such options (where available) as a panoramic vista roof ($1,495), adaptive cruise control with pre-collision assist ($595), and a Sony audio system with SYNC 3 and voice-activated navigation ($795).
306,000 — In 2014 and again in 2015, Escape sales in the US topped 300,000 units. Specifically, Ford sold 306,212 Escapes stateside in 2014, then squeezed past that number in 2015 on 306,492 units sold. Oh, by the way, Escape sales are up 6.4 percent through the first quarter of 2016. Right now, the Escape is battling Fusion for second place among Ford products with the sedan in the lead. The heavily refreshed Escape may provide the impetus to move ahead once the 2017s go on sale.
Ford Escape: Beyond the Numbers
Numbers are fine for quantifying the changes made to the 2017 Escape. Also new for this year is automatic start/stop technology, standard equipment for the two EcoBoost engines. Start/stop conserves fuel by shutting down the engine when idled, before quickly restarting same once you remove your foot from the brake.
Ford Escape fans will notice a number of additional changes for the model year, including a push-button parking brake replacing the previous brake stick; a new media bin at the base of the center stack; redesigned cup holders, two additional storage bins, and a larger center armrest.
On the exterior, Ford redesigned the hood and enlarged the trapezoidal upper portion of the grille to provide a more aggressive presence. As always, customers have a choice of wheel and trim packages to personalize their SUVs.
Recent — Lexus: 1 Million Hybrid Vehicles LaterChips that have 3D elements to them are very much real. Moving data in 3D hasn't been truly viable until now, however, which makes an experimental chip from the University of Cambridge that much more special. By sandwiching a layer of ruthenium atoms between cobalt and platinum, researchers found that they can move data up and down an otherwise silicon-based design through spintronics; the magnetic field manipulation sends information across the ruthenium to its destination. The layering is precise enough to create a "staircase" that moves data one step at a time. There's no word on if and when the technique might be applied to real-world circuitry, but the advantages in density are almost self-evident: the university suggests higher-capacity storage, while processors could also be stacked vertically instead of consuming an ever larger 2D footprint. As long as the 3D chip technology escapes the lab, computing power could take a big step forward. Or rather, upward.2016 Ruby Association Grant selection result
We are very happy to announce that the following four projects have been selected by the Ruby Association grant committee.
Accomplishments of the projects will be published around March 2017.
Ruby System for Elementary Statistical Analysis
Project summary
We aim to “make Ruby a practical language in data science” and “develop and build an elementary statistical analysis pipeline”. Although some gems for data science such as Nyaplot or Daru has been developed, these gems are not yet widely used. The main causes are “immatureness of gem cooperation” and “lack of document”. For example, practical examples combining multiple packages are provided with detailed document, and there is no concern about these points in Python. Through the statistical analysis pipeline we will create a guide showing how to combine Ruby gems and how to input, analyze and visualize data. In addition we will improve existing gems and make cooperation between gems easier as well.
Applicants name
Yoshihiro Ashida Yusuke Sangenya Kozo Nishida
Subproject libraries for Ruby/Numo
Project summary
I’ll implement a linear algebra library and a GSL library for NArray / Ruby Numo. The library numo-lapack will provides direct interface to LAPACK, and equivalent functionality which NumPy’s linalg.
Applicant name
Makoto Kishimoto
Tensorflow.rb
Project summary
This project aims at making Tensorflow.rb completely compatible with Tensorflow C API. Currently many interesting developments are taking place in Tensorflow and by the end of the project all the functionalities of the C API of Tensorflow must be easily accessible from the Ruby API.
Applicant name
Arafat Khan
Rubex - A new language for writing Ruby extensions
Project summary
Rubex is basically a superset of the Ruby Programming Language that will allow users to write Ruby C extensions for the CRuby interpreter without having to leave the comfort of Ruby.
To summarize, the objectives of the Rubex project are as follows:
Provide a Ruby-like syntax for writing C extensions.
Completely abstract the CRuby C API from the user.
Allow Ruby code to co-exist with Rubex-specific syntax.
Ultimately generate C code for writing Ruby extensions
Applicant name
Sameer DeshmukhOakland woman cited over homemade 'Summer Coolers’
State liquor regulators cited an Oakland woman for selling “Summer Coolers” — elaborate, candy-laden alcoholic drinks that were advertised on social media — from a home without a license, officials said Wednesday.
The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control had received complaints from community members around the 10000 block of McIntyre Street about alcohol being sold from a home, said John Carr, an agency spokesman. The beverages were advertised on Instagram, he said, and individuals could text requests for the drinks before going to the home to pick them up.
Waynesha Stroman, 22, was cited Friday on suspicion of misdemeanor sales of alcoholic beverages without a license after state liquor agents and Oakland police went to the home, Carr said. Efforts to reach Stroman on Wednesday were unsuccessful.
In a report this week, KPIX-TV said it went undercover and requested a few “vodka coolers” from the folks on McIntyre Street, then picked them up at the home, then called the police.
The people behind “Summer Coolers” continued Wednesday to advertise drinks topped with loads of candy and fruit on Instagram, but its Twitter account hadn’t been updated since October. KPIX said the Instagram account had “undergone a magical transformation” since the state bust, and now “features tons of little kids drinking coolers and smiling.”
Stroman’s mother told KPIX that they “don’t sell alcohol in our Summer Coolers. Our Summer Coolers are completely fruit candy juices.”
Carr said it wasn’t the first time an illicit booze seller had marketed on social media.
“People selling without a license, all kinds of questions come up — who is verifying safe service of alcohol? Checking identification?” he said. “Not to mention it is unfair to those who do go through the process of applying for a license.”
Hamed Aleaziz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: haleaziz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @haleazizUntitled a guest Apr 18th, 2011 27,802 Never a guest27,802Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 20.64 KB 5:54 PM - Leveraged: hey all Rez entered chat. 5:54 PM - Leveraged: you want to know when the game will release? 5:54 PM - jack5mikemotown: ^ 5:54 PM - war:head: in 7h 5:54 PM - MrTr33: I Know that, but how much time will it take off the launch time Mokk entered chat. Brooooo entered chat. 5:54 PM - Crazy (1): the game would be out now if people still gave a fuck 5:54 PM - Leveraged: so... it's around 9pm tonight 5:54 PM - jack5mikemotown: 7h sounds good Krizstof entered chat. 5:54 PM - Leveraged: or so THE NYAN CAT entered chat. 5:55 PM - Saymite [P2]: on uk? 5:55 PM - Leveraged: you all are gonna luv it 5:55 PM - Leveraged: 9pmn pst Nario is now playing Garry's Mod. Click here to join. 5:55 PM - Ryukaki: Hey guys The Infamous Catbag left chat. 5:55 PM - Ryukaki: Just wanted to say 5:55 PM - Ryukaki: Thank you all for all of your help getting this done Ardic is now playing Killing Floor. Click here to join. 5:55 PM - MrTr33: I Mean, once the Ball completes, how much time will that deduct from Reboot time 5:55 PM - jack5mikemotown: 3pm pt 12 est, i can play 2ish hours then go to bed 5:55 PM - Leveraged: Ryukaki, hey how's it going... Thor (2) entered chat. 5:55 PM - Odie: stop saying 'HEY GUYS'... OMG PORTAL 2 entered chat. BumBo Bangaroo entered chat. 5:55 PM - Ryukaki: Upboating Reddit posts, organizing game announcements, everything. 5:55 PM - Crazy (1): HEY GUYS 5:55 PM - Cheeseness: Hey guys Poobah entered chat. 5:55 PM - Leveraged: HEY GUYS good work on everything Lordbordem entered chat. 5:55 PM - Cheeseness: lol 5:55 PM - Cheeseness: <3 5:55 PM - MrTr33: GYS HEY 5:55 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: I like the happy coming from Ryukaki. 5:55 PM - Leveraged: you all did GREAT rnd - idling disconnected. 5:55 PM - Ryukaki: We couldn't have done it without cooperation between every group. 5:55 PM - Lasphere: heey guyyys! rnd - idling entered chat. rnd - idling disconnected. ︻╦̵̵͇̿̿̿̿╤── entered chat. rnd - idling entered chat. henhenz entered chat. 5:55 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: Leveraged! 5:55 PM - Leveraged: and all of the ARG writers are really impressed with everyone 5:56 PM - Leveraged: Yep it's me 5:56 PM - Lolocaust: I think we're fuckin lucky that the overclocking kicked in when it did 5:56 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: Not gonna lie: I went pretty dark last night. 5:56 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: But I'm feeling better today. 5:56 PM - waltercloudbaby: we all did man 5:56 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: Leveraged you're at HQ right 5:56 PM - Adam Jensen: i was happy yesterday :P 5:56 PM - waltercloudbaby: it was like a holocaust box car in here last night 5:56 PM - Leveraged: Yep I'm at valve hq {TC} Takkun~ disconnected. 5:56 PM - Leveraged: testing portal 2 5:56 PM - Odie: leve just because your playing it and were not :L 5:56 PM - Lasphere: say whaat! 5:56 PM - MrTr33: I kept trying to hang my self, but I kept ripping the lights out of the ceiling because of my weight 5:56 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: tell them they did a fantastic job 5:56 PM - MrTr33: :P 5:56 PM - Jenga: grrrrrrrr 5:56 PM - Aperture Test Subject TD5160: LUCKY 5:56 PM - Saymite [P2]: Omg is there any beatle? 5:56 PM - Leveraged: Odie just because you are not play ig I'm not happy Adam Jensen left chat. 5:56 PM - Weighted Com-Fran-ion Cube: k, off to class. see you guys in a few hours so we can fangirl over Portal 2 being released. 5:56 PM - TurntechGodhead: Tell Gabe we said hi! 5:56 PM - Weighted Com-Fran-ion Cube: <3 5:56 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: XD @ holocaust box car 5:56 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: i'm glad i could help with the group 5:57 PM - Lolocaust: Real confidence booster, especially considering how divided we were about testing the no-play theory {TC} Takkun~ entered chat. 5:57 PM - Jenga: ask gabe about ep3 5:57 PM - TheFoxz: Damn Leveraged I envy you :) 5:57 PM - Lolocaust: Lolcaust box car 5:57 PM - Weighted Com-Fran-ion Cube: @ Leveraged: real jelly. d0uble_zer0™ disconnected. 5:57 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: Everyone does. 5:57 PM - MrTr33: WHY do I have work tomorrow :/ 5:57 PM - Leveraged: TheFoxz, i didn't actually have anything to do with this.... 5:57 PM - TheFoxz: Did you get to meet gaben? 5:57 PM - Leveraged: lol Gray Fox entered chat. E-138 entered chat. 5:57 PM - waltercloudbaby: are you from lolokaust lolocaust? SLBros. entered chat. 5:57 PM - Saymite [P2]: ask about ep3 jl 5:57 PM - Odie: the no play theory was almost as bad as the 450k poyatoes that actually worked 5:57 PM - Leveraged: Not yet Xtain entered chat. 5:57 PM - Leveraged: no ep3 questions 5:57 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: Leveraged. Don't you have testing to do? 5:57 PM - Weighted Com-Fran-ion Cube: MrTr33: I called off work and my WoW raids to play Portal 2. 5:57 PM - Jenga: ahhhhh 5:57 PM - TheFoxz: Not asking you that. 5:57 PM - Leveraged: Yes I'm taking a break 5:57 PM - Lolocaust: I'll tell you when Episode 3 comes out 5:57 PM - Weighted Com-Fran-ion Cube: :P 5:57 PM - MrTr33: Odie it was 464K potatoes 5:57 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: Leveraged are you allowed to say if Dougley was legit or not 5:57 PM - rnd: the gabe hi from rnd :3 5:57 PM - rnd: tell* 5:57 PM - MrMister: I can't wait until you guys can tell us all WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED BEHIND THE SCENES THIS WHOLE TIME 5:57 PM - Leveraged: DOUGLEY Was NOT legit 5:57 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: Heh. Just playing with you. 5:57 PM - Ryukaki: How are things going Lev? 5:57 PM - Lasphere: ep3ep3ep3 5:58 PM - Lolocaust: Which, might actually happen considering the notes we've been getting 5:58 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: I was interested in the no play theory and I still stand behind my interest, even though it turned out to not be right. 5:58 PM - Ryukaki: Enjoying it I hope? :D Kanako Yasaka is now playing Killing Floor. Click here to join. 5:58 PM - Saymite [P2]: WHHHAAA? 5:58 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: seriously, leveraged? 5:58 PM - Leveraged: MrMister, I'm going to do that later 5:58 PM - E-138: How long is it to the potatoes reaching zero? 5:58 PM - MrMister: kk 5:58 PM - Leveraged: Ryukaki yes it's awesome CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica left chat. 5:58 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: so that encrypted RAR was fake? 5:58 PM - Leveraged: Guniv yes 5:58 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: ffffffffff Kanako Yasaka is now playing Killing Floor. Click here to join. 5:58 PM - Dr.Destro229: were down to 300,000 spuds CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica entered chat. 5:58 PM - Saymite [P2]: No! 5:58 PM - MrTr33: Leveraged Dougley was a fake? 5:58 PM - Lolocaust: You win some, you lose some. I was definitely swayed into the no-play side 5:58 PM - waltercloudbaby: damn, it would've been funnier if dougley was legit and valve was like, "Man you suck at this, no early game for you." 5:58 PM - Saymite [P2]: lets killl him 5:58 PM - Leveraged: All the abducted was supposed to dissappear within 24 hours completely 5:58 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: What was up with the special Portal 2 banner on Dougley's profile then? 5:58 PM - Some Killing Guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQYSPtfirLM did i do this rite? 5:58 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: and doug kept going? 5:58 PM - Leveraged: Dougley did not stop 5:58 PM - Leveraged: correct Pointfourtyfour ([k]) entered chat. 5:58 PM - MrTr33: Yeah what about the banner on his profile? 5:58 PM - isuck.: we don't know 5:58 PM - Some Killing Guy: hacked 5:59 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: i see 5:59 PM - Some Killing Guy: prob 5:59 PM - Ryukaki: I did my best to get out the word about Dougley :( 5:59 PM - MrTr33: Hmmm 5:59 PM - Leveraged: He was one of the original abducted but he kept going doinghis own thing 5:59 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: That was what convinced me tbh. I was all behind that banner. 5:59 PM - isuck.: i can't wait till we know everything.. if we ever know everything. 5:59 PM - Ryukaki: Sorry I couldn't convince more people. 5:59 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: What's going on... 5:59 PM - Saymite [P2]: lets send him rage messges 5:59 PM - Leveraged: NO DO NOT RAGE 5:59 PM - Polock: lol 5:59 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: Leveraged is it okay if i Wiki this 5:59 PM - Leveraged: against Dougley 5:59 PM - Ryukaki: Hey Leveraged, let the guys at Valve know I'd love to come visit :D 5:59 PM - MrTr33: Ah thanks Leveraged 5:59 PM - Leveraged: he does not neecd it 5:59 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: Is he really in a NDA 5:59 PM - MrMister: Leveraged I have one question that I hope you can answer without an NDA over your head 5:59 PM - INF] GLaDOS reboot slave #3965: So it's all over except for us still grinding our cpus for an early release? 5:59 PM - Leveraged: There are no nda's ^2-=Crazy=-^9 idiot-thrasher entered chat. 5:59 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: Don't rage at the poor guy 5:59 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: So he fucked with us a little bit. 5:59 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: NO NDA'S?!?! 5:59 PM - waltercloudbaby: i'm sure he enjoyed all that attention 5:59 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: He's a freaking liar 5:59 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: I know lots of people who would do the same. 5:59 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: Well Dougley, you done it wrong. 5:59 PM - Krizstof: well... Doug give us good advice with the whole cogs and rush 5:59 PM - Ryukaki: Please guys 5:59 PM - Ryukaki: Don't waste time being mad at Doug 6:00 PM - Leveraged: no nda's just a request from anna sweet and erik wolpaw that we not tell what's going on 6:00 PM - Lasphere: so.. the borealis thing was fake.. NoooOOooOOo 6:00 PM - andrew: If anything I think he did a good job of keeping it up 6:00 PM - Ryukaki: It's not worth it. 6:00 PM - Leveraged: and Don't be mad at dougley 6:00 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: I'm not mad at him. Gray Fox disconnected. AmbulanceParty {{WaR}} disconnected. {TC} Takkun~ disconnected. Thor (2) disconnected. Mokk disconnected. BumBo Bangaroo disconnected. 6:00 PM - Leveraged: honestly DON"T just stop EpicWarrior entered chat. 6:00 PM - Ryukaki: Just don't do that. 6:00 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: I LOVE Dougley. BoBrown entered chat. 6:00 PM - MrTr33: Leveraged, Poral 2 out of 10? 6:00 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: Given a white-hot chance like he got, I can imagine the temptation. Noodles left chat. 6:00 PM - MrMister: fine with me then I trust in Eric Wolpaw 6:00 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: Because he gave us the AES song. 6:00 PM - waltercloudbaby: how many times have you ever went into a chat room and everyone becaem totally silent... must've been addictive lol Super Hero Seatbelt is now playing Killing Floor. Click here to join. 6:00 PM - MrTr33: Portal* 6:00 PM - NiGHTSfan: 300K potatoes guy 6:00 PM - NiGHTSfan: s 6:00 PM - andrew: Yeah if the borealis thing was fake he's even got attention of game news sites XD 6:00 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: And also I loved how he was riding everyone 6:00 PM - Leveraged: Yeah Dougley is awsome in fact I will tell this right now DOUGLEY NEEDS TO DO HIS OWN ARG I WOULD TOTALLY PLAY IT 6:00 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: Leveraged, how was Portal 2? 6:00 PM - MrTr33: True 6:00 PM - Leveraged: Portal 2 is so very very very cool 6:00 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: HALF-DOUGLEY EPISODE 3 ANNOUNCEMENT COMING SOON 6:00 PM - Leveraged: i mean 6:01 PM - MrMister: Anyways, simple question, was there a very real possibility we could have released Portal 2 on Friday? 6:01 PM - Leveraged: VERY cool 6:01 PM - MrTr33: I did like all the tricks he was playing on us 6:01 PM - rnd:._. Gorden Frohmen entered chat. 6:01 PM - Leveraged: MrMister no My Wife Is Fat is now playing Killing Floor. Click here to join. 6:01 PM - Leveraged: i don't think so 6:01 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: When Dougley got in everyone was all like SILENCE FOR DOUGLEY SyL entered chat. Athcon left chat. Dracon disconnected. 6:01 PM - MrMister: k 6:01 PM - andrew: Im still amazed he wasnt part of it 6:01 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: guys 6:01 PM - Ryukaki: Leveraged, better question. 6:01 PM - Saymite [P2]: Tell mr gabe to hire doug Foolio left chat. 6:01 PM - Zomba13: Dougley was cool, even if he did go rouge 6:01 PM - andrew: Yeah 6:01 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: Leveraged i'd totally officer you now if i could 6:01 PM - Ryukaki: How much control did we have over progress that you know of? 6:01 PM - [LUE] Edjarosu: I imagine the plan was always to have it be capped at midnight tonight. Mr. Distraction {m00} is now playing Killing Floor. Click here to join. 6:01 PM - Nate: Rogue* 6:01 PM - waltercloudbaby: hahah that'd be funny if dougley's steam was blocked from ever having portal 2 Smokinmonkey entered chat. 6:01 PM - Some Killing Guy: DOES PORTAL 2 HAVE HATS 6:01 PM - MrTr33: Leveraged tell Gaben to hire Doug for his story telling 6:01 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: Is it coming out today? 6:01 PM - Zomba13: you know what i meant :p 6:01 PM - INF] GLaDOS reboot slave #3965: Is valve gonna sue those good philosphy guys or something? Dracon entered chat. 6:01 PM - Lolocaust: If portal 2 was released on Friday, I would've failed my university exam last night Lolocaust left chat. 6:01 PM - Ryukaki: Like, if we had some 150,000 people, could we have really just plowered everything down? 6:01 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: SO he didn't take the VALVe flight because he coouldn't? {TC} Takkun~ entered chat. 6:01 PM - Jenga: leveraged could ask gabe to hire me, i've no disernable skills but i'd enjoy it 6:01 PM - TRON.dll: What happened with Doug? Thor (2) entered chat. 6:02 PM - Ryukaki: I know that's completely unrealistic, but I'd like to have that info. 6:02 PM - TRON.dll: I've been afk for a while 6:02 PM - Leveraged: Listen to me I'm planning something with VavleArg.com... the ARG's will not stop... are you guys interested in creating our own args based on the HL universe? and nbuilding a whole ARG community there? If so comment on my steam porfile phoenix_arisen entered chat. E-138 left chat. JGTP left chat. 6:02 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: Sure. hiddenllama entered chat. 6:02 PM - Saymite [P2]: k 6:02 PM - andrew: hell yeah! BumBo Bangaroo entered chat. 6:02 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: YES. 6:02 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: I would love a BMRF ARG again 6:02 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: HECK YES 6:02 PM - Lasphere: Niice. 6:02 PM - Leveraged: yes 6:02 PM - Jenga: sounds good 6:02 PM - Zomba13: that'd be awesome Gorden Frohmen left chat. 6:02 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: like the last one 6:02 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: yes, official ones My Wife Is Fat is now playing Killing Floor. Click here to join. 6:02 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: Count me in bro. RefzeM is now playing Unreal Tournament 3: Black Edition. Click here to join. 6:02 PM - Leveraged: Ok we'll do that, FAN ARG"S Ftw 6:02 PM - andrew: sweet! 6:02 PM - waltercloudbaby: fan fiction... eh 6:02 PM - Saymite [P2]: Yeah! 6:02 PM - Buff Drinklots: Boing! 6:02 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: Can't add ya. D: 6:02 PM - andrew: Get dougley involved seeing as how good he was at this 6:02 PM - Leveraged: And listen we'll make this into the ARG that we want to play 6:03 PM - Zomba13: Fanargs sounds weird 6:03 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: Can I add you BTW 6:03 PM - Buff Drinklots: Boing! I think so Zoom! INF] GLaDOS reboot slave #3965 left chat. 6:03 PM - Mister Golden Potato: Leveraged, 1-10 for Portal 2 please? ^^ 6:03 PM - Leveraged: Dougely will be a totall awesome at this 6:03 PM - andrew: yeah 6:03 PM - MrMister: Leveraged, how long have you been part of the ARG? 2 weeks? 6:03 PM - Leveraged: and Portal 2 rating: here it is!!! 15 6:03 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: Leveraged, anything you want me to put in the news 6:03 PM - Mister Golden Potato: :o 6:03 PM - Leveraged: out of 1-10 [SC] Rhombus left chat. 6:03 PM - rnd: :c Metal Link is now playing Killing Floor. Click here to join. 6:03 PM - MrTr33: wooo! 6:03 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: other than this doug news Tidal entered chat. 6:03 PM - Guniv -[redacted]: which i'm doing now 6:03 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: Haha! Allah Worshipper P.B. entered chat. 6:03 PM - Tidal: estimation for the ball? Kanako Yasaka disconnected. 6:03 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: I can't wait. 6:03 PM - MrTr33: I love that rating Leveraged 6:03 PM - F.HL> SamuelKPeter: Leveraged, was REAL_AES.ogg legit somehow? [SC] Rhombus entered chat. L | Sexy King disconnected. 6:03 PM - Leveraged: Guniv, tell everyone that you did a GREAT job the valve team is in awe of you 6:03 PM - Allah Worshipper P.B.: i have a free copy of audiosurf Pastel Ink left chat. My Wife Is Fat is now playing Killing Floor. Click here to join. 6:03 PM - Buff Drinklots: Boing! Zoom! 6:03 PM - Snakey125: YOU KNOW WHATS NEWS: GIRLS WITH AMNESIA CAN'T SAY NO 6:03 PM - Ryukaki: Tell the Valve team 6:04 PM - Leveraged: and that the next arg will be even better since they have learned so much from this one 6:04 PM - PKMN Trainer Red: aw thanks 6:04 PM - Ryukaki: I'd love to come visit :D 6:04 PM - Lasphere: haha! 6:04 PM - CmdrSFC - The Epic Medica: I want to say can I have it, but I do't want to get yelled at. 6:04 PM - Saymite [P2]: me 1 AmbulanceParty {{WaR}} entered chat. 6:04 PM - Mister Golden Potato: Leveraged, any word on the "special reward" for golden potatoers? :P 6:04 PM - Saymite [P2]: *2 Kanako Yasaka entered chat. 6:04 PM - Ryukaki: |
would typically fall outside the scope of Federal or local Government spending. Explaining the need to for charities, Doug Shulman, IRS Commissioner, said that they “are vital to the vibrancy of our nation.” He went on to say, “The last thing we at the IRS want to do is to have these groups lose their tax-exempt status because they haven’t filed a short, simple form.”
Photo by usag.yongsanBy Robert Romano
One of central planks President Donald Trump ran on in 2016 was get rid of economically harmful, job-killing regulations.
The process appears straightforward enough. Whatever can be done by executive action can be undone by executive action. If regulations were initiated via the regulatory process under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), surely that works in reverse, right?
Not so fast.
In 1983, the Supreme Court unanimously decided in Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association v. State Farm Mutual that in rescinding any regulation issued by a prior administration an agency changing its course by rescinding a rule is obligated to supply a reasoned analysis, “for the change beyond that which may be required when an agency does not act in the first instance.”
While perhaps well-intentioned, in determining that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and thus every other agency had to provide a basis for rescinding any of its regulations — just as it must for issuing them — the outcome is that it is functionally more difficult to rescind an existing regulation than it is to either modify it or never have issued it in the first place.
This leaves every single regulatory rescission enacted via executive action under the APA subject to judicial review, where ultimately, the rescinding agency will have to argue not only that rescinding the regulation in question is rational based on the statutory scheme, but prove that enacting it was irrational to begin with.
The problem with that proposition is that in the administrative state regulations almost always, with some notable exceptions, have some basis in law for being enacted. And even when they don’t, as in Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007 when the Supreme Court ruled carbon dioxide could be regulated under the terms of the Clean Air Act even though the law never contemplated doing so, the courts have tended to uphold and expand the regulatory scheme of the administrative state.
This puts the Trump administration in an uphill situation when it comes to relying solely on executive action and the regulatory process under the APA to rescind regulations.
Ultimately, each and every case will be subjected to heightened scrutiny, coming down to whether five justices agree that the regulation did not rationally rest in the statutory scheme in the first place or agree with the administration’s rational basis for rescinding the rule. And that may just come down to whether they like the regulation or not.
It does not matter that the 1983 decision promised this would not mean regulations last forever, writing “we fully recognize that ‘[r]egulatory agencies do not establish rules of conduct to last forever,’” citing the 1967 case, American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. After all, the court added in the 1983 case, “the forces of change do not always or necessarily point in the direction of deregulation. In the abstract, there is no more reason to presume that changing circumstances require the rescission of prior action, instead of a revision in or even the extension of current regulation.”
The point is, the assumption in each of these cases will be that the original regulation was properly enacted and is rationally based on the statutory scheme Congress enacted, and in rescinding the regulation it will be up to the Trump administration to prove otherwise in court.
That’s a losing battle.
The Trump administration would be better served if Congress were to affirmatively act to defund economically damaging regulations — for example via upcoming votes on the April 28 continuing resolution and the debt ceiling — to prohibit the use of funds in implementing those regulations.
It is a much better argument in court that the administration lacks funds to implement certain regulations because of steps Congress took via Article I to prohibit their implementation and so must be rescinded.
We’ve already seen what courts will do when given the opportunity to expand the administrative state. That is why Congress must act, said Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning in a statement. “The election of a new president does not absolve Congress of its Article I responsibilities to defund harmful regulations,” Manning noted.
“Members need to provide President Trump with every tool and direction related to any regulations that need to be rescinded or reworked. There’s no excuse for continuing to abdicate Congress’ basic, constitutional power of the purse, particularly when doing so leaves it up to chance and courts to ultimately uphold any attempted regulatory rescissions by the Trump administration. Instead, Congress must strengthen the president’s hand, by acting affirmatively to prohibit funds for any regulations deemed harmful to the economy,” Manning concluded.
In the end, executive action alone is no silver bullet in the face of a judiciary that intends to affirm the administrative state, and solely relying on it means leaving the deregulatory agenda to chance and worse, liberal federal judges who will find every reason in the world to keep these economy-killing rules in place. President Trump and Congress need to be smarter this time — and defund these regulations.
Robert Romano is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.The Kids Are Alright: Millennial Turnout in the 2017 Primary Election in Philadelphia
There was a sense that something was “different” about the 2017 Primary for District Attorney and City Controller in Philadelphia. Sure, overall turnout nearly doubled from 9% in the 2013 Primary to 17% in the 2017 Primary. That in itself is significant because it marks the highest turnout for that election cycle since 2001. It doesn’t, however, answer the question of WHO turned out. So, we started digging through the data and what we found was remarkable.
Millennial turnout in the 2017 Primary increased by an astonishing 279% over the 2013 Primary. No age cohort increased at anywhere near the same rate. As a result, the total “vote share” (i.e., the slice of the pie chart that indicates the percent of votes cast by each age cohort relative to each other) attributable to millennial voters doubled, from 10% in 2013 to nearly 20% in 2017. This increase is encouraging because previous election results show that younger voters tend to show up and vote in national elections, but tend not to participate in municipal elections. In 2013, for example, Millennial turnout in Philadelphia was an appalling 3%. Not this time.
Before we get too excited about putting a C+ report card up on the refrigerator, we should acknowledge that there is a lot of room for improvement. The Millennial age cohort still lags behind all others, even in national elections. But thanks to the hard work of groups like Philly Set Go and others, it appears that Millennials have begun to close the gap. At long last, there is reason for optimism.
For more information on election turnout and voting patterns in Philadelphia, please follow us on Twitter at @Commish_Schmidt and on Facebook at @CommishSchmidt.No one would accuse me of being a Microsoft shill. Having grown up in Linux, I have a longstanding antipathy to Microsoft’s machinations against open source (which have been thawing of late, thankfully). But after more than 10 years of raging against the Redmond machine, I’ve also developed a profound appreciation for Microsoft’s ability to make difficult technologies approachable to average users.
I’m therefore encouraged by Microsoft’s foray into Big Data. Given surveys indicating that enterprises still don’t have a clue as to what to do with their data, it’s very possible that Microsoft’s penchant for end-to-end, easy-to-use solutions could make Big Data consumable by the masses.
Raising A Data Culture In Redmond
Microsoft has a long history of data, providing data management tools to front-office workers (Excel) and back-office database administrators (SQL Server), consumer-facing services like Bing and Hotmail, not to mention its new work with Hortonworks to offer Hadoop. Given this history of data, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called out Microsoft’s ability to make Big Data accessible:
Developing the ability to convert data into the fuel for ambient intelligence is an ambitious challenge. It requires technology to understand context, derive intent and separate signal from noise. Building out a comprehensive platform that can enable this kind of ambient intelligence is a whole company initiative that we are uniquely qualified to undertake.
Of course, Microsoft’s plans at the present are merely visions. And visions can take a looooong time to realize. Anyone remember when Oracle first announced Fusion? How about when it finally delivered? Still waiting?
To Microsoft’s credit, its vision is still very cool, especially given the rampant confusion over Big Data, as Gartner discovered:
Could Microsoft do better than the existing vendor tools or open-source projects? Definitely, maybe.
A DNA Of Ease-Of-Use
Consider what Microsoft did for system administrators—or developers. Microsoft made managing networks or servers much easier by building excellent tools so you didn’t have to be a UNIX gearhead to get a good job and be productive. The same is true of Microsoft’s effect on enterprise development: The company built developer tools that made it really easy for good developers to be great, and average developers to be good.
If anyone could make Big Data accessible to rank-and-file employees, Microsoft can.
And that’s what Microsoft wants to do. As Microsoft corporate VP Quentin Clark noted, “[Microsoft’s] view is that it takes the combined effect of three elements to bring big data to a billion people: robust tools that everyday people can use, easy access to all kinds of data sets, and a complete data platform.” Nadella furthers this—he said he looks forward to a time “when every employee can harness the power of data once only reserved for data scientists and tap into the power of natural language, self-service business insights and visualization capabilities that work inside familiar apps such as Office.”
Earlier this week, Nadella started to lay out more specifics to his Big Data plan. According to Nadella, the idea is to “take an architectural approach that brings together Excel on one end and SQL Server and Hadoop on the other end.” It’s still not a very concrete course of action, but it points to a future where Big Data is what everyone uses, not some special thing that an enterprise enlists PhDs to tackle.
From the front-end data analyst to back-end data infrastructure, Microsoft seems to have a holistic view of Big Data—one that seems very promising, given the company’s history of making complicated technology accessible to the average system administrator, office worker, or developer.
But will it work? That is, of course, the trillion-dollar question. Microsoft, for all its problems over the years, has the right DNA to answer “yes.”
Lead image courtesy of ShutterstockSo within two days of the World Cup draw, Brazilian football was making the news for all the wrong reasons. On Sunday images of despicable violence taking place at the game between Atlético Paranaense and Vasco da Gama in the southern textile town of Joinville were spread around the world, bringing shame on the country.
The images paint a scary picture that will add to the criticism faced by Brazilian football. The year of 2013 has been horrendous. In February, a flare fired by Corinthians fans killed Kevin Espada, a 14-year-old supporter attending a Libertadores Cup game against San Jose in Oruro, Bolivia.
Although the incident did not happen at a Brazilian stadium, it shed light on the cosy relationship between clubs and ultras, often subsidised by directors for political and sporting gain. Initially punished by Conmebol with games played behind closed doors, Corinthians managed to overturn the decisions.
A couple of months later, some of the hooligans who had been arrested by Bolivian authorities, one of them a São Paulo city councillor, were involved in a punch-up at the Mane Garrincha National Stadium, one of the World Cup venues, in a match against Vasco. That should have set off all the alarms but instead both teams were told to play four matches at least 100km away from their home bases, a slap on the wrist that could not be more ineffective, given these are teams with a national appeal.
They were not the first and will not be the last – unless Brazilian authorities start to take this problem seriously. While Brazilian football has not experienced anything like the Heysel tragedy, there are fears that violence in stadiums is escaping the control of the authorities. Incidents in the vicinity of grounds have been on the rise and a study published in August by the Rio de Janeiro State University claimed that 36 supporters died in incidents in the last two years.
The most daunting aspect of the troubles in Joinville, though, is that everybody could see it coming. Atletico-PR, based in Curitiba, another World Cup host city, were punished in October by the Brazilian Football Confederation for crowd trouble, which led to the use of Joinville, 130k away. The game against Vasco was crucial for both teams – the Rio side needed a win to avoid the drop, while Atletico were fighting for continental football.
Everything pointed to a tense atmosphere. Instead of a strong police presence inside the ground, private security was in place. Fighting fans quickly overwhelmed the personnel at the stadium and now everybody is pointing fingers. Everybody seems to be getting it wrong, especially when it comes to the way clubs and authorities deal with the ultras. It is time they acted before something extremely bad happens.
Clubs need to stop turning a blind eye to hooligans and the authorities must punish supporters involved in trouble. Above all, clubs have to be sanctioned if their supporters are involved in violence. This is the time for harsh penalties, such as point deductions and even exclusion from competitions.
It is no surprise a lot of tweets and Facebook posts after the trouble in Joinville referred to the European ban on English clubs after Heysel. That approach towards hooliganism was highly thought of in Brazil, even before things reached this point. Today, it is looking more popular than ever.American officials have worked to engineer his ouster, believing he is incapable of establishing a national unity government acceptable to Iraq’s main minority groups, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. American officials have implied that more military aid would be provided if Iraq’s political class chose a new leader.
As Iraqi leaders, the country’s top religious authorities and top Iranian officials, who wield considerable power within Iraq, pushed for Mr. Maliki’s removal, he was refusing to step aside Thursday night. Even those within his own State of Law bloc were demanding that he leave.
“Everyone is saying no to Maliki now,” said a member of Parliament from State of Law, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the discussions. “He’s rejected by all parties.”
If he were to step down, Mr. Maliki has reportedly demanded immunity from prosecution for himself, his family and his inner circle, and a massive security detail, paid for by the state.
Given the number of enemies he has accrued over his time in power, and the well-documented instances of human rights abuses, torture and extrajudicial killings under his watch — not to mention wide-scale corruption at the highest levels of his government — many believe that Mr. Maliki would be immediately under threat of arrest, or assassination, were he to leave office without guarantees of immunity and protection.Under the proposal, Web giants would be able to pay for a “fast lane” while the rest of us are stuck in the “slow lane.”
Photo by Robertiez/Thinkstock
A few years ago, Internet users, democracy activists, and entrepreneurs got wind of a proposed law, SOPA, that would have changed the Web’s basic architecture to the benefit of a few media giants. So they organized protests for several months to oppose the law. Faced with this opposition, some senators and members of Congress who supported the Stop Online Piracy Act had a moment of sudden insight: They realized they were wrong. They had gone to Washington to help the very people who were now protesting them—the risk-takers, the job builders, the social changers. Instead of digging in or just brushing off the criticism, these policymakers learned from the protests and chose to stay on the right side of history.
Today, millions of Americans from every sector are up in arms over Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal to end network neutrality and authorize cable and phone companies to discriminate among websites and charge Web giants for “fast lanes” while keeping the rest of us in a “slow lane.”
Despite the outcry, Wheeler isn’t changing sides, he’s making excuses. In the past week, the chairman has published two blog posts and given one speech (at the cable lobbying association he used to head), while two law school professors, Kevin Werbach and Phil Weiser, have taken to the Huffington Post to defend him.
Wheeler’s posts attempt to placate critics, but let’s get one thing straight: He is not backing off his plan to hand the keys to the Internet over to the cable and phone industries. The chairman told the cable industry to “put away the party hats” because he’s not actually going to kill network neutrality. But his proposal is the same plan offered by the largest cable and phone companies, which have tried to kill network neutrality for almost a decade. Since 2006, the phone and cable industries have proposed a world where they won’t “block” any websites, but they will simply create a lane for all websites and then charge anyone who wants better service for a fast lane. They have fought a nondiscrimination rule for at least eight years, using tens of millions of dollars. The tolls for the fast lane may be tied to bandwidth or a company’s revenue. Finally, the cable and phone giants want this world to have no clear rules—just vague principles about what might be “commercially reasonable,” which is an invitation for small companies to sue the giants if they’re unhappy. Since the cable and telephone companies have more FCC lawyers than most companies have employees, they will scare off most potential companies suing and then beat the rest in “FCC court.”
That’s basically what the chairman is backing—the often proposed AT&T/Verizon plan. It’s the plan that President Obama repeatedly opposed, beginning in 2006. It’s the plan that network neutrality advocates have fought against for eight years. He is emphasizing what AT&T always conceded: that carriers would be unable to “block,” that a provider will not “degrade” whatever is today’s existing service (and tomorrow’s “slow lane”), and therefore the Internet will remain an “open pathway.” But as Wheeler, Werbach, and Weiser concede, he will permit paid fast lanes. He will even permit cable and phone companies to offer fast lanes exclusively to one competitor and not to others. The only real restriction is that fast lanes can’t be offered exclusively to a company also owned by the cable or phone company. So Comcast wouldn’t be able to offer a fast lane only to NBC.com—which it owns—but could offer it only to Netflix or only to Apple, and nobody else, under the terms of his proposed rule.
So the chairman hasn’t changed his views in face of the backlash, but he is providing some excuses for his proposal. Here are the four main justifications:
1. It’s better than nothing. The chairman and the professors are saying that we should be happy that Wheeler is guaranteeing a slow lane because without that guarantee, the carriers could block sites and there’d be no rules against it. But “better than nothing” shouldn’t cut it. We should ask instead whether we are getting the right network neutrality rule—one that would preserve all the equality, innovation, and free expression we’ve seen on the Internet. Or whether Wheeler is fulfilling President Obama’s network neutrality promise (which is no fast lanes), rather than whether his order is better than a lump of coal in a stocking.
2. The other options aren’t that great, either. The chairman and the professors argue that the only alternative to allowing paid fast lanes and slow lanes is some rule against “unreasonable discrimination.” Wheeler suggests that the “unreasonable discrimination” rule would be flimsy and could lead to abuse. But the FCC can define some things in advance as reasonable or unreasonable. It did so in the 2010 order, saying that it doubted paid fast lanes could be reasonable and that the language was so “ominous” that the court effectively treated it as a ban.
3. My heart’s in the right place. The chairman emphasizes that his proposal is intended to allow “no unreasonable discrimination.” Werbach and Weiser claim that the chairman’s plan would stop the carriers from “arbitrarily favor[ing] certain applications” and require them to offer the “same terms” to all. But a court decision in January made it clear, under the FCC’s legal own conclusions, that the commission must allow cable and phone companies to charge “similarly-situated edge providers [the court’s term for websites] completely different prices,” and can charge websites for an exclusive fast lane “while limiting all other edge providers to a more standard service,” known as a slow lane. The FCC can’t generally require the “same terms” for all.
4. It’s just too hard to do net neutrality. Wheeler has said that he wants to get new rules on the books soon and not get tied up in court—“opening an entirely new [legal] approach” just “invites delay.” So basically, he wants to move quickly—to authorize slow lanes on the Internet. That is just giving up. Plus, he will be sued anyway, either once he adopts rules or anytime the FCC ever tries to enforce them, when a startup’s business may be on the line.
Wheeler promises to adopt better rules if this scheme fails—but he’ll be long gone by the time the market and the courts reject them, and by then the Internet will be lost.
What he should realize is that his proposal isn’t just unpopular. It will be a mistake of historic proportions. The proposal would drive a knife in the heart of American innovation because startups can’t afford to pay Verizon (and then AT&T, then Cox, etc.) for fast lanes to compete with existing Web giants. They certainly can’t rely on the FCC’s vague legal “commercial reasonableness” standards as a foundation to build their businesses and raise investment. There will be an innovation freeze; most sites will be stuck in “2014 Internet,” while some sites will be able to afford the benefits of 2015, then 2016, and eventually 2060 Internet. Second, it hurts consumer choice. Up until now, we could use whatever site we wanted without those sites needing to pay for priority. If I pay Verizon for “up to” 20 Mbps, I can use it on whatever site I want to, not whatever site paid Verizon. Third, it hurts the nonprofit and religious sector. They can’t afford to pay fees. There’s a reason why several religious organizations, from the Catholic Church to the Christian Coalition and United Church of Christ, have supported network neutrality for years. Thousands of nonprofits have spoken for network neutrality. Wikipedia, run by a nonprofit, will be running that donation banner every single day—and it’ll load slowly.
That’s the network we will face, and no rhetorical mind tricks change that.
Disclosure: The author is a lawyer who has advised startups and nonprofits on net neutrality issues.
This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, the New America Foundation, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, visit the Future Tense blog and the Future Tense home page. You can also follow us on Twitter.A GOP committeeman was murdered Monday by a neighbor who had anti-Trump signs displayed in his front yard. As you read the local ABC affiliate's report below, however, you'll notice that little factoid is barely mentioned as a possible motive, and only appears at the very end of the report:
A man is under arrest, accused of killing his next door neighbor in West Goshen, Chester County.
Police have charged Clayton Carter, 51, in the shooting death of G. Brooks Jennings.
Shortly before 8 p.m. Monday, police responded to the 300 block of Box Elder Drive for a dispute between Carter and Jennings about cursing and video recording in the back yard. Police said they were able to resolve that dispute.
Then at approximately 1 a.m. Tuesday, police say the neighbors got into another dispute. Carter told police that Jennings shined a light into his eyes while he was outside. Carter then allegedly pulled a car onto his lawn, shining the high beams of the car on Jennings' property.
Carter then allegedly retrieved a.380 semi-automatic handgun from his house and confronted the victim again outside.
Officials say Carter shot Jennings once in the head, knocking him to the ground. Carter then allegedly stood over Jennings' body and shot him once more in the head.
The victim was on his own property, police said.
According to the Chester County District Attorney's Office, Carter admitted to the details of the ongoing dispute and to shooting the victim. Carter claims that Jennings threatened him with a knife, but he had no injuries.
"My client says he was justified in doing so because he was under attack by a knife wielding assailant," said defense attorney Terrence Marlowe.
According to the district attorney's office, Carter did not call police for help or render aid to Jennings.
Jennings' wife allegedly heard the first gunshot, then saw Carter stand over her husband as he fired the second shot.
Police recovered two shell casings, the gun and a knife at the scene. One shell casing was located on Carter's property. The second shell casing was found on the victim's property, near Jennings' body.
Carter has been charged with murder and related offenses, and is currently being held at the Chester County Prison.
Neighbor Brian Dougherty got emotional when speaking of Jennings.
"You don't want to sound cliche, you see this on TV all the time, but he is probably the nicest, best guy I've ever met in my whole life. Really, seriously," Dougherty said.
Police say Carter had disputes with a number of other neighbors, and even pulled a gun on Jennings during a past altercation.
Neighbors say Carter was a quarrelsome, argumentative man. Court records claim Carter had a history of disputes with multiple neighbors. His front yard was crowded with cars and hand lettered anti-Trump signs.
But the disputes along the block were not political, but personal. Neighbors say they were fueled apparently by some unknown anger inside Carter's head.If you have root access to a linux server and you don’t have the root mysql password, but need it, then you can easily reset the root mysql password in just a few commands. These commands probably differ depending on what linux distro you use. I was using Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) when I wrote this.
Firstly you will want to turn the mysql service off.
codytaylor@server:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop * Stopping MySQL database server mysqld
codytaylor@server:~$ sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking &
codytaylor@server:~$ mysql -u root mysql mysql> UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('password') WHERE User='root'; mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
codytaylor@server:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart
Now we restart the mysql server with the ‘skip-grant-tables’ option which basically allows anyone to do whatever they like. It’s usually preferable to include the ‘skip-networking’ option so that only localhost (you) have access to the naked database.Now all that is left is actually changing the root password. Log into the mysql monitor and change the root password.Those commands will reset the root mysql password to ‘password’. Now you’ll probably want to restart the mysql service and have it run normally.
If you are using windows and you want to reset the mysql root password then check the mysql documentation.Share. Eat your heart out, Hollywood. Eat your heart out, Hollywood.
Russian investor Yuri Milner believes there's life elsewhere in the galaxy, and he's willing to put his own money on the line to find it.
$100 million of his own money, to be exact. Milner is investing heavily in Breakthrough Listen, a 10-year project that will use telescopes exclusively for the purpose of monitoring and tracking any messages in space that might point to alien life. Professor Stephen Hawking has personally endorsed the project, and did so publicly via a recent conference call with Milner.
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and Australia's Parkes Telescope will both be used for this purpose, along with help from the U.C. Berkeley-based project called SETI@home to comb through gathered information.
In addition to Breakthrough Listen, Milner also plans to concurrently launch Breakthrough Message, a similar project that aims to communicate with extraterrestrial life.
“If a civilization based around one of the 1,000 nearest stars is transmitting to us with the power of a common aircraft radar, the Breakthrough Listen telescopes can detect it,” said Breakthrough Listen in a statement. “If they are transmitting from the center of the Milky Way, with any more than a dozen times the output of the interplanetary radars we use to probe our own Solar System, Breakthrough Listen telescopes could detect them.”
For more on awesome space exploration, check out some of the newest photos of Pluto from New Horizon's flyby.
Exit Theatre Mode
Cassidee is a freelance writer and the co-host of a podcast about freelancing. You can chat with her about that and all other things geeky on Twitter.0 Palm Bay police officer disciplined for misusing police database
PALM BAY, Fla. - A Palm Bay police officer has been disciplined after she inappropriately accessed a police database to do personal background searches.
She reportedly used the Driver and Vehicle Information Database (DAVID) system.
An internal investigation showed the officer ran multiple records searches while off duty to look up people she allegedly didn't get along with.
One of those residents, William Jongck of Rockledge, told police that the officer even boasted about having information about him and other family members
He said when he requested Palm Bay police run an audit he learned he was right.
Jongck said he felt violated when a Palm Bay investigator confirmed one of its police officers had used a police database to run his information
"For somebody who's not a criminal -- I didn't understand why she was doing it," Jongck said.
The internal affairs investigation was launched in April after Jongck called police and alleged officer Carol Vazquez, who lived across the street from his mother in Rockledge, acted as a bully and bragged on multiple occasions about running neighbors' license plates.
Palm Bay's investigation concluded that the officer did inappropriately search the names of Jongck, his sister and the officer's husband.
According to police, as discipline, Vazquez accepted a loss of 40 hours vacation, in lieu of a suspension
"I thought, 'OK, her sergeant's involved. I'm in the clear. I can go on with my daily life again," Jongck said.
Channel 9's Angela Jacobs discovered complaints filed with Rockledge police by Vazquez on the day after Palm Bay's findings. Those complaints alleged that on multiple occasions Jongck harassed her. The complaints said the harassments ranged from a dead cat in her pool to shooting rockets at her roof. Jongck denied all of the complaints.
"I was disgusted. I guess you could say, at a loss for words," Jongck said.
Palm Bay police representatives told Jacobs they could not comment on Vazquez's current status due to pending issues with this case.
An investigator recommended the officer indefinitely lose her access to that police database, which was suspended during the probe.
Police have not confirmed whether that has happened or if it would interfere with her ability to do her job.Image copyright AFP Image caption Ms Park said she had "put too much faith" in her friendship with Ms Choi
The South Korean President, Park Geun-hye, has publicly denied falling victim to a religious cult as scandal threatens to engulf her leadership.
Appearing close to tears in a televised address, she apologised for allowing a long-standing friend inappropriate access to government policy-making.
She agreed to be questioned over the scandal but did not offer to resign.
Choi Soon-sil is suspected of using their friendship to solicit donations to a non-profit fund she controlled.
Ms Choi is in detention facing charges of fraud and abuse of power.
The main opposition party said the president's apology lacked sincerity and it called on Ms Park to step back from state affairs.
Scuffles broke out between police and demonstrators demanding Ms Park's resignation in central Seoul on Friday.
A friendship too far in Seoul?
'Absolutely not true'
Ms Choi, a long-time friend of Ms Park's, is the daughter of Choi Tae-min, a shadowy quasi-religious leader who was closely linked to Ms Park's father, then-president Park Chung-hee.
On Friday, Ms Park went on TV to deny allowing cultish rituals to be held in the presidential palace.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Rituals were allegedly performed inside the Blue House (presidential palace)
"There have been claims that I fell for a religious cult or had [shamanist rituals] performed in the Blue House, but I would like to clarify that those are absolutely not true," the president said.
She said she took sole responsibility for access to government documents and was willing to be investigated.
She had, she said, "put too much faith in a personal relationship and didn't look carefully at what was happening".
Anyone found to have done wrong would be punished, she said, and "if necessary, I'm determined to let prosecutors investigate me and accept an investigation by an independent counsel too".
The scandal has left Ms Park with an approval rating of just 5%.
Image copyright AFP/getty Image caption Ms Choi, a long-time friend of Ms Park's, is the daughter of Choi Tae-min, a shadowy quasi-religious leader
She has already replaced her prime minster, reshuffled her cabinet and dismissed several aides, but there are growing calls for her resignation or impeachment.
Choo Mi-ae, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, said she did not believe the apology was genuine and called on her to accept a new prime minister recommended by parliament.
Ms Park became her country's first female president when she was elected in a close-run contest in December 2012.Frank Vogel has been around the NBA long enough to know tough times can sneak up on a team even when things appear to be brightest. So as the Orlando Magic raced out to an 8-4 start and Vogel fielded questions about his team's early season success and change in style, he was careful to couch the building expectations for his young group.
"Don't pat me on the back too hard just yet," Vogel said. "It's very, very early and we haven't really done anything yet."
Those words have proven very prescient for a Magic squad that comes into Friday's game against the Boston Celtics having lost six straight. The cautious optimism that surrounded the Magic's unexpected start to the season has been replaced with the reality that the group is still having the same growing pains it has experienced since trading Dwight Howard five years ago.
With a rough stretch ahead over the next two weeks -- including a home date against the defending champion Golden State Warriors -- it doesn't appear as if the wins that were coming easily last month will return immediately. However, the good news for disgruntled Magic fans is that the changes Vogel made this offseason could give this group a foundation on which they can get back on track.
Editor's Picks New NBA forecast predictions: MVP, ROY, Finals rematch? After one month of NBA action, who is the new favorite for the MVP award? Who will make the Finals? We polled the ESPN Forecast panel of experts for their votes on the big questions.
Magic to end summer league, shift to Las Vegas The Magic will no longer host the annual Orlando Pro Summer League, and they instead will play at Las Vegas' NBA Summer League. 1 Related
The 44-year-old still chuckles at the kinds of rock-'em, sock-'em games he used to coach in during his six-year stint with the Indiana Pacers.
"I remember being tied 74-74 going into overtime against Charlotte," Vogel said recently.
As he studied the ups and downs of his first season with the Magic, a disappointing 29-53 campaign, the basketball lifer embarked on a philosophical change for his new group. While the principles of defense and playing "selfless basketball" weren't going to change, Vogel knew the Magic had to adapt to both how the league was changing offensively and the strengths of his unproven nucleus.
The Magic not only had to play at a faster pace than Vogel's Pacers did, they had to play smarter and be more efficient with how they used passes. Despite the recent losses, the data is encouraging. Last season, the Magic had an offensive rating of 101.2, ranked second-worst in the league according to ESPN Stats & Information, and a defensive rating of 108.0, which was seventh-worst. That net rating of minus-6.8 was second-worst in the league, ahead of only the Los Angeles Lakers.
This season, the Magic's offensive rating has improved to 104.5, good for 13th in the league. Their defensive rating (105.1) has also improved, and though their net rating is a negative right now, it still ranks nine spots higher than it did a year ago. The new style is one that the players clearly favor over what they used to do.
"I think last year we were trying to go big when the whole league was going small and it wasn't really working," Magic center Nikola Vucevic said. "A lot of guys were out of their comfort zone, a lot of guys were out of position. It just wasn't working, it wasn't clicking. I think this year players' roles are more clear."
Frank Vogel implemented a new system to make best use of the young talent on the Magic. Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Vogel points to the arrival of Terence Ross prior to last season's trade deadline as a reason the Magic have found more offensive success. The move, which sent Serge Ibaka to the Toronto Raptors, allowed Aaron Gordon to move to the 4 and Evan Fournier to be a 3.
"We changed our style of play on both ends of the floor with the way we're doing things offensively and just taking advantage of our speed defensively," Vogel said. "I think those seeds we planted at the end of last season have carried over into this season to doing some things that I'm really excited about, really encouraged about."
The key for the Magic, and a reason that they might be able to shake out of their current funk, is that they are shooting the ball much better than they did a year ago. Last season, they shot 44 percent from the field and 32.8 percent from beyond the arc. Coming into the week, they are shooting 46.7 percent from the field and 39 percent from beyond the arc. |
"breathing life" into constitutional protections for Aboriginal Peoples, and involving them in government decision-making.
But the Assembly of First Nations says the declaration should give First Nations the right to say No to pipelines, resource developments or other projects that take place on their traditional lands.
The declaration can't be ignored. Aboriginal leaders have frequently turned to the United Nations for support when they run into trouble with the federal government. At a time when the federal government is lobbying for a seat on the United Nations Security Council, a UN declaration takes on added significance -- even if it has no legal weight all by itself.
EI ON THE FLY: Alberta was perplexed by the federal budget's measure to extend employment insurance to certain struggling oil communities in the province, but not others -- such as Edmonton, where large numbers of workers connected to the oil industry live. This week, we've learned the formula used to determine who should get the EI-plus package, which gives five weeks of extra benefits to unemployed workers in regions hurt by a prolonged downturn.
It turns out that Edmonton, along with southern Saskatchewan and B.C.'s southern interior, now qualify. Struggling St. Catharines, Ont., is on the cusp of following suit, even though the EI measures were initially intended for the oilpatch.
As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau toured the devastated areas of Fort McMurray on Friday, the costs of the double hit to Canada's richest province were still sinking in. With the wildfire coming at the same time as depressed prices for commodities, pressure on Ottawa to help is still mounting.I’ve spilled a number of pixels already on the political dynamic that’s been at work in some of the urban riots over the last year or two. My observations aren’t particularly unique on this topic, either.
One of the interesting dynamics at work is that many of the radial leftists in print, at websites, and on TV have tended to put more hopes into these protests than the facts themselves would warrant. Characters like Matt Bruenig, the rest of the staff at Gawker, the new staff at the New Republic, some choice Atlantic columnists, and others from more radical venues like Jacobin, have all downplayed some of their more characteristic cultural and economic issues for whatever grievance at the moment is being wailed about by the urban protest machine.
In most leftist revolutions, the people doing the writing are also willing to do the killing. Trotsky, Lenin, Mao, and the rest of the gang were happy to have a lot of people killed themselves, even if they weren’t always holding the pistol.
The real Jacobins weren’t exactly field marshals, but they were happy to preside over executions and to sign away the lives of people themselves. They were willing to whip up mobs personally, rather than at a distance, and sometimes place themselves in the line of fire. The contemporary ones, not so much. They prefer to use proxies of a foreign ethnicity to their own, similar to the way that America often fights wars abroad since the enormous windfall that it enjoyed in 1945.
Facing danger, suffering, and dying — especially since the Korean War — has been something that Americans have tended to outsource to others as much as possible. That parts of the American elite would find and use angry tribes locally for such purposes is not all that surprising. It’s just doing to its domestic enemies what it tries to do to its foreign enemies. Fortunately, the terrible American track record in recent wars gives us all some cause for optimism.
They come to see these Black mobs as a sort of wish fulfillment for the revolution that they themselves are unwilling to lead or fight in, because, constitutionally, they’re so feeble, non-aggressive, and disproportionately female or androgynous. They dream of cities on fire and headless enemies, but they lack the gumption — or perhaps the cardiovascular capacity — to clamber up the barricades themselves.
In today’s slow-rolling urban revolution, the leftists provoking them stay comfy in their Herman Miller chairs, for the most part, typing away, lending their support to the interference operation being run by the Department of Justice and other characters on the National Guard and urban police units to prevent them from using appropriate levels of force to curb the riots.
Further, the press itself runs disinformation campaigns on behalf of the rioters, excuses their actions, and obstructs the process of justice.
In the recent failed war in Iraq, the American military considered ‘radical clerics,’ in many cases, to be valid targets, considered just as dangerous as the fighters whom they inspired, if not more so. While the war ultimately proved to be useless (for a variety of reasons), the principle already affirmed by all branches of the American government is a relatively sound one, even considering the idiocy of the wars themselves from a strategic point of view.
Certain members of the press, working with parts of the Federal government, are taking actions that are destroying American cities, causing billions or trillions of dollars in damage to property, and are harming what’s left of the Republic, using the usual means that such subversive cells are fond of using. This is obviously also harmful to the tax base, America’s profile in international relations, and is damaging to America’s credibility in all things.
Going back to the failure of the American military to understand that radical meant something rather different for the Iraqis than it meant for the Americans, we should also consider whether or not it actually makes sense to consider the consensus opinion on the Eastern seaboard to be ‘radical’ at all, because America’s most prestigious religious institutions all believe exactly what all of these people believe, and advocate for the same destructive actions, with lockstep opinion.
In this way, conservative hopes for ‘reform’ for the government are as profoundly misguided as hopes for Islam to ‘reform.’ Conservatives (along with some others) want to turn the ongoing revolution into something that it’s not — to save liberalism from itself, when it has no desire to be so saved, and is eager to physically exterminate all of its competitors as soon as it has the capacity, as such groups have attempted to do in countries ranging from Spain to France to Russia to all of Eastern Europe. This is the ordinary, normal course of action for leftists. They’re also not usually all that amenable to rational deterrence through speech.
Conservatives hope to persuade, or perhaps merely to survive without being bothered, when they should be concerning themselves with counter-revolution in the territories in which it might be feasible, while ceding entirely those that can’t be.
Considering the mistake of assessing clerics as ‘radical’ when they actually represent the indigenous belief system, people who care about civilized life in North America should also consider how much of the continent is actually possible to rescue from degeneration and destruction, given a dominant religious-ideological orientation towards this sort of self-annihilation and bloody sacrifice.
The answer is likely to be ‘not all of it,’ because the belief system that feeds the revolution now has deep roots in the population — particularly in the elite — and the cultural change can’t be forced by handing soldiers packs of playing cards with journalists’ names on them.
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Like this: Like Loading...Yes! The Primary Election is today, Tuesday, and it’s a beautiful morning!
For years, every campaign season has prompted complaints about too many yard signs planted in places they don’t belong. This winter, no one’s objecting except for some downtown residents who wondered about pairs of campaign signs inappropriately placed throughout downtown this past weekend.
Otherwise, thanks to the frozen tundra, most signs promoting the candidates in the 2014 Gubernatorial Primary Election have been placed strategically at a premium, few and far away.
Pay attention to Primary Day!
The absence of campaign signs changed overnight as today, Tuesday, March 18, is indeed Primary Day. And just as quickly as the signs went up at polling places and at major intersections, here’s hoping they come down after the polls close.
Times, they have changed! In addition to reliable printed materials, campaign signs and newspaper ads; social media, e-mails, online ads and robocalls have been added to the mix, creating new electronic ways to reach the electorate and to get hopefuls in front of the potential voters. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s possible to measure what works and what doesn’t going forward.
Low voter turnout is anticipated. With so many contested races, you’d think registered voters would want their voices to count.
Polls open 6AM-7PM
Polls are open from 6AM to 7PM at polling places, many of which have changed since the last election. To find your polling place before you head to the wrong location on Tuesday, click here and follow the easy directions.
Since all the candidates’ petitions passed clearance in December, PN has featured its Election and Voter’s Guide on this website. PN’s Voter’s Guide links to the Daily Herald, Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Chicago Business, etc., where you can read up on election-related stories and endorsements you might have missed.
PN doesn’t endorse candidates in the Primary. Our aim always has been to urge our educated readers to become even more informed voters and send them to the polls.
Meanwhile, if you’re among PN’s regular online visitors, the long list of candidates running to serve Naperville in Washington, Springfield as well as DuPage and Will counties is presented below for easy review.
Thanks to all candidates who requested to be linked to PN’s Voter’s Guide. And a special thanks to every individual who focuses on the facts in order to cast an informed ballot today, Tuesday.
Cheers!
Post updated March 19 after the 2014 Primary with ballot choices for Nov. 4.
Congress
U.S. Senate
Democrat / Dick Durbin
Republican / Jim Oberweis
6th District
Democrat / Michael Mason
Republican / Peter Roskam
11th District
Democrat / Bill Foster
Republican / Darlene Senger
14th District
Democrat / Dennis Anderson
Republican / Randy Hultgren
Illinois
Governor / Lt. Governor
Democrat / Pat Quinn & Paul Vallas
Attorney General
Democrat / Lisa Madigan
Republican / Paul Schimpf
Secretary of State
Democrat / Jesse White
Republican / Michael Webster
Comptroller
Democrat / Sheila Simon
Republican / Judy Baar Topinka
Treasurer
Democrat / Mike Frerichs
Republican / Tom Cross
State Senate
21st District
Democrat / None
Republican / Mike Connelly
42nd District
Democrat / Linda Holmes
Republican / None
State House
41st District
Democrat / Ed Agustin
Republican / Grant Wehrli
42nd District**
Democrat / None
Republican / Jeanne Ives
81st District
Democrat / Lisa Thomas
Republican / Ron Sandack
84th District
Democrat / Stephanie Kifowit
Republican / Krishna Bansal
DuPage County
County Board Chairman
Democrat / None
Republican / Dan Cronin
Sheriff
Democrat / Mike Quiroz
Republican / John Zaruba
Clerk
Democrat / Jean Kaczmarak
Republican / Paul B. Hinds
Treasurer
Democrat / None
Republican / Gwen Henry
Forest Preserve District President
Democrat / None
Forest Preserve District 3
Democrat / None
County Board District 5
Democrat / None
Republican / Tonia Jane Khouri
County Board District 6
Democrat / Lauren “Laurie” Nowak
Republican / Kevin Wiley
Circuit Judge 18th Circuit / Circuit Wide
Democrat / None
Republican / Bob Kleeman
For Appellate Justice – 2nd District
Democrat / None
Republican / Michael J. Burke, Dana Alden
Will County
Sheriff***
Democrat / Mike Kelley
Republican / Ken Kaupas, Nick Ficarello (Too close to call)
Clerk
Democrat / None
Republican / Nancy Schultz Voots
Treasurer
Democrat / Laurie Summers
Republican / Steve Webber
Board District 11
Democrat / None
Republican / Suzanne Hart, Charles “Chuck” Maher
Township Committeemen / Naperville Township
(Most Committeemen, Democrat & Republican, are running unopposed or without a candidate.)
022 Republican / Patty Gustin
028 Republican / Paula Dulli
033 Republican / Gary J. Vician
Note: When/if contested, Naperville’s six Township & Committee races will be posted for the Nov. 4 Election.West Suffolk College, in the United Kingdom, has begun using Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet devices for administration and management tasks at the school. Before the Surface RT came to save the day, administrators kept track of vital notes using a notebook and pen. Not anymore.
Angela Bingham is an Admissions and Customer Service Manager at West Suffolk College and is responsible for the application process at the school. She recently began using a Surface RT for her work-related duties and instantly fell in love with the device, paired with the OneNote app.
Bingham actually chose the Surface RT over the Apple iPad. “I had the option of having an iPad or Surface RT. And because a lot of my work is management and data, from my point of view the iPad wasn’t suitable. All my documents are in Word, Excel or PowerPoint. The Surface tablet, though, has been fantastic. I take it to meetings, where I use OneNote, and I can access SharePoint documents as well as my documents on SkyDrive,” Bingham added.
Another administrator at the school uses a Surface RT for his work duties at the school, paired with the OneNote app. “OneNote is very clever and just brings the touch environment to life. It’s just opened up doors for us,” the school’s Technical Support Manager Scott Gerber stated.
Bingham is so deeply in love with the Surface RT that she is attempting to convince everyone around her to purchase one for themselves.
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Further reading: OneNote“I have been here for many years, even before the independence day of Malaysia. I don’t even remember when my birthday is but I know I was born when the Japanese was here. When was that? Ah in 1942 or 1943 right? So I must be about 75 years old now.”
“They say you are the oldest Temiar tribe elderly here?”
“Yes I am, I have lived long here, longer than many. I am still strong and I work hard. Also I have three wives and 19 children.”
“So what do you think about life here today?”
“It’s not good as before, mainly with our heritage. It’s been stolen by modern people. By the government mainly, they lie to us, ignore us and control us. They even beat and bully our children in school. It’s difficult to see our people are not taken cared off. Mainly our children.”
“What’s the main issues here?”
“We don’t have enough clean water to drink, the pipes get dried up. They (the local government office) send us water tanks and no water supply inside. They put up electric poles and cables with no electricity, the poles are here since last year, it took about 50 years to start putting up poles. We don’t even have a school nearby or a medical clinic, we can’t even get medication when we are sick. Our children have to walk two hours to school in the other town. It’s all empty promises, they never tell us the whole truth. Each time there is an election, they come with gifts and promises, they just want our votes and our lands. Then once they are elected they never come back. All these things here are for a showcase to the media, but nothing works. There is nothing been done here. So they cheat the media, the public and us. This has been going on for over 50 years now.”
(Pak Abai – 75)
For the last 50 years, there has been no real effort from the local government to improve the lives of the Temiar tribe in Gua Musang. During my trip there last week, road access is still bad, some villages have no water access, all the villages in the Pos Gob areas and surroundings have no electricity. That is for about 16 villages with a population of more than 1500 orang asli about 2-3 hours further inside. I noticed the front (showcase) villages that was build by the authorities, brick walls and zink roof, fit for farm animals or low cost living. Authorities have moved many villagers into this controlled housing compounds away from the forest.
So why are the tribes still been abused and mistreated? Locals say mainly for control, to keep the tribes dependant, to have more control over the deforestation and for illegal logging to go on. Small and medium corporations working with corrupted local authorities to use the lands to make a profit. The forest here is rich, trees grow tall, animals roam free, even elephants, it’s the rainforest of Malaysia, a heritage of the Temiar people. So why still destroyed it? A simple answer is – Money.
(Pos Gob, Kampung Gawin, Gua Musang – Malaysia)If you ever get any mail from the TV talent show queen Sharon Osbourne, think very carefully before opening it, warns Martin Wainwright
Shit happens, as the increasingly widespread American expression has it. But if you aggravate Sharon Osbourne, it may happen in a particularly targeted and personal way.
The wacky queen of TV talent contests reveals in the Guardian's Weekend magazine tomorrow that she takes an unusually intimate revenge on critics who rile her - especially if they attack her and Ozzy's family.
Offenders can expect a beautiful box from the New York jeweller Tiffany's shortly afterwards. Inside, rather than diamonds, there is something only Mrs Osbourne can produce. Fighting giggles, she says: "I must have a thing, not about shitting but about sending it to people. I've done it for an awfully long time. I suppose I find it funny."
Mrs Osbourne admits being something of a revenge specialist, a trait she may have inherited from her father, Don Arden, a music impresario and self-styled gangster who reacted to bad news by threatening to kill whichever of his associates or relatives he considered responsible.
The scatological variation on the theme, however, is Mrs Osbourne's own. She describes in a new book how she adulterated Ozzy's cannabis with it to try to break his habit, and then added it to her father's most precious ornament when he stole from her. She tells the Guardian: "I mean, I don't just do it to anybody. They have to have done something really bad."
No Tiffany boxes have left the Osbourne mansion for a while now. But any harsh critics of the new book might be advised to examine their mail carefully before opening it. Sharon says: "The last turd? Three... No, four years ago: when the first review came out of The Osbournes. And it was from a newspaper in America, a very legit one, not the American version of the Mirror or the Sun.
"The journalist said something about my kids being fat, and how unappealing that was. And I thought any journalist worth their salt would never write that about children in the society that we live in today."
On that occasion, Mrs Osbourne recalls, she added a personal note. "I said, 'I heard you've got an eating disorder. Eat this.' "
· Read Emma Brockes' extraordinary interview with Sharon Osbourne in full in tomorrow's Weekend magazine.Prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau’s first face-to-face meeting with a premier will be in the office of Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne. Trudeau will sit down with Wynne at her Queen’s Park office at 1 p.m. Tuesday before the two leaders attend the funeral of Canadian diplomat Ken Taylor.
Premier Kathleen Wynne, left, predicted there would be a “new tone” with Ottawa once Justin Trudeau, left, is sworn in as prime minister. ( Lucas Oleniuk / Toronto Star file photo )
There will be a photo-op before the private discussion, but there will be no media availability afterward. The premier hit the hustings in more than a dozen Ontario ridings for the incoming prime minister and lent him numerous key political aides for his campaign tour. “I was an enthusiastic supporter of Justin Trudeau during the election,” a smiling Wynne said the morning after the federal Liberals’ Oct. 19 victory.
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“And I believe that in the months and years to come, he and I will have a solid working relationship based on mutual priorities and values,” she said. Tuesday’s meeting, which comes eight days after Trudeau’s election victory and eight days before he is officially sworn in as prime minister, is in sharp contrast to the cold shoulder Wynne got from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper famously did not meet with her face-to-face for 396 days in 2014 and 2015. During the recent 11-week federal campaign, his Conservatives promised to do all they could to derail Wynne’s Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, deriding it as “a payroll tax.” It is expected the two Liberals will discuss the Canada Pension Plan — which Harper refused to bolster, leading Wynne to unveil the ORPP — as well as Trudeau’s $130-billion pledge to boost infrastructure, which fits in with Wynne’s 10-year, $30.5-billion plan to build transit, roads and bridges.
Last week, the premier predicted there would be a “new tone” with Ottawa once Trudeau was sworn in — indeed, she was one of the first leaders he spoke to the night he won. His Liberals triumphed in 80 of Ontario’s 121 seats, compared to 33 for the Conservatives and eight for the New Democrats.
Read more about:WATERLOO – After struggling to keep sales up, Blackberry has decided it will cease making its keyboard phone so it can shift focus to manufacturing palm pilots.
“Based on our 2015 research, we’re pretty sure that touch screens are going to be the next big thing,” said John Chen, CEO of Blackberry. “And as the market has already proven, people love using those touch screen pens.”
But Blackberry, who recorded a 31.8% drop in 2nd-quarter revenue, has no plans to rely just on their next generation personal digital assistant. They also plan to shift into producing CD players, pagers, and “a flying machine” which is still in development.
“Not only can our palm pilot send emails, it can also remind you when a meeting is happening,” said Chen. “Let’s see a pad of paper do that!”
Blackberry is confident they’ll be able to retake the lead in the digital market by making its new PalmPilot compatible with Windows 98 before any of their competition.
“We have a history of being ahead of the curve. When my great-great-grandfather saw the Ford Model T he knew that horse drawn carriages were going,” said Chen. “We’re still waiting to see if he was right.”
At press time, Blackberry was beginning work on a secret project, known only as “Commodore 64”.In the year 2045, the real world is a harsh place. The only time Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) truly feels alive is when he escapes to the OASIS, an immersive virtual universe where most of humanity spends their days. In the OASIS, you can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone-the only limits are your own imagination. The OASIS was created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance), who left his immense fortune and total control of the Oasis to the winner of a three-part contest he designed to find a worthy heir. When Wade conquers the first challenge of the reality-bending treasure hunt, he and his friends-aka the High Five-are hurled into a fantastical universe of discovery and danger to save the OASIS. Written by Warner Bros.By Hannah Ransom Canning, Executive Assistant
When I first started in September 2016, I received a full breakdown of tasks that I would be fulfilling in my new position as Executive Assistant to the President. One of these tasks was taking on the role of the Program Administrator of the Louis Braille Touch of Genius Prize for Innovation. It seemed a little intimidating that I would be managing all of the coordination for submitters and calls and meetings for our Adjudication Committee.
However, having now worked with the team to bring this competition to its fruition, I couldn’t imagine a more understanding and helpful group of people who are dedicated to fulfilling the meaning behind this prize. The Louis Braille Touch of Genius Prize was developed to inspire innovators to support tactile literacy. After putting out a call for applications, we received 18 submissions from around the world that displayed their best efforts and ideas to continue supporting braille or other tactile literacy innovations. After careful deliberation, the Adjudication Committee decided our winner was John Hudelson, for his submission of BELLA. BELLA is the Braille Early Learning and Literacy Arcade, a programmable, educational software and hardware gaming platform using audio, visual, and tactile feedback to teach pre-braille skills, braille reading, and braille writing. By inserting a card with a barcode on it programmed for one of the four games or story option, you can interact with the device to use BELLA in a variety of teaching methods. The games KeyCrush, Whack-A-Dot. Cell Spotter, and Alphabet Cards are used to teach the chords of the braille alphabet, finger dexterity, and letter association between letters, braille cells, phenomes, and words by following prompts on the brailed barcode cards. The committee tested all of these features and were impressed by BELLA’s responsiveness and ability to program different cards for some of the games.
The committee also selected Mandy Lau’s Reach and Match Learning Kit and Inclusive Learning Program for an honorable mention. This kit and its accompanying curriculum is designed for children with vision impairment as well as those with multiple needs to develop braille literacy and communication & social skills through tactile strategies and play-based activities. The kit contains mats that are differentiated in a variety of ways. On one side, they have a color: red, blue, green, or yellow, with a corresponding raised-line pattern. On the opposite side, there is a large brailled and large print block and an indented line to follow this “Braille Trail” to learn the braille alphabet. The Reach and Match Kit’s curriculum includes many programs to help preschool and kindergarten teachers.
From this competition, I have discovered how many creative individuals there are who are researching and developing new ideas. The submissions we received showed much promise and ingenuity, and the committee encouraged many of the submitters to improve their designs and consider submitting an application next year. Administering the Touch of Genius Prize gave me the opportunity to get my feet wet in the world of braille literacy, and I am looking forward to learning even more.That federal campaign, led by NSW-based poker machine lobby groups that have long held politial sway, targeted marginal seats and was ultimately successful in watering down reforms. Treasurer Michael O'Brien in December announced that the state government would increase the tax rate applied to pokies venues. He said the changes would correct the pokies tax system that had set rates for gaming venues too low to recover Victoria’s historical share of tax revenue, a mistake made during Labor's reform of the industry in 2008. The changes are forecast to reap the government an extra $280 million by the end of 2016-17. In retaliation, the “Our Pain, Napthine Gain” campaign claims the tax increase will rip $20 million from community clubs this year and $75 million over the next four years.
Community Clubs Victoria -- a week old amalgamation of Clubs Victoria and Community Clubs Association of Victoria -- continues to oppose "the blatant tax grab" warning it will cost jobs and funding for community groups including sporting clubs. It says it will result in local charities and sporting clubs losing crucial funds. It says clubs pour $300 million into community groups every year and employ 15,000 people in Victoria. The local campaign includes a website, posters and stickers in 35 electorates similar to the 2011 anti-Labor model. Labor opposed the increase and the new rate only passed parliament after independent Geoff Shaw secured some concessions, including a six month extension of poker machine entitlement repayments. Victoria has around 27,000 pokies, outside of Crown Casino, between July 1 last year and the end of May 2014 Victorians have lost $2.3 billion on the machines.
Community Clubs Victoria Executive President Leon Wiegard said the campaign was in response to a demand for action from its members who were deeply unhappy with the tax and the government's response to their concerns. He said it would be the most vocal Victorian clubs had been on a political issue - the anti-Gillard campaign was strongest in NSW and Queensland. The anti-Napthine campaign includes 22 seats with a margin under 5 per cent, as well as the Premier and Mr O'Brien's safe seats. Mr Wiegard said the tax grab was nothing more than a fundraising measure for the Premier during an election year. “Community clubs support hundreds of charities, sports team and community groups across the state, as well as mobilising an army of community volunteers.” he said.
“The contribution community clubs make to these vital community groups is now at risk thanks to Denis Napthine and his Government’s reckless tax grab. Mr Wiegard said the tax would force community clubs to reassess how much financial support they would be able to give to local charities and sporting groups. “The Government has been very short sighted with their attack on community clubs. They have failed to see the long term effects this tax will have on not only community clubs but on local communities as well. “The most frustrating thing is that rather than just accept that gaming revenue has fallen over the last few years, the Government would rather impose a massive tax burden on a not-for-profit industry and destroy the great work they do for their local communities. Affected clubs included the Knox Club in Wantirna South which supports around a dozen local sports clubs including the Knox Basketball League and surrounding football clubs, including the Eastern Rangers who play in the AFL’s under-18 feeder competition.
Manager Basim Aljabary warned any drop in revenue may impact on the donations to sporting clubs. On Tuesday the state government announced it would be appeal last month’s decision by the Supreme Court that it must pay Tatts $461 million, plus interest, in compensation for the loss of the gaming giants pokies licence in 2012. "The Supreme Court awarded Tatts Group around $541 million in damages and interest following the former Labor government's restructure of Victoria's gaming industry,’’ Mr O’Brien said. The news comes as the government announced it is appealing last month’s Supreme Court decision that the state must pay Tatts $540 million compensation for the loss of its poker machine license in 2012.But other religious workers are operating in a far more bare-bones manner, with whatever they managed to carry in their luggage.
“You had missionary doctors parachuting in here doing amputations rather than setting or treating wounds because they knew their charter jet was leaving in two days and they would not be able to oversee follow-up,” said Dr. Scott Nelson, an American orthopedic surgeon and Adventist missionary, as he lifted a moaning man onto a soiled stretcher.
“The community trusts us, but when other groups make shortsighted decisions it undermines everyone’s credibility,” he added.
Dr. Nelson and other veteran missionaries faulted the new arrivals for frequently acting on their own instead of collaborating with more established missionary groups that plan on staying in Haiti for the long haul. It is tension, some experts say, that can arise from the differing reasons that missions have for being here.
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“The new or short-term groups see themselves as being there to save souls first and lives second,” said Jonathan J. Bonk, director of the Overseas Ministries Study Center in New Haven. “The older, less conservative missions often see it the other way around.”
But the new arrivals say they have a legitimate role to play as well. “Right now, with the situation being a disaster, we mostly focus on food and water and supporting the doctors; that’s our mission,” said Pat Harney, a spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology, which has several hundred health professionals and volunteer ministers in Haiti.
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Some of them arrived on John Travolta’s Boeing 707, which he flew down loaded with tons of relief supplies, and when not doing relief work they sang classic rock songs at a crowded bar full of aid workers inside the United Nations compound. At the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, where Scientologists in bright yellow T-shirts have assisted as volunteers, some have carried out what they call touch therapy, in which they say they realign patients’ nervous systems by touching them through their clothes.
The hospital director, Dr. Alix Lassegne, said he told the group’s doctors to stick to traditional medicine and other volunteers to stay away from trying to convert anyone.
“We had fractures, serious wounds, and there was no time for unconventional things,” Dr. Lassegne said. “I told them, as director of the hospital, in no way would I permit other activities.”
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Missionaries have long filled a vacuum left by an impoverished and historically unstable government.
While government officials have condemned the 10 Americans, most of them Baptists, who were arrested trying to take 33 Haitian children across the border without proper documentation, they have praised religious groups in general for their work.
“Missionaries have always participated in the process of alleviating pain in this country,” said Patrick Delatour, a top government official.
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Christian missionaries run more than 2,000 primary schools in Haiti attended by about 600,000 students, roughly a third of the country’s school-age population, according to the Haitian Education Ministry.
In the case of the Adventists in Carrefour, more than 2,000 children attend a cluster of Adventist schools — primary through university level — that sit on a sprawling campus of palm trees and tidy white buildings perched on a hilltop.
“Even before the earthquake, this was a city of its own,” said Michel Toutian, a resident, 36, as he entered a huge tent city set up by the Adventists. “And the Adventists are the mayor, police, everything.”
Todd Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of World Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, said there were about 1,700 missionaries permanently based in Haiti. The number of missionaries making short-term visits is more difficult to estimate, but some organizations say it is as high as 10,000.
“The outpouring of compassion is heartwarming,” said Sarah Wilson, spokeswoman for Christian Aid, a British organization that receives much of its financing from church members and has a longstanding operation in Haiti. But she added: “People shouldn’t come down here for an experience. They should stay home and write a check.”It's looking more and more like this year's Call of Duty is going to be a sequel to 2010's Black Ops. A retail source forwarded the following image from a poster received today.
It's been widely speculated that this year's Call of Duty game will be a sequel to Black Ops, which was developed by Treyarch.
Also, the framing narrative for 2010's Black Ops was a debriefing where elements of a massive secret conspiracy were revealed so the text on the poster could be referencing that.
Also, the date on the poster is most likely a reveal date and not a release date. Call of Duty games typically come out later in the year to take advantage of the busy holiday shopping season.
In February, a French video games site found themselves banned—and then unbanned—from Activision events after reporting that a Black Ops sequel would arrive in 2012 after an Amazon leak earlier this year. That overreaction led many to think that the information in the leak was right on the money.
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When contacted, Activision declined to comment to Kotaku about the image.Saskatchewan Party leadership candidate and former RCMP Sgt. Rob Clarke aided police in the arrest of a man who was allegedly breaking into vehicles.
Clarke said he was a passenger in a truck driving in downtown Saskatoon on Friday when he saw a person on a bike trying to break into cars and told the driver to pull over.
READ MORE: Money for childhood cancer research almost stolen at Saskatoon fundraiser
“I saw him trying to get into the vehicles, trying to get into the cargo boxes of the vehicle,” Clarke said over the phone on Sunday. “I just prevented him from going anywhere.”
Clarke said the individual was apprehended by Saskatoon police on Spadina Crescent and he provided them with his statement.
“I want to thank those two individuals, the couple that was walking by when I stopped that individual. I didn’t know what to do next, I didn’t know how to call someone or call 911 while I was dealing with that individual. It was very awkward, very difficult,” Clarke said.
“It’s not about me, it’s just about community safety… these Good Samaritans, this couple, called 911 and the response time from the Saskatoon Police Service was phenomenal. They were there very quickly and they acted very professionally so I have to tip my hat to the Saskatoon Police Service.”
READ MORE: Sask. Party candidates face off in 4th debate in North Battleford
Clarke, an 18-year veteran of the Saskatchewan RCMP, attained the rank of sergeant within the force before his work in politics.
“(I was) just trying to stop someone from actually breaking into a car or trying to steal anything. My training kicked in, I don’t know why, but it’s just one of those instincts you just don’t ever seem to forget or lose,” Clarke said.
“You’re always looking and surveying your environment when you’re driving down the street or if you’re in a crowd. It’s one of those things that’s hard to describe and I think the law enforcement officers will totally understand this — you’re always looking for something … if you see someone acting suspicious, it’s going to pique your interest.”
READ MORE: Saskatoon assault victim shares lesson of personal safety
Clarke has released a package of justice reform policies that includes increasing the amount of support staff for police.
“What I see is police really need more support staff and that’s one of my policies. You see currently across the country, for every four police officers there’s one [stenographer]. Here in Saskatchewan, we have six police officers and only one support staff or one [stenographer],” Clarke said.
“So if you get more support staff, what’s going to happen is you’re going to see more police on the ground |
in the Middle East as weak, hesitant and confused — most especially in the view of the region’s most radical forces, notably including Bashar Assad, Hezbollah, and Iran.
And it is profoundly concerned that the president has set a precedent, in seeking an authorization from Congress that he had no legal requirement to seek — and that Congress was not loudly demanding — that may complicate, delay or even rule out credible action to thwart a challenge that dwarfs Assad’s chemical weapons capability: Iran’s drive to nuclear weapons.
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Israel’s Channel 2 reported Sunday night that, once Obama had zigzagged to his decision not to strike for now, the White House contacted Israel’s leadership to convey the news. The goal, successfully achieved, was to ensure that there would be no avalanche of publicly aired criticism of the president by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers. Only the hawkish minister of housing, Uri Ariel, defied the prime minister’s restraining order, complaining bitterly in an Army Radio interview Sunday morning that Assad was a cowardly murderer “who needs to be taken care of, already.” Ariel thus earned himself a dressing-down by Netanyahu, who told him at the Cabinet table that personally attacking the president of the United States did not serve Israel’s “security interests.”
But privately, Israel’s silently appalled political and security leaderships have no doubt that Obama’s last-minute change of heart harms Israel’s security interests far more critically than any marginal minister’s inconvenient outburst possibly could.
Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel are reported to have briefed Israel’s leaders to the effect that Obama’s firm intention remains to strike back at Assad for what Kerry said Friday was the carefully planned August 21 use of chemical weapons to kill over 1,400 of his own Syrian people.
The Israeli leadership wants to believe that this is the case. The notion that the US would turn its back on the toxic crimes of a murderous dictator, whom Kerry bracketed Sunday with Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein, is too dire to consider in an Israel facing more than one hostile regime relentlessly seeking to exploit any military and moral weakness in order to expedite the Jewish state’s demise.
Though dutifully silent in public, Jerusalem has quickly internalized the damage already done — by the sight of an uncertain president, all too plainly wary of grappling with a regime that has gradually escalated its use of poison gas to mass murder its own people; a regime, moreover, that can do relatively little damage to the United States, and whose threats Israel’s leadership and most of its people were taking in their stride.
At the very least, Obama has given Assad more time to ensure that any eventual strike causes a minimum of damage, and to claim initial victory in facing down the United States. At the very least, too, Obama has led the Iranians to believe that presidential promises to prevent them attaining nuclear weapons need not necessarily be taken at face value.
If a formidable strike does ultimately come, some of that damage can yet be undone, the Israeli leadership believes. American military intervention can yet be significant — in deterring Assad from ongoing use of chemical weapons, and bolstering American influence and credibility in the region.
But if Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who will be hosting the G20 later this week, inserts himself into the equation, and Obama is distracted by endless machinations ostensibly designed to see Assad stripped of his chemical weapons, machinations that ultimately are sure to lead nowhere, the damage will only deepen. If there is no strike, the United States — hitherto Israel’s only dependable military ally — will be definitively perceived in these parts as a paper tiger, with dire implications for its regional interests. And for Israel.
Jerusalem is worried, too, of a direct line between requesting Congressional approval for military action against Syria — a relatively straightforward target — and feeling compelled to honor the precedent, should the imperative arise, by requesting Congressional approval for military action against Iran — a far more potent enemy, where legislators’ worries about the US being dragged deep into regional conflict would be far more resonant.
Israel remains hopeful that, to put it bluntly, Obama’s America will yet remember that it is, well, America. The alternative, it rather seems, is something the leadership in Jerusalem finds too awful to so much as contemplate just yet.Have your say
A biscuit lover was stunned after opening up a packet of chocolate digestives - and finding a plain one inside.
James Leslie, 32, bought a packet of McVitie’s Milk Chocolate biscuits from a shop near his house in Titchfield Common on Monday, but had a surprise when he got home and ripped open the packaging.
James found a plain digestive in a milk chocolate packet
The charity worker started picking out the chocolate biscuits, but discovered a single plain one tucked inside the wrapping.
He said: ‘I was quite surprised. It’s the last thing you expect to see.
‘I wondered if it was a Willy Wonka kind of thing and I’d won a tour of the McVitie’s factory.’
James said he had heard about previous cases where rogue biscuits had been found in packets.
I wondered if it was a Willy Wonka kind of thing and I’d won a tour of the McVitie’s factory. James Leslie
He added: ‘I have heard of some people getting lucky by getting plain biscuits with a chocolate one, but this was the opposite.
‘I actually saw a programme about it last week where they showed how much vetting is done on the biscuits.
‘I’m dumbfounded. I sent McVitie’s an email and I’m waiting for a response. I imagine they’d do an investigation to find out what happened.’
But despite the suprising find, James said he would not be put off buying the same brand in the future.
He said: ‘It definitely hasn’t put me off buying biscuits for life.
‘I said that the brand is definitely up there with my favourites. I’ll still eat a digestive at my mums and dads.’
A McVitie’s spokeswoman confirmed the company had received a complaint from James about the biscuits.
Have you encountered something unexpected in a packet of food? Email us at newsdesk@thenews.co.uk or message us on our Facebook page.Share:
NAIROBI - Over 30,000 people in South Sudan’s war-zone regions face death by starvation, the United Nations said Thursday, warning that tens of thousands more are on the brink of famine.
While an official famine has not been declared, the report describes the worst conditions yet seen in a 22-month civil war marked by atrocities and accusations of war crimes, including the blockading of food supplies.
“At least 30,000 people are living in extreme conditions and are facing starvation and death,” the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN children’s agency UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a joint statement.
Those worst affected are in the northern battleground state of Unity, once the country’s key oil producing region, but now scene of some of the heaviest fighting, including the mass abduction and rape of women and children.
Some 3.9 million people are in crisis - a third of the country’s population - a massive 80 percent rise compared to the same period last year, the UN said.
Famine is a technical measure, assessed by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which classifies hunger on a scale of one to five.
“There is a concrete risk of famine occurring between October and December 2015 if urgent humanitarian access and assistance is not provided in the most affected areas,” the IPC report read.
While large parts of South Sudan’s Unity and Upper Nile regions were already classified as being just one step short of famine, termed “Emergency” or “phase four”, areas in Unity have been declared to be in “phase five” for the first time, with 860,000 people in those extreme conditions.
Level five is classified as “Catastrophe”, and when stretched to 20 percent of the population, becomes famine.
“Since the war in South Sudan started nearly two years ago, it is the first time that an IPC analysis has found any parts of the population in phase five, ‘Catastrophe’,” the UN added.
Conditions on the ground for affected individual households are therefore already effectively in famine conditions.
While poor rains have impacted harvests in some areas, the worst conditions are in war-zone areas, with the extreme conditions sparked by conflict not climate.
Hardest hit are the counties of Leer, Guit, Koch and Mayendit, areas where aid agencies have been forced to pull out in recent months due to intense fighting.
“People are on the edge of a catastrophe that can be prevented,” said WFP chief Joyce Luma.
Both sides are accused of having perpetrated ethnic massacres, recruited and killed children and carried out widespread rape, torture and forced displacement of populations to “cleanse” areas of their opponents.
“Since fighting broke out nearly two years ago, children have been plagued by conflict, disease, fear and hunger,” UNICEF chief in South Sudan Jonathan Veitch said.
“Their families have been extraordinary in trying to sustain them, but have now exhausted all coping mechanisms. Agencies can support, but only if we have unrestricted access. If we do not, many children may die.”
Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed from fighting and the country’s economy has been destroyed, with soaring inflation causing sharp spikes in food prices.
A year ago famine was averted only after a huge intervention by aid agencies.
Civil war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings across the country that has split the poverty-stricken, landlocked country along ethnic lines.
The army and rebels have repeatedly traded blame, accusing each other of breaking an internationally-brokered August 26 ceasefire, the eighth such agreement.
Aid agencies including Oxfam warned Thursday of “appalling conditions” and “unbearable suffering” in Unity state, while World Vision said there were “alarmingly low harvests” elsewhere in the country.To Scotland now where the Tories are embroiled in an embarrassing row with one of their own local election candidates over whether he agreed to stand.
Thomas Williamson will be on the ballot paper when voters in the Shetland Island’s Lerwick North ward vote for their councillors on May 4.
But, the man knows locally as “Skerries Tom”, has told the Shetland Times that he never agreed to be a Tory candidate – and asked residents not to vote him.
Priceless in @shetlandtimes – Tory candidate says 'buggers doon sooth' forced him to stand in council election. 'Don't vote for me!' pic.twitter.com/kuQ1T5LaI8 — Tom Morton (@thebeatcroft) April 21, 2017
He said he had received a phone call from some “buggers doon sooth” – a Tory official asking whether he would stand as a paper candidate in order to boost their national vote share. A tactic that the local paper said hadn’t been employed on the islands by parties before.
Williamson said the conversation was obscured by a “crackling line” and that he had been cut off, only discovering that he was a candidate when the official notice of poll was published.
He described his candidacy as a “cock up”. The Tories insist that he signed the paper needed to be a candidate.
We’d heard the Tories were unpopular in Scotland, but we didn’t realise it was this tough for them to find willing candidates…You may not think of vanilla as being anything special. It is, after all, the default ice cream flavor on most menus, and it has all these connotations of being boring—plain vanilla. The truth is that vanilla, part of the orchid family, is the second most expensive spice after saffron. It is very labor-intensive to harvest. And it is everywhere: in sweets, in fragrances, in aromatherapy products. Now we are getting reports that there is a shortage. Time to embrace chocolate? Not so fast.
The dearth of Madagascan vanilla, which is considered the best kind for its creamy sweetness (Mexico and Tahiti have vanillas too), reflects climate conditions from 2015. Last year was an especially poor harvest, so this year prices are surging by 150 percent. And high prices create a snowball effect: Farmers pick their vanilla early to capitalize on the surge in pricing (and to protect themselves from being robbed). And they end of picking too soon and drying it too quickly, leading to subpar vanilla.
The numbers tell the story: A good crop of vanilla beans is usually around 2,000 tons, but in 2015 the number was closer to 1,300 tons. Charlie Thuillier, founder of the ice-cream brand Oppo, told the Guardian that the price has doubled in the last month. "We were paying €35 a litre in February but now it's €76," he said.
Time will tell if this summer's coming harvest will create a surplus to bring prices back down. Meantime, some vanilla users—bakers, perfume creators and aromatherapy makers—may experiment with synthetic vanilla. Most likely, prices for ice cream will simply go up until that point when they can come down again—long after summer is gone.
[h/t to The Guardian]Press Release
BYKSKI, Known as one of the leader brands of the water blocks in Asia, released the A-SP58PLAT-X water block for Sapphire RX580 NITRO+ edition.
The A-SP58PLAT-X full cover water block is based on pure copper of the metal part. With the nickel-plating technics, it allows the water block longer lifespan and excellent corrosion resistance with the coolant soaking. By the precision cutting of the copper base, the space between the fins of Micro-Flow system is only 0.5mm, which makes the water blocks more efficiency. High quality acrylic is used to cover the water blocks and let use could see the coolant flow of the water block.
The BYKSKI A-SP25PLAT-X water blocks is now available to purchase in their official TAOBAO Store for Mainland China receivers, and for overseas users, could purchase from BYKSKI local partners. And for those who want to be their retailers or distributors, could contact with their overseas sales by the Email of bykski_sale@163.com.
Press ReleaseEven if I wanted to, I couldn’t keep myself from crushing on today’s bride’s wedding style. Her adorable Jackie O style short wedding dress, her bright orange bouquet, her shortie bridal veil, I love it all! Event planner Morgan Gallo went all out styling Ruth and Vinny’s Courthouse wedding, complete with a reception full of games, carnival inspiration, and the groom’s love of Captain America.
From the stylist, Morgan Gallo: Vinny and Ruth are such a genuine couple and wanted their wedding to really tell their guests who they were and what they loved as a couple and individuals. They wanted their wedding to be fun—a party. I remember meeting with them the first time to talk about the theme and Vinny was so excited to try to incorporate games in the reception because this was such a big part of his family time and Ruth wanted to have a carnival type theme because she loved the eclectic and colorful look so it couldn’t be any more perfect!
We started with the invitations that looked like a Carnival sign and ticket—we then wanted to incorporate many shades and textures and did so by shopping for fabric to cover mason jars and making custom napkins to add a pop of color to the tables. If you won a game, you got a prize! They wanted to have both of their cultures incorporated in some fashion and so both supplied the dessert table with the most popular Vietnamese and Mexican candies that their guests could take home in their goodie bags.
The cake topper is one of the cutest I have ever seen! The groom is a HUGE captain America fan and so they contacted a local etsy artist to do him ripping his military uniform off to reveal his Captain America insignia. We spent a LONG night up watching Grimm and making the adorable place card fan rounds. The bride got really crafty and made pinwheels and prop pieces (hats, glasses, mustaches, etc) to add height to the table and give guests an opportunity to really let their hair down and pose for the camera! Who needs a Photo Booth when you have the whole night to show off?!
Wedding Location: San Francisco and Sacramento, CA / Ceremony Venue: San Francisco Courthouse / Reception Venue and Caterer: Ten 22 / Wedding Design, Coordination, Paper Goods, and Reception Flowers: Morgan Gallo Events / Wedding Photographer: Alicia Gines Photography / Bride’s Bouquet: Mandy Scott Design / Cupcakes: Esther’s CupcakesCLOSE Donald Trump has recently been talking about the One China policy. But what exactly is that? USA TODAY
A Beijing news stand shows a newspaper with a photo of President-elect Donald Trump on Nov. 10, 2016. China awoke Dec. 5, to criticism from Trump on Twitter, days after it responded to his telephone call with Taiwan's president. (Photo: Ng Han Guan, AP)
In a few sentences on Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump upset an apple cart precariously balanced for 37 years across the Taiwan Strait.
Trump said in an interview with Fox News that he did not feel "bound by a one-China policy," prompting the communist government in Beijing to voice its "serious concern" on Monday that Trump could take steps to change U.S. policy toward China and the self-governing island of Taiwan.
His comments came nine days after a telephone call with the president of Taiwan that broke with U.S. policy, which bars such direct communication, and upset the Beijing leadership.
The U.S. recognition of a "one-China" policy stems from 1979, when the U.S. switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the People's Republic of China (PRC).
In the 1979 U.S.-P.R.C. Joint Communique, the United States recognized the communist leadership in Beijing as the sole legal government of China, acknowledging the Chinese position that there is one China and Taiwan is a breakaway province that is part of China.
"The Taiwan question bears on China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and touches our core interests," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said. "Adherence to the one China principle serves as the political foundation for the development of China-U.S. ties. If this foundation is wobbled and weakened, then there is no possibility for the two countries to grow their relations in a sound and steady way and cooperate on key areas."
Officially, the U.S. government does not support independence for Taiwan, now a democracy that elects its own president and parliament.
U.S. relations with the island are governed by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which outlines the U.S. commitment to help Taiwan maintain its military defense. Last year, the U.S. approved $1.8 billion in arms sales to Taipei.
Washington maintains unofficial relations with Taiwan through the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a de facto embassy that implements U.S. policy, facilitates trade and issues visas. Taiwan maintains a de facto embassy in Washington, D.C., through its Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO).
Trade between the U.S. and Taiwan is robust: The U.S. is Taiwan's second-largest trading partner and Taiwan ranks as the ninth-largest trading partner for the U.S. According to the State Department, companies from Taiwan employ more than 12,000 workers in the United States.
For Taiwan, the lack of diplomatic recognition by the U.S. and most other nations means that it cannot belong to international organizations, such as the United Nations, that require statehood as a condition of membership. Its president, Tsai Ing-wen, cannot make official visits to the U.S. and has not been invited as an official delegate to U.S. events, such as presidential inaugurations.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2hFfC9ePOSTED October 15, 2014
We’re in full force on our campaign to bring 200 North Korean refugees to freedom, but we wanted to take a moment to focus on one of our incredible fundraisers. Though this campaign was launched less than three weeks ago, Bethany has already raised enough to bring TWO North Korean refugees to freedom. But this isn’t Bethany’s first rodeo—over the last year, she’s also funded rescues for two other people, including Song Hyun.
Thanks to Bethany’s fundraising efforts, Song Hyun is now enjoying a life of safety and freedom with his family in South Korea.
So what is Bethany’s secret to fundraising success? Read on to find out:
Q: How did you first get interested in this issue?
A: Because I’m Jewish, I’ve always been interested in human rights abuses and genocide in world history. The first book I read about the situation in North Korea was “The Aquariums of Pyongyang” and it got me hooked. Several books I read regarding refugees specifically mentioned Liberty in North Korea as a way that refugees were able to escape to South Korea. I had been doing research into how I could get involved and donate, and LiNK was the only non-Christian group that seemed to be operating. I have nothing against Christian groups, I think they do incredible work, but as a Jew, I felt most comfortable donating and working with a secular organization whose sole mission was rescue.
Q: Why did you decide to fundraise for refugee rescues?
A: I imagine my children one day asking me what I did to help. I wanted to be able to answer them with an honest heart. The first rescue I launched I had no idea if I would be able to make the goal. It happened in under a week or two. I was floored and inspired and it led me to hold other fundraisers, usually around Jewish holidays where the theme is freedom (Passover) or renewal (Rosh HaShanah/Yom Kippur).
Q: What do you focus on when trying to raise money for your rescue campaign?
A: Just getting it done. I am really touched by every donation, from strangers, friends and family. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook while I’m doing a fundraiser, I’m pretty relentless and probably kind of annoying. I have a very large Twitter following because of what I do professionally (I work in conservative politics). The conservatives that follow me are kind-hearted, generous, and lovers of freedom. The work that LiNK does resonates with them greatly.
Q: When you’re in a donation slump, how do you turn things around?
A: I try to be honest. “I haven’t had a donation today” is usually what I say. I need your help, I can’t do this alone. Make people feel needed, because they are.
Q: What advice would you give to people who get discouraged during their rescue campaign?
A: Reach out to everyone you know and ask them to share stories about North Korea, educate people before hitting them up for donations. Try to spread awareness, and with that awareness will come a desire to help.
Q: What are some creative ways you get people to donate to your page?
A: I’m not terribly creative, I just shamelessly beg all day long on social media, and thankfully that usually works. The jokes I’ve made about the things I’ll do if someone donates never resonate in actual donations. It’s a serious topic and people respond to serious requests for help.
Q: How does it feel when you successfully raise enough to rescue a refugee?
A: There’s a saying in the Talmud, basically if you save a life, you’ve saved the world. I feel like I’ve saved the world.
Q: Is there anything you’d like to say to the North Korean people or to refugees hiding in China?
A: There are so many people out there who care, who want better for your lives, who know you deserve better.Unless otherwise noted, the ratings numbers below are based on the final overnights and may vary slightly from the preliminaries reported on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site.
Ratings results for the sci fi / fantasy shows airing Tuesday 7/15 through Thursday 7/17:
Renewal Announcement: TNT announced the renewals of their new series The Last Ship as well as fourth year entry Falling Skies this last week, although the latter show will only be coming back for one more season. The renewal announcement for the former series is not too much of a surprise, though it is not doing as well in the ratings as Falling Skies did last season. But according to TNT it is “a blockbuster hit in its first season, not only among total viewers but also among key adult demos”. They also claim that it is “basic cable’s #1 scripted series this summer with adults 18-49 and adults 25-54”. I guess that’s not too much spin there, but it’s nothing along the lines of The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, or even American Horror Story, so the “blockbuster hit” designation seems like a bit of a stretch (and FX’s The Strain could give it a run for its money in the comings weeks). And considering that The Last Ship is surely an expensive series, I know that TNT would have been much happier with higher numbers. But it’s then their spin department’s job to make it look as good as possible for the renewal announcement. As for Falling Skies, that show is currently at its lowest ratings level across its four seasons (averaging a 0.9 score in the 18-49 demographic season to date vs. last Summer’s 1.2), so apparently the renewal for a final season is a preemptive move. It will only be at forty two episodes by the end of the current season and one more year will not get it that much closer to the 80 to 90 episode count that the syndication market prefers, so TNT apparently decided to give the producers the opportunity to wrap up the main storylines with a final season. They should be applauded for doing at least doing that as opposed to leaving the fans hanging, but this effectively works as a preemptive cancellation. Whether the show’s fans will be satisfied with only one more season remains to be seen and keep an eye on the social networks for the fallout.
Still On the Bubble: On Thursday, Syfy’s Defiance held at a 0.5 rating in the 18-49 demo with 1.6 million total viewers and Dominion posted the same scores as well. That’s an improvement from the 0.4 score the shows had two weeks ago, but still very marginal for what are likely two somewhat expensive entries for the network. If pressed, I would say that they are more likely to get renewed than cancelled at this point, but I’m sure Syfy would much prefer to see them at a ratings level of at least 0.6 if not higher. The Thursday night scheduling might be partly to blame as that is a new night for the network’s scripted programming, but I don’t know how much difference moving them to another night would make at this point. The shows need to at least hold at their current level and any improvement would definitely be a positive. Watch these two closely in the coming weeks to see how their numbers track.
Following are the full ratings results* from the last few days with my comments and keep an eye on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for the latest numbers and any breaking news.
The Wil Wheaton Project 7/15 Syfy Tue 10 PM
Rating: 0.2 | Tot Viewers: 0.5 | StD Rating: 0.2 | Target: n/a | Cancellation Alert: Moderate
Still hanging down at pretty low numbers, but it’s a cheap show to produce and its generating some buzz on the social networks, especially with the video clips.
Extant 7/16 CBS Wed 9 PM
Rating: 1.5 | Tot Viewers: 8.0 | StD Rating: 1.6 | Target: 1.4 | Cancellation Alert: Low
It only dropped one tick from its premiere and it has the Amazon deal to help keep it afloat as well. Looks okay for now.
Defiance 7/17 Syfy Thu 8 PM
Rating: 0.5 | Tot Viewers: 1.6 | StD Rating: 0.5 | Target: 0.6 | Cancellation Alert: Moderate
At least is held steady, though Syfy would certainly prefer to see it trend up.
Dominion 7/17 Syfy Thu 9 PM
Rating: 0.5 | Tot Viewers: 1.6 | StD Rating: 0.5 | Target: 0.6 | Cancellation Alert: Moderate
It’s not sinking, so that’s a good thing. But an expensive first season series needs to be pulling better numbers than this on basic cable.
—
*Metric Definitions:
Rating: Overnight rating in the 18-49 demographic for same day viewing based on the final numbers unless otherwise noted
Tot Viewers: Estimated total viewers to tune in to the episode for same day viewing
StD Rating: Season to date average for the rating metric tracked above.
Target: The estimated average rating that the show needs to sustain to get renewed.
Cancellation Alert: My prediction of the likelihood that a show will get cancelled. From least to most likely the statuses are Low, Moderate, Medium, Elevated, and High.
—
Ratings Source: TV by the Numbers and The Futon Critic
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2014 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.This blog was going to be about versioning and the use of the word snapshot in our beta release…. but I’d rather go with a project update!
With the beta approaching, I started reminiscing about where we were when we started and where we are now( as you can tell by my previous posts). So I began reading through our blogs and I found that it was a rewarding exercise! A lot of the stuff is bang on and I’m quite happy to say that we have stuck to our initial design really quite impressively! Check this quote out:
What we decided to work on was a 15 level Dungeon Crawler. 1-4 player coop. Barbarian, Wizard, Conjurer and Ranger. Pretty standard stuff really. But with our own flavour (yes, flavour has a u in Canada).
I’ve managed to find the right mixture of tools and team to give the project a chance to make it. It is thanks to the teams hard work that I feel I can start writing about this project.
That’s from the very first blog! Comparing where we are to what we wanted, we aren’t too far from our original design. It’s now a 13 floor Tower, a graveyard and some secret areas. I can honestly say that the management of the project as a whole has been a success. And because of that, the project itself, has been a success! It’s a testament to my team.
After being secretive for so long. It’s time I share the project with the world. Before I show off some of our work, here’s the project update highlights:
We’ve run a successful pre beta test, collecting bugs as they arose. Beta is just around the corner! Our website is nearly complete. To receive an email when the site launches, add your email address to the landing page! Beta Testing Contest will begin once Beta Testing commences. Beta Testing registration will begin within the next two weeks! Log your beta bugs here.
I’ll be adding some screenshots tomorrow, so tune in.
But here is one before then!
RTOverall Length: 49'' Blade: 37 1/4'' $0.00
No Longer Available
Blade: CSN14260.7 High Carbon Steel Weight: 3 lb 7.5 oz Edge: Blunt P.O.B.: 1 1/4'' Thickness: 3.7 mm - 1.8 mm Width: 59 mm - 29.3 mm Grip Length: 9'' Pommel: Welded
This odd-looking sword is actually a clever innovation The Problem: How to create a training sword with blunted edges that isnt so overly heavy that it handles in an unrealistic fashion? Compensate for thickness by reducing width, whilst retaining a thick ricasso for balance, strength and a forward grip point. A German fight school invention, its name literally meaning feather sword and it is prominently featured in fechtbuchs (fighting manuals) of the Renaissance.
This Federschwert, made by Fabri Armorum, is hand-made in the Czech Republic. The flexible blade with its thickened, blunted tip is made for training. Being one of Fabri Armorums Training swords the detailing of the leather is rough and utilitarian. The guard and pommel are also left with a rough, forged finish. The blade is made from carbon spring steel (type 14260.7). The blade is welded to the pommel for strength. The guard and pommel are of steel and the grip is wood with leather glued over top. The sword is guaranteed for two years by the manufacturer under normal stage/sport combat conditions.Shootmania Storm is an upcoming (you guessed it) online PC shooter on the ManiaPlanet network and the first multiplayer FPS from Nadeo. In this second Beta before the game’s full release on January 23, 2013, players can take on a generous sample of online game modes and experiment with the title’s biggest selling point: the immersive level editor. The levels in Shootmania Storm are set in a moody fantasyland, with dark skies, looming architecture and crumbling landscapes. The visuals are all clean and crisp, with great color schemes and the promise of running and looking great even on dated, lower-end video cards. There is an incredible sense of isolation and seclusion to these outdoor arenas, with nothing beyond the structures but serene and empty grasslands. While the world of Shootmania Storm is very medieval and ancient looking, the neon jumpsuit character designs and plasma-based weapons themselves are very futuristic, which results in an almost dystopian feel akin to The Hunger Games.
Shootmania Storm is a simple game, without the bells and whistles of the weightier, more cumbersome online shooters. But trust me: that’s a good thing here. This not only allows anyone to pick up and play within minutes of creating their own account (something Shootmania prides itself on), but best of all, it puts everyone on the same playing field right from the start. You’ll never face a high-level player with that fully upgraded machine gun or advanced invisibility perk, which is great for gamers like me who may have some trouble jumping right into a competitive online platform. No, each player in Shootmania Storm is equipped with a sole “rocket gun,” a shield on their back. The grit and skill needed to come out on top is up to them.
The decision, by Nadeo, to arm everyone in Shootmania Storm with a rocket gun makes for some interesting rocket launcher-based gameplay, along with helping Nadeo achieve its goal of minimizing the time you spend in character customization screens. But it also means just a few quick shots and you’re toast. In Shootmania Storm you will also come across a sniper weapon and a short-range weapon called The Nucleus for underground confrontations, but it’s clear that weapons in the game take a backseat to the level design. In Shootmania Storm, it’s all about utilizing your environment and outsmarting your opponents on ever-changing terrain. The controls are just as basic, with minimal key inputs and fluid character motions. In addition to running and shooting, you are left with a secondary action button, which seamlessly changes its function based upon your character’s movements (from wall-jumping, to gliding and everything else in between).
Each of the game modes in Shootmania Storm favors tactical strategy over mindless run-and-gun gameplay and offers short bursts of fun whether you have hours to play or only a few minutes to spare. One of my early favorites, the “Royal” scenario seems to be a popular choice among beta players right now and is an exciting twist on the “last man standing” elimination death match. As the round goes on and more fighters are eliminated, the playing field literally grows smaller, as a shroud of fog steadily engulfs the outer edges of the map, working its way inwards. Get caught in the fogvand it’s “Game Over” faster than a rocket gun blast to the back. It physically forces players to engage with one another, by pushing them towards the center of the map in one final game-deciding confrontation (cornucopia from The Hunger Games anyone?). Other modes bend the definition of the FPS genre, like Time Attack mode, which tasks players with moving faster than their opponents and prevents them from firing a single bullet; and Victory mode, a new addition in Beta 2, where game objectives cycle every 30 seconds and range from killing the most enemies to performing the highest jump.
Like ManiaPlanet’s flagship titles, TrackMania and TrackMania 2: Canyon, steady content creation from a dedicated community is what gives Shootmania Storm its legs and makes it a fresh new experience every time you log on. Trust me, Shootmania Storm players can do some amazing things with the tools they are given. Some of the user-generated maps I came across are truly stunning in design, with intricate labyrinths of columns and underground tunnels at every turn. The fantastic sense of depth and space in the editor lets many map builders place an emphasis on verticality, with wall-jumping zones and thrilling boost ramps that launched my fighter high into the air at lightning-fast speeds. In addition to the original wasteland textures, this demo of Shootmania Storm also includes a vibrant “toon” texture pack, with bright colors and buildings that look like they are made of giant Lego blocks. The vast spectrum between these two sample textures makes me excited to see what other kinds of worlds players will be able to traverse once the full Shootmania Storm game is released.
In Shootmania Storm, you can build maps using one of two level editors: simple or advanced. Simple feels very limited in scope compared to advanced and I actually found the advanced editor more inviting and easier to use, not to mention the plethora of tools and objects that advanced puts at your disposal. Even though my skills at map building don’t extend much beyond making lopsided towers and planting a few trees here and there, I still found the interface extremely easy to use and was zooming all around the editor as if I’d done it a hundred times before. Shootmania Storm’s Beta 2 also introduces a 3D Objects importer which players can use to upload and share their favorite game objects and to make their map making possibilities virtually limitless. You can even record gameplay videos as you play and edit your replays from right within the ManiaPlanet interface itself.
One thing that does concern me though about Shootmania Storm is the game’s potential longevity beyond these one-off matches and competitive standings. Aside from ranking on global leaderboards and perfecting that magnum opus map design, long-term goals like leveling up seem |
arap Sang, who opposed Mr Kibaki in 2007, are also to stand trial in a separate case.
Beyond reproach?
Some human rights groups have been calling for Mr Kenyatta, who also serves as the country's finance minister, and Mr Muthaura, the cabinet secretary, to resign.
Kenya's troubled politics Image copyright AFP Image caption Some 1,200 people were killed in violence after the 2007 elections December 2007 : Violence explodes after disputed poll. 1,200 people killed, thousands displaced by fighting.
: Violence explodes after disputed poll. 1,200 people killed, thousands displaced by fighting. April 2008 : Power-sharing deal is signed
: Power-sharing deal is signed November 2009 : ICC chief prosecutor says will seek to investigate post-poll violence
: ICC chief prosecutor says will seek to investigate post-poll violence August 2010 : New Kenyan constitution agreed
: New Kenyan constitution agreed December 2010 : ICC names suspects
: ICC names suspects May 2011 : ICC rejects Kenya's bid to halt election probe
: ICC rejects Kenya's bid to halt election probe January 2012: ICC confirms charges against four suspects Q&A: International Criminal Court Orphaned by Kenya poll violence
"The suspects are appearing in their individual capacity. The government cannot speak on their behalf on what to do and what not to do," Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper quotes Attorney General Githu Muigai as saying.
He said the government would make a decision on whether the two should step aside after the appeals process was over.
The BBC's Caroline Karobia in the capital, Nairobi, says the suspects are allowed to appeal but ICC rules do not guarantee that their request is heard.
Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto both have presidential ambitions - but it is not clear if the laws of Kenya will allow them to run in the polls due next year, she says.
Kenya's new constitution says holders of public office should be beyond reproach as far as ethics are concerned and rights groups are preparing to go to court to get an interpretation to see if this should include those facing trial.
Kenya's government has been lobbying for the cases to be dropped - a position endorsed last year by the African Union.
Mr Muigai also unveiled a team of legal experts who will advise the government on the ruling by the ICC judges.
On Monday, the ICC judges did not confirm the charges against former Industry Minister Henry Kosgey or former police chief Hussein Ali.
The ICC's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has said he will not appeal against this decision, but will continue to investigate the two and will present any new evidence he finds against them to the court's pre-trial chamber.
Mr Kibaki was eventually declared the winner of the 2007 election, and is serving his second and final term as president.
Mr Odinga was installed as prime minister under a power-sharing deal brokered by Kofi Annan to end the violence.
Mr Ruto and Mr Odinga have since fallen out and are expected to face each in the elections.Less than a month after the last release of the open source office suite, the LibreOffice team has announced LibreOffice 3.5.4 which is supposed to be twice as fast as its predecessor when loading large files.
The performance boost is the combined result of many code optimisations done in the last few months of development and regular bug fixes made since the last release. The developers have proudly announced that this makes LibreOffice 3.5.4 "the fastest version of the best free office suite ever". In total, more than 70 bugs have been fixed in this version, many of which were affecting the stability of the product. A complete list of improvements can be found in the change logs for RC1 and RC2.
LibreOffice 3.5.4 is licensed under the LGPLv3 and is available to download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
(fab)Another Bay Area restaurant has been accused of withholding wages, among other claims. Popular taco chain Tacolicious was sued by two line cooks in 2015 for improper compensation, inaccurate wage statements, illegal deductions, and failure to pay out for overtime and when employees left the restaurant. This week, Tacolicious owner Joe Hargrave chose to settle, paying $900,000 in the process.
“We love our people and take great care of our people. The way we have to make these deals is that I can’t talk about them, so it’s kind of indefensible,” Hargrave told Eater SF. “But we chose to settle because if we chose to fight it, we’d go out of business. There’s nothing we can do about it. So it is what it is, but things aren’t all they appear.”
The class-action lawsuit was represented by Liberation Law Group, who through the settlement would earn $270,000, or 30 percent of the total settlement amount, Hargrave told SF Gate. Liberation Law Group has not returned Eater’s requests for comment.
Through the settlement, Tacolicious does not claim liability for any of the claims. San Francisco Superior Court needs to approve the settlement, which is scheduled for March 15.
Tacolicious is not the first Bay Area restaurant to face such claims; Burma Superstar is currently undergoing a similar lawsuit, as is Babu Ji’s New York City branch.A House Democrat is introducing legislation that would establish a commission to determine whether a president is unfit for office.
Rep. Jamie Raskin’s (D-Md.) bill seeks to create the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity to fill a role outlined by the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, which sets up presidential removal procedures.
The 25th Amendment states that the vice president and a majority of either the president’s Cabinet “or of such other body as Congress may by law provide” can declare that they believe a president cannot fulfill his or her official duties.
If a president refuses to step down, two-thirds of both the House and Senate could vote to force the ouster.
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"The 25th Amendment was adopted 50 years ago, but Congress has never set up the body it calls for to determine presidential fitness in the event of physical or psychological incapacity. Now is the time to do it," Raskin said in a statement Friday.
Raskin wants to provide a specific “body” comprised of 10 physicians, psychiatrists and retired former leaders — like presidents and vice presidents — chosen by House and Senate leaders of both parties. The commission’s chair would be chosen by the 10 appointed members.
If a situation warranted, Congress could pass a resolution directing the commission to conduct an examination of the president to determine whether they are incapacitated mentally or physically. Members of the commission would then report back to Congress on their findings.
“Any refusal by the President to undergo such examination shall be taken into consideration by the Commission in reaching a conclusion in the report,” the legislative text notes.
So far the bill has gained 20 co-sponsors, all Democrats, since Raskin first introduced it last month.
But his statement Friday announcing the legislation comes amid Democrats expressing alarm over President Trump abruptly firing James Comey as FBI director this week amid the agency’s investigation of whether Trump associates colluded with the Russian government to influence the election.
The White House initially said Trump fired Comey following a recommendation from Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsFormer Trump refugee director did not notify superiors about family separation warnings Court rejects challenge to Mueller's appointment Trump says he hasn't spoken to Barr about Mueller report MORE and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that criticized his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane 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 use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State.
But Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt in an interview Thursday that he was planning to fire Comey “regardless of recommendation.”
“I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story,” Trump said.
Raskin isn’t the only Democrat to offer legislation to enhance presidential removal procedures since Trump took office.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer Earl BlumenauerDems ready aggressive response to Trump emergency order, as GOP splinters Businesses need bank accounts — marijuana shops included Dem senator introduces S. 420 bill that would legalize marijuana MORE (D-Ore.) introduced a bill last month to give former presidents and vice presidents of both parties, in coordination with the sitting vice president, to authority to determine if a president is fit for office.
Blumenauer delivered a House floor speech in February to float the proposal and express concern that the 25th Amendment in its current form would fall short in cases of mental incapacity.
“For a mentally unstable, paranoid or delusional president, the 25th Amendment has no guarantee of its application. In fact, it’s likely that it would fail," Blumenauer said at the time.DETROIT — When Ryan Mathews fumbled the ball away late in Sunday's 24-23 loss to the Lions, Wendell Smallwood and Kenjon Barner were on the sideline watching.
Like they were almost all game.
Now, it's hard to blame Doug Pederson for going with a veteran and his biggest running back on that carry, but Smallwood and Barner barely played all afternoon.
Both running backs got just one offensive snap apiece after running extremely well in the last game against the Steelers. Against Pittsburgh, Smallwood carried the ball 17 times for 79 yards and a touchdown and Barner carried the ball eight times for 42 yards and a touchdown.
Neither got a carry on Sunday.
Why did Mathews and Darren Sproles get all the carries on Sunday?
"Just the way of the game plan, the way the game plan went," head coach Doug Pederson said.
All offensive linemen and Carson Wentz played all 61 snaps, while Jordan Matthews got 57 and Zach Ertz got 52.
The trend of Dorial Green-Beckham's role in the offense growing continued against the Lions. He had 32 snaps (52 percent) against the Lions. He's gone from 32 percent to 46 to 49 to 52.
On defense, the thing that stands out is the increase in snaps for linebacker Mychal Kendricks. After playing just nine snaps against the Steelers, Kendricks played 26 (43 percent) on Sunday. While Kendricks hasn't been in on the nickel package this year, he was at times on Sunday and he didn't play well. For some reason, Jim Schwartz's linebacker rotation had Kendricks and Stephen Tulloch in the nickel package for an entire series.
Pederson said Nigel Bradham's lack of first-half snaps was not discipline related. They just thought it was a good idea to get Kendricks and Tulloch extended snaps.
Vinny Curry had just 16 of 61 defensive snaps against the Lions, continuing the trend of Curry as the clear third option at defensive end. Brandon Graham played 53 snaps and Connor Barwin played 52.
Through four games, here's a look at snap counts for the Eagles' top three defensive ends: Barwin 176, Graham 168, Curry 90. Curry did pick up his first sack on Sunday, but despite his new contract, he's the third option.
Because Leodis McKelvin (hamstring) and Ron Brooks (cramps) missed some time, Jalen Mills got 24 snaps and Jaylen Watkins got 11.
Here's a full look at snap counts from Sunday:
Offense
Allen Barbre, 61 snaps, 100 percent
Lane Johnson, 61, 100
Jason Peters, 61, 100
Jason Kelce, 61, 100
Brandon Brooks, 61, 100
Carson Wentz, 61, 100
Jordan Matthews, 57, 93
Zach Ertz, 52, 85
Nelson Agholor, 48, 79
Darren Sproles, 34, 56
Dorial Green-Beckham, 32, 52
Ryan Mathews, 25, 41
Brent Celek, 23, 38
Josh Huff, 18, 30
Trey Burton, 11, 18
Matt Tobin, 3, 5
Wendell Smallwood, 1, 2
Kenjon Barner, 1, 2
Defense
Nolan Carroll, 61 snaps, 100 percent
Malcolm Jenkins, 61, 100
Rodney McLeod, 61, 100
Brandon Graham, 53, 87
Fletcher Cox, 53, 87
Connor Barwin, 52, 85
Jordan Hicks, 48, 79
Nigel Bradham, 48, 79
Bennie Logan, 46, 75
Ron Brooks, 38, 62
Leodis McKelvin, 34, 56
Mychal Kendricks, 26, 43
Jalen Mills, 24, 39
Vinny Curry, 16, 26
Stephen Tulloch, 15, 25
Jaylen Watkins, 11, 18
Marcus Smith, 8, 13
Beau Allen, 8, 13
Destiny Vaeao, 8, 13Court Supreme Court of the United Kingdom Full case name R (on the application of Nicklinson and another) (Appellants) v Ministry of Justice (Respondent) Argued 16–19 December 2013 Decided 25 June 2014 Neutral Citation [2014] UKSC 38 Case history Prior action(s) [2013] EWCA Civ 961; [2012] EWHC 2381 (Admin) Holding Appeal dismissed, no declaration of incompatibility would be issued. Case opinions Majority Lords Neuberger, Mance, Clarke, Wilson, Sumption, Reed and Hughes Dissent Lady Hale and Lord Kerr Area of Law Assisted suicide; Autonomy; Article 8, ECHR
R (Nicklinson) v Ministry of Justice was a 2014 judgment by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom that considered the question of the right to die in English law.
Facts [ edit ]
In 2005 Tony Nicklinson suffered a severe stroke and became paralysed from the neck down. He described his life following the stroke as a "living nightmare".[1]
Nicklinson wished to end his life but was unable to commit suicide without assistance. This presented a legal problem because assisting the suicide of another person is a criminal offence under section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961. As such Nicklinson applied to the High Court for a declaration that either:[2]
It would be legal for a doctor to assist in his suicide; or
The present legal regime concerning assisted suicide is incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Right to respect for private and family life)
The second appeal in this case related to an individual using the pseudonym Martin who had suffered a brainstem stroke in 2008.[3] Martin wished to end his life by travelling to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland and sought an order for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to amend her 2010 'Policy for Prosecutors in Respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide'[4] so that carers and other responsible individuals who are not family members will not be prosecuted for assisting in Martin's suicide.
Judgment [ edit ]
High Court [ edit ]
The High Court refused both of the declarations that Mr Nicklinson sought.[2] He subsequently refused all food and died of pneumonia on 22 August 2012.[1] His wife took up the case in the appeals to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.[5]
Martin's claim also failed in the High Court.[2]
Court of Appeal [ edit ]
The Court of Appeal dismissed Nicklinson's appeal on the basis that the defence of necessity should not be allowed to develop at common law so as to encompass murder in certain cases of euthanasia. Furthermore, a blanket ban on euthanasia was not incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Such an approach was in line with the Debbie Purdy case.[6]
Martin's appeal was partially successful. The court held that the DPP's guidance was not sufficiently clear in respect of people who had no close relationship with the victim.[6]
Nicklinson and the DPP appealed to the Supreme Court. Martin cross-appealed.
Supreme Court [ edit ]
In a dissenting opinion, Lady Hale and Lord Kerr would have made a declaration of incompatibility as requested by Nicklinson. Lady Hale stated:
“ 300. I have reached the firm conclusion that our law is not compatible with the Convention rights. Having reached that conclusion, I see little to be gained, and much to be lost, by refraining from making a declaration of incompatibility. ”
Although the other seven justices would not have issued such a declaration it was unanimously held that the question of assisted suicide does fall within the United Kingdom's margin of appreciation and does engage Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
A majority of five justices (Neuberger, Hale, Mance, Kerr, Wilson) held that the court does have the constitutional authority to make a declaration of incompatibility as regards the general prohibition of assisted suicide. Lord Neuberger concluded:
“ 76. [E]ven under our constitutional settlement, which acknowledges parliamentary supremacy and has no written constitution, it is, in principle, open to a domestic court to consider whether section 2 infringes article 8. ”
The majority felt that the question is one that Parliament is in a much better position than the courts to assess.
The Supreme Court unanimously allowed the DPP's appeal and holds that:
“ 249. Any lack of clarity or precision does not arise from the terms of the Director’s published policy. It arises from the discretionary character of the Director’s decision, the variety of relevant factors, and the need to vary the weight to be attached to them according to the circumstances of each individual case. All of these are proper and constitutionally necessary features of the system of prosecutorial discretion. The terms of the published policy reflect them. The document sets out the principal relevant factors for and against. It treats the professional character of an assister’s involvement as a factor tending in favour of prosecution. It is at least as clear as any sentencing guidelines for this offence could be. ”
Given this conclusion Martin's cross-appeal did not arise.
European Court of Human Rights [ edit ]
In December 2014 Tony Nicklinson's wife, Jane, applied to bring a case before the European Court of Human Rights.[7]
On 23 June 2015 the court decided that the question of assisted suicide falls within a state's margin of appreciation. It concluded that:
“ 84. If the domestic courts were to be required to give a judgment on the merits of such a complaint this could have the effect of forcing upon them an institutional role not envisaged by the domestic constitutional order. Further, it would be odd to deny domestic courts charged with examining the compatibility of primary legislation with the Convention the possibility of concluding, like this Court, that Parliament is best placed to take a decision on the issue in question in light of the sensitive issues, notably ethical, philosophical and social, which arise. ”
As such Nicklinson's application was "manifestly ill-founded" and therefore declared inadmissible.[8]
Assisted Dying Bill [ edit ]
Labour MP Rob Marris introduced an Assisted Dying Bill in September 2015.
In June 2014 Lord Falconer tabled a private members' bill in the House of Lords entitled the "Assisted Dying Bill" but it ran out of debating time during that parliament.[9]
In June 2015 Labour MP Rob Marris topped the ballot for private member's bills and indicated that he would introduce a bill that adopted Lord Falconer's draft regulations. Although Nicklinson was mentioned during the debates, the Assisted Dying Bill as proposed would have been limited to those with six months or less to live and therefore he would not have been able to utilise the law to access an assisted death.[10] The bill failed to pass the second reading debate on 11 September 2015 as 118 MPs voted for the bill progressing while 330 voted against.[11]
See also [ edit ]An IT recruiter came to one of my classes when I was a junior in college, and about 30 of us turned over our resumes. As a barely employable computer science student, I jumped at the chance to get hands-on experience and income while completing my studies, as well as work toward a programming job that could offer full-time employment after I graduated.
One of two companies called back for a second interview. I somehow beat out the competition, although I had to bluff my way through trivia concerning the adventures of a fellow called Link and his girlfriend Zelda.
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At my new job, I had some free time between configuring new equipment and resetting passwords. In order to fill the hours between schoolwork and to gear myself up for the coming "real job," I worked on developing a purchasing system my boss could use to help him with the process of ordering equipment. It would keep track of what he ordered, who approved it, when the order was filled, and a lot of other business logic. The old Lotus Notes system his group was still updating with this information had a variety of problems, so the team was subject to a lot of manual input and searching that ate up precious time.
The system I was building had to send emails automatically to alert people in the approval chain. At one point during development it accidentally emailed the vice president about a multi-million-dollar order, but he was pleased to see things were proceeding well. There was a buzz around the office in anticipation of my slick, new system.
Around the time I had it demo ready (and was about to graduate), the worst happened. The project I was supposed to work on full-time after getting my degree was canceled, and dozens of people were deserting the company like rats on a sinking ship. I guess a couple of the developers couldn't get jobs, so management proposed that they "help" with my little project. Since I was completely inexperienced, I thought this was a great idea.
After several weeks of endlessly refining the requirements for a system that was all but completed, graduation day was almost upon us, and one of the execs had found work for me elsewhere in the company in another part of town. The clock was ticking, and I wanted to deliver a working system to my old boss before I left.Inequality in Boston
By John Marion
26 November 2011
A recent report measuring poverty in Boston concludes that the city is in one of “the most unequal counties in the nation.” The report released this month by the Boston Foundation and the Boston Indicators Project analyzes data from the US Census, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other sources, and examines both long-term (1990-2010) and short-term (2005-2009) trends.
The study comes at a time when both the government and the media are trumpeting the state’s decreasing unemployment rate, which was 7.3 percent in September and October and has been at least one percentage point below the national rate since April of this year. In many cases, the long-term unemployed have simply given up searching for work and are no longer counted as jobless.
Much of the poverty is concentrated in the Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and South End neighborhoods of Boston. While the poor in these neighborhoods are caught in a cycle of substandard education, they live in the shadow of universities that charge $40,000 or more for tuition each year. At the same time families earning a salary at the official poverty rate can barely pay rent, and web sites of realtors routinely list condominiums at $1 million or more in the city’s wealthy neighborhoods.
The City of Boston had a hand in preparing the Boston Indicators Project report, and its introduction offers a bland quote from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, a Democrat, who says, “We won’t develop all of the solutions here, but we can start here.” In reality, the extreme levels of poverty have been entrenched since at least 1990, and Menino recently has spearheaded an attack on public education and other social programs.
The statistics summarized by the Boston Indicators Project are staggering: nearly 50,000 children live in families whose income is 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Standard or less; nearly 31,000 children—28 percent of all children in the city—live in poverty; 25 percent of the city’s aggregate annual income went to the top 5 percent of incomes in 2009, while the bottom 20 percent earned only 2.2 percent of the total. In addition, the median annual rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the city’s poorest neighborhoods—$16,800 or $1,400 per month—is only $5,250 per year less than the annual earnings of a family of four at the poverty level.
Between 2006 and 2009, the number of Boston households using food stamps increased from 25,000 to 35,000. Statistics on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts web site document that the state’s food stamp caseload nearly doubled from July 2008 to July 2011—from 243,000 to 455,000. Yet the state’s fiscal year 2012 budget included a Dickensian clause mandating that people convicted of “fraudulently” using $100 or more of food stamps will be subject to fines up to $25,000 and imprisonment up to five years.
The Boston Indicators Project report emphasizes race as a factor in income inequality, noting that the percentage of African Americans in poverty was 34 percent in 1990 and 35 percent in 2009 while other racial and ethnic groups saw their poverty rates decline. Boston has a long history of segregation and racism, and this factor cannot be discounted. However, a closer look, including at educational opportunities, shows that the class divide is the driving force behind social inequality.
The report notes that 74 percent of the 56,000 children enrolled in Boston Public Schools live in families making 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Standard or less. Between 20 and 40 percent of adults in the neighborhoods of Roxbury, Mattapan, and Dorchester do not have high school diplomas, and there is a direct correlation between education and income: in the period 2005-2009, 27 percent of adults without a high school diploma lived in poverty, while only 6 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree did.
The state’s government has gone out of its way to attract biotech and clean energy companies in recent years, and has given lip service to training workers for these industries. In actual practice, however, Boston passed the fiscal year 2012 budget last summer that cut $63 million in spending and eliminated 250 jobs. Its superintendent of schools and mayor waged a bitter campaign last year to close neighborhood schools and convert some to charter schools.
Despite there being more than 70 colleges and universities in the Boston area, working class children and working adults also face a lack of affordable higher education. According to the web site http://www.collegetoolkit.com, only six of the city’s colleges—including the religious Boston Baptist College—have annual tuition of $10,000 or less.
A second recent report by the Boston Foundation, titled “The Case for Community Colleges: Aligning Higher Education and Workforce Needs in Massachusetts,” notes that in Massachusetts the cost of community college is 59 percent higher than the national average. It goes on to state that in 2006 an average family needed to spend 16.6 percent of its income to send a member to community college in New England, compared to a national average of 12.7 percent.
Other economic factors also play a role: the Boston Indicators Project notes that “between 1990 and 2009, the cost of living in Greater Boston increased by 68 percent.” This increase included jumps of 159 percent in medical costs, 70 percent in housing costs, and 110 percent for home heating and energy costs.
Increasingly, the poor have to choose between food and needed medical care, and statistics reported last summer document that extreme child malnutrition and housing insecurity in Boston can have lifelong consequences. (See “Infant malnutrition at staggering levels in Massachusetts”.)
In a section documenting that the Federal Poverty Threshold is far too low in a city as expensive as Boston, the Boston Indicators Project notes that in 2009, more than 50 percent of renters earning less than $35,000 paid rent equaling more than 35 percent of their income. In addition, four times more rental units were foreclosed in 2010 than owner-occupied; as a result, workers frequently lose their homes when their landlords default on mortgages.
Finally, the report comments on the economic effects of Massachusetts’ regressive tax structure: “sales and property taxes are regressive, with the poorest 20 percent paying nearly twice the rate of the wealthiest 5 percent in Massachusetts. In 2010, the poorest 20 percent of Massachusetts residents paid nearly 10 percent of their income in all state and local taxes combined, including the state’s income tax, while the wealthiest 1 percent—with incomes greater than $580,000—paid less than 6 percent.” With a Democratic governor who is many times a millionaire, the state wouldn’t dream of increasing taxes on the rich. Instead, it voted last week to suck even more revenue out of workers through legalized casinos.The claim of the Austrian School that has scandalized members of other schools for 150 years is the following. The propositions of economics are universal. The principles apply in all times and all places, because they derive from the structure of reality and human action.
What brought about economic growth, inflation, or the business cycle in China in 300 BC are the same institutions that drive phenomena in the United States in AD 2008. The circumstances of time and place change, but the underlying economic reality is identical.
That claim has made other economists — to say nothing of sociologists, historians, and politicians — scatter like pigeons. The Historical School poured scorn on this idea, and Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian School, fought them tooth and nail. The Chicago School of positivists found the claim preposterous, and Mises and Hayek and Rothbard battled them. The Keynesians have long been outraged, and the postwar Austrian generation reasserted the truth. The socialists, who posit that rearranging property titles will transform all of reality, say that the claim is absurd, capitalistic nonsense.
But there it stands. No matter where or when, the essential prerequisite for economic growth is capital accumulation in a framework of freedom and sound money. The consequence of price control is shortage and surplus. The effect of money expansion is inflation and the business cycle. The effect of every form of intervention is to make society less prosperous than it would otherwise be.
The list of universals is endless, which is why every age needs good economists to explain and articulate the truth.
Well, I would like to add that there are universal fallacies too.
Frederic Bastiat pointed to one: the belief that the destruction of wealth fuels its creation. He explains this by means of an allegory that has come to be known as the story of the broken window. Most famously it was retold as the opening of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, which is probably the bestselling economics book of all time.
A kid throws a rock at a window and breaks it, and everyone standing around regrets the unfortunate state of affairs. But then up walks a man who purports to be wise and all knowing. He points out that this is not a bad thing after all. The man fixing the window will get money for doing so. This will then be spent on a new suit, and the tailor too will get money. The tailor will spend money on other items, and the circle of rising prosperity will expand without end.
What's wrong with this scenario? As Bastiat put it, "It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way which this accident has prevented."
You can see the absurdity of the position of the wise commentator when you take it to absurd extremes. If the broken window really produces wealth, why not break all windows up and down the whole city block? Indeed, why not break doors and walls? Why not tear down all houses so that they can be rebuilt? Why not bomb whole cities so construction firms can get busy rebuilding?
It is not a good thing to destroy wealth. Bastiat puts it this way: "Society loses the value of things which are uselessly destroyed."
It sounds like an unexceptional claim. But herein rests the core case against everything the government does. Perhaps, then, we can see why the allegory is not better known. If we took it seriously, we would dismantle the whole apparatus of American economic intervention.
If you are with me to this point, perhaps you have a hard time believing that anyone really believes that wealth destruction is actually a good thing. Let me try to show that the fallacy is as pervasive as ever.
After every natural disaster, we at the Mises Institute start what we call the "Broken Window Watch."
After hurricane Katrina, the Labor Secretary said, "[W]hat will happen — and I have seen this in previous catastrophes and hurricanes — there is a bright spot in that new jobs do get created."
And The Economist said, "While big hurricanes like Katrina destroy wealth, they often have a net positive effect on GDP growth, as the temporary downturn immediately after the storm is more than made up for by the burst of economic activity that takes place when the rebuilding begins."
And the New York Times said, "Economists point out that although Katrina has destroyed a lot of accumulated wealth, it ultimately will probably have a positive effect on growth data over the next few months as resources are channeled into rebuilding."
After last year's California fires, we heard this from Alan Gin, a University of San Diego economist: "In the odd nature of economic accounting, this will probably be a stimulus. There will be a huge amount of rebuilding in the next couple of years, financed by insurance payments."
And CBS Marketwatch said, "Economists have noted the perverse reality that in the wake of disasters, reconstruction spending helps the economy, even as people are still struggling to recover from their personal losses."
Note that personal loss here is deemed rather irrelevant compared with the beneficial macroeconomic results. Here we have a theme we find often in economics, the attempt to drive a wedge between what makes sense for individuals and what is good for society. We see this on display in this recessionary environment, when people are told to spend spend spend, even though most people understand that recessions are times for saving.
Continuing on, we find the Broken Window fallacy popping up even after 9-11.
Timothy Noah of Slate wrote, "We live in a very wealthy nation that responds to horrible disasters by spending large sums of money…. It will also provide a meaningful Keynesian stimulus to a national economy that, let's face it, was tottering on the brink of recession well before Sept. 11. The recession may still come, but the countercyclical spending should help shorten it."
Another economist declared, "Initially, this could provide a significant boost to an economy that had been slumping. The construction industry could benefit from the rebuilding process. There may also be a boon for slumping tech sales, in replacing lost equipment."
Thus can we see the continuing relevance not only of Bastiat's allegory but also of the characters in the story. The posturing wiseguy who says that breaking windows is good for the economy keeps reappearing again and again. So entrenched is this mistake that we might call it official economic doctrine for the whole country.
I ask you to consider the absurd discussion of a stimulus package designed to rescue the economy from recession. The idea is that the government will inject funds into private markets to stimulate them to the point that they will run on their own. Not once in this debate have I heard anyone ask the core question: where is this money going to come from?
It seems that Washington wants us to believe that they have some magic machine that can turn up $150 billion in new assets without anyone having to do anything to make these assets appear. One wonders, then, why we need to wait until a recession to stimulate the economy. Why not magically create hundreds of billions every day, and not just for this country but for the entire world? Why are we holding back?
Now, the ideas of the stimulus package are not 100% awful. Some people are talking about tax cuts, which is a good thing but rather pointless without spending cuts. I'm particularly intrigued by the underlying assumption here that taxes work as a drag on an economy whereas tax cuts fuel expansion. If that is the case — and it is indeed true but for different reasons than Washington gives — why wait until the recession to cut taxes? If taking less from us is good for the economy, we should institute this as a universal policy.
One great lesson of political economy, emphasized for centuries, is that the government creates no wealth of its own. Everything it has it has to get from you and me, one way or another. It can tax. It can borrow. And, finally, it can inflate by means of credit-market manipulation. This third option is the most disguised. When people hear the words "monetary policy," they figure that this is something they will leave to experts. And central bankers have an astonishing talent for obfuscation to the point that no one knows with certainty precisely what they are doing.
The whole show is designed to make us go to sleep and not think about what is really going on. The unvarnished truth is that when the Fed artificially lowers rates, it is creating new money that waters down the value of the existing money stock, yielding a lower purchasing power for the dollar. That's another way of saying that it creates inflation — perhaps not right away, and perhaps not across all economic sectors, but eventually and certainly.
This, my friends, is a form of breaking windows. It is wealth destruction. It matters not that there will be more dollars to spend, |
one of which is to lower the top rate so it’s one of my points of discussion,” he told reporters.
The fast-moving developments come as Republicans are bent on getting a tax plan to President Donald Trump by next week. Trump is scheduled to make what the White House called his “closing argument to the American people on tax reform” in a speech Wednesday.
Senior administration officials said Trump is not expected to delve into specific provisions, but will focus broadly on how the tax plan would affect Americans. He will be joined in the grand foyer of the White House by five middle-income families and will outline how an overhaul would help each one.
An additional 120 people will attend the speech, the officials said.
The conference committee working on a final tax bill is scheduled to have its first meeting on Wednesday, but key GOP negotiators have said they hope to have a deal in place in the next day or two.
Steeply cutting the current 35 percent corporate rate has been a priority for Republicans. But as they struggled to pay for sweeteners like preserving a state and local tax deduction, the rate came back into play, with Trump suggesting recently it could go up to 22 percent.
Business groups and conservative organizations have objected to going above 20 percent, but an increase is unlikely to be a deal breaker for them.
The approach on the mortgage interest deduction would split the difference between the tax bills that have passed the House and the Senate. The House proposal would allow taxpayer s to write off only the interest on new mortgages of up to $500,000, while the Senate would keep the current policy of cutting off the deduction at $1 million.
The GOP is also trying to make decisions on the estate tax, the a lternative m inimum t ax and the tax treatment of pass-through businesses whose owners pay taxes through the individual side of the tax code.
Key Republicans generally refused to comment on specifics Tuesday, but Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) did say that negotiators were still considering offering a write - off for state and local income taxes. Both the House and Senate bills allow a deduction only for property taxes.
“We’re making progress. The House has been very cooperative. I think we’ve cooperated with their priorities,” Scott said.
Brian Faler and Colin Wilhelm contributed to this report.By Patrick Cooney
We know just how important fish are for all you folks waking up this morning with a raging headache after a Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday bender. Just ask McDonalds how important fish are during this time of year…they sell 25% of all Filet-o-Fish sandwiches during the 40 day Lent period.
Besides fish, did you know that there are other very unusual “non-meat” options that are officially approved by religious bodies for consumption during Lent?
According to the Christian Religion, Lent focuses on personal sacrifice during the 40 days and nights that Jesus fasted prior to being crucified. Essentially, people give something up as a symbol of sacrifice. Lent starts today on Ash Wednesday…hence the celebration and imbibing yesterday at Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday.
Beyond giving something up during Lent, like chocolate, soda, and swearing, many also give up meat. However, not all meats are created equally.
According to Corinthians, “All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.” Therefore, fish flesh is considered separate from other flesh, and therefore is not on the banned list for Lent (and Fridays for Catholics). Additionally, Christians rely on the difference in Fleishig and Pareve, as described from Judaism, that distinguishes fish flesh as separate from other kinds of flesh.
Here is the significant problem: Some traditions do not bode well with giving up meat during Lent. Additionally, in some locations, fish meat is not as plentiful as others, and therefore, people would be protein deficient in their diet if they gave up the other meat they eat.
As a solution, religious officials have declared other aquatic organisms as acceptable…with the reasoning being based on the fact that because they live in water, they are basically fish.
The strange list of non-fish acceptable meats during Lent include:
Capybara
Capybara, the largest member of the rodent family, are a popular lenten dish through much of South America. Padre Sojo, a famous Venezuelan priest, is held by one zoological text to have gone to Italy at the end of the eighteenth century and obtained a papal bull approving the capybara for lenten dining because of its amphibious habits. Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt wrote on capybara meat during his visit to Venezuela in the early 1800s: “The missionary monks do not hesitate to eat these hams during Lent. According to their zoological classification they place the armadillo, the thick-nosed tapir, and the manatee, near the tortoises; the first, because it is covered with a hard armour like a sort of shell; and the others because they are amphibious.”
Alligator
Bishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans drew headlines for a letter confirming that “the alligator is considered in the fish family” and thus suitable for consumption during Lent. “Salt and freshwater species of fish, amphibians, reptiles, (cold-blooded animals) and shellfish are permitted,” says the website of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Beaver
In the 17th Century, theologians in Paris turned their minds to a question posed by Francois de Laval, the first bishop of Quebec. He asked whether it was permissible to eat beaver meat during Lent. The ruling from Paris was “Yes”. In an 1858 paper, a professor from the University of Toronto blamed this ruling for massive declines in the beaver population (although the fur trade was at a peak and most likely was the real culprit).
Muskrat
Catholics living south of Detroit enjoy a longstanding informal dispensation to eat muskrat (the local pronunciation is MUSH-rat) on Fridays of Lent. A 2002 document from the Archdiocese of Detroit confirmed that “there is a long-standing permission to permit the consumption of muskrat on days of abstinence, including Fridays of Lent.” Bishop Kenneth Povish of Lansing described the practice as “immemorial custom” and said that “anyone who could eat muskrat was doing penance worthy of the greatest saints.” A 2002 effort to restrict private sale of muskrats caused a massive outcry: “I’ve never seen so many people upset about an issue,” said a state representative. “We had almost 500 people at the courthouse for hearings on muskrat legislation.”
Puffin
A monastery in Northern France in the late 1600s found a way around the meatless Friday rule by eating puffin, a seagoing bird known for its stature in the publishing world. The church considered it kosher because “its natural habitat was as much terrestrial as aquatic,” and therefore they should be allowed to classify it as a fish.
Skunk-headed-coot
A French scientists named Isaac Cattier judged the skunk-headed coot (in French, marcreuse ) quite fishlike in his 1651 Discourse de la Marcreuse. Some two hundred years later the French journalist Alphonse Karr observed the practice of its consumption during Lent. The Louisiana Bar Association suggests that coot enjoys a Lenten dispensation in Louisiana. Perhaps the bishop of New Orleans can issue another letter of clarification?
Finally, who could forget St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th? Good old Corned Beef and Cabbage is a staple for American Catholics on this holiday. But don’t you worry…many bishops understand your need for boiled beef, and have bent the rules to make it acceptable.
Do you know of any other weird “non-fish meats” that are allowed for Lent (and Fridays for Catholics)?Shilpika Gautam is right where she belongs. After quitting a lucrative career in London, she is now working with WaterAid to introduce practical toilets in the communities along the river, to not only eliminate open defecation but also to reduce the burden on the river. This is the story of her attempts to kill two very big birds with one stone.
Shilpika with exuberant children of a school in Fatehpur.
Two years ago, in the cold November of London, a farewell party was thrown for an investment banker as she had decided to leave that life behind and return to India. Having grown up in Agra, Shilpika Gautam had been away for almost 10 years, and in those years, her disconnection with India and all its beauty and flaws had slowly dawned on her. Of course, there were yearly visits but ironically, these only heightened her dissatisfaction.
Shilpika wanted to find work that had a purpose, meaning, and a tangible impact. “I wasn’t sure if it was permanent or not but I knew that if something had to change in my life, it would be in India,” she says, revealing the state of mind that compelled a 30-year-old to forego a cushy career.
It’s been a year since her return, and if you ask her now if her stay here is “permanent or not”, she will probably laugh and tell you that it would be hard to make her leave now. From the time she moved back, Shilpika has been in touch with NGO’s, trying to understand the best way in which she can contribute to dire issues plaguing the country. But having been involved in river clean-up drives in Europe, she already knew that water pollution was a window of opportunity beckoning her.
So, in October 2016 she found a way to begin; with a small team, she set out to paddleboard across the entire length of Ganga, which is roughly 2500 km, to assess and document the damage inflicted upon the river. She began this journey with an intention to create awareness about single-use plastic that now infests many parts of the river. But somewhere along the way, realities unfolded and with the strength of the river itself, they swayed her principles and changed her perspective.
Shilpika and team paddling out of Patna on a cold foggy day - no rain, sunshine or fog stopped them from launching their boards on the water.
A river stripped of its holiness
It was in 1986 that the Government launched The Ganga Action Plan with the objective of raising the water quality to acceptable standards. It is disheartening to know that even after 30 years, the objective of this plan remains the same. The plastic explosion, although problematic, is only superficial. The biggest contributing factor to the pollution is the untreated sewage that flows as if molten, searing the life of the river.
According to CPCB, over 85 percent of the river’s pollution is due to the domestic sewage that flows from 50 cities present along the river. How is this possible, you ask? Firstly, the present sewage treatment capacity does not keep up with the sewage generation. Secondly, not all of the treatment facilities are utilised to their capacity as there are no proper underground drainage systems connecting treatment plants with toilets. Moreover, open defecation is still rampant in many communities for whom toilets are an unimaginable luxury.
What then, you would wonder, is the point of building toilets when these factors are not simultaneously addressed? Shilpika, who is now working in association with WaterAid to the address this problem, gives me a solution that was hidden in plain sight.
Working for a #Poop-Free Ganga
“There are many solutions but you have to figure out what will work given the space constraints and what people can afford in that setting,” she explains. Her focus is, therefore, on building toilets that also serve as on-site treatment of waste as it is the most practical and executable of solutions given our limitations. Twin-pit toilets and eco-vapour toilets are what the team will be looking to construct in communities like Fatehpur, Kanpur, Samastipur, and Sahibganj.
Shilpika at WaterAid's project site in Harpur Saidabad in a village which is now open defecation free. Here a villager shows Shilpika the newly constructed toilets.
The former collects wastes in two pits, each filling up while the other dries up. The dried waste can then be subjected to faecal sludge management and successively used as compost. The eco-vapour toilet is an innovation that makes use of a vapour-permeable membrane to speed up the process of dehydration in the twin-pit systems, thereby ensuring that there’s no bacterial growth and groundwater contamination.
However affordable these solutions are, money will always be a limiting factor. To set this in motion as efficiently as possible, Shilpika is currently crowdsourcing funds for this campaign she calls #Poop-Free Ganga. With the help of capacity building projects that WaterAid has put in effect, they wish to include local communities in this endeavour.
Ganga, not the only beneficiary
Not only does this effort address the pollution of the river, it tackles a notorious and humiliating practice that has become a forced way of life for many – open defecation. While on her GangesSUP (stand-up paddle boarding) journey, Shilpika herself had no choice but to yield to this practice. She, however, makes a very important distinction – “I reminded myself that this is something I am subjecting myself out of choice – something I am lucky not to have to deal with normally,” while people in the villages she visited don’t have that luxury we call choice.
Thirty minutes on Google will tell us everything there is to know about the problems of open defecation. But the three months that Shilpika spent on the banks of the river opened her eyes to a situation that mere data cannot encompass. Open defecation, she found, had tributaries of its own, affecting the lives of the people to an astonishing extent.
“Women are the most affected. If they fail to rise before the sun to finish their business, they cannot relive themselves for the rest of the day as there is always the fear of shame, harassment, and assault. To adjust to this, they have completely changed their eating habits, consuming as little water as possible. Because of this, they are also unable to work like the men.”
“Girls drop out of school early because there are no toilets, especially so after they hit puberty.” Add to this the taboo around menstruation, and menstrual hygiene becomes the stuff of fairy tales. It is therefore not only health and hygiene that takes a hit, but also literacy and the fundamental right to live a decent life. With their minds completely occupied with, and everyday decisions revolving around this fundamental act of relieving oneself, the women, Shilpika believes, are losing out on a lot. And we, as a society, are losing out on the potential that these women have to offer.
Shilpika interacting with a community at WaterAid India project area at Shyamaldas Badri of Kanpur.
The power of the people
“It’s amazing what people can do when they’re aware of everything they’ve been deprived of,” she says.
“Twenty-five years ago, Kalvatiji (a local partner of WaterAid) played a key role in the construction of a 55 seat toilet in her community. Inspired by the change it brought in the quality of life in her surroundings, she now works with other communities to enable them to do the same, going as far as to construct customised toilets for the less able and the blind.”
“A local community in Kanpur pooled in Rs 1,000 each and dug a sewer line without the help of the Government,” she says, her voice brimming with admiration.
Shilpika with the ladies of Rakhi Mandi in Kanpur - situated next to the railway tracks, this community is a stellar example of what the resolve of its women and guidance from non profits like WaterAid can achieve w.r.t building toilets.
Although Shipika and WaterAid have been laying significant groundwork in raising awareness among the people with community-led total sanitation (CLTS) projects, Shilpika is plagued by a certain guilt. “The minute you start addressing an issue that’s very painful for people, they start relying on you to provide a solution. It’s very tough when you don’t have the power to change things in your hand.” But she’s still hopeful – “I can’t change something today but what I can do is I can take this finding to the right people and then I can hopefully, over time, create a difference.”
In Shilpika’s efforts, one sees activism that’s not superfluous but practical and an environmental cause that is inclusive of its social context. With these elements, her hopes of creating a difference have every chance of becoming a reality.SAN ANTONIO, Texas - San Antonio Police officer Serena Botello has been fired and her appeal rejected after an investigation showed she went derelict on her duties 23 times in two months, often to spend time with a fellow SAPD officer who appears to be her live-in boyfriend.
In one case last March, rather than respond to a 911 call to help a 35-year-old man who shot himself in the head, Botello drove away despite being under a mile away and the closest officer to the scene.
Family members of the man said he died at the hospital hours later. Questions over how the case was handled lead SAPD to conduct an investigation into Botello's actions. After looking at GPS records from her vehicle, they determined she had spent over 36 hours from March 21 to May 15 "neglecting her duties."
Investigators found Botello spent some of this time with another SAPD officer, whom they later determined she was living with.
Botello's termination papers noted she violated SAPD's regulations concerning “relationships with co-workers,” “alertness required of members,” and “on-duty activities.”
Botello had been issued two separate suspensions in December 2012, one for 20 days, and another for 30 days. KENS 5 reports a source familiar with her service records said at least one of those suspensions was for "failure to respond," yet she wasn't fired at the time and was allowed to keep her job.
Watch a video report on the case courtesy of KENS 5:
_
Chris runs the website InformationLiberation.com, you can read more of his writings here. Follow infolib on twitter here.U.S. Army Major Dale Richard Buis (August 29, 1921 – July 8, 1959) was the second casualty of the Vietnam War killed at the hands of the Vietcong. He is the first name listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Life and career [ edit ]
Buis was born and raised in Pender, Nebraska, the son of Dr. John Buis, a physician, and his wife Serena (née Kundsen). He graduated from Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri. He was part of the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) sent in 1955 to train South Vietnam troops.
On July 8th, 1959 Major Dale R. Buis (visiting from MAAG 5) and M/Sgt Chester M. Ovnand (MAAG 7) were killed at Bien Hoa, 20 miles northeast of Saigon.
The Viet Cong attacked the mess hall where he and four other officers were watching the movie The Tattered Dress. M/Sgt Ovnand, who was in charge of the projector, switched on the lights to change to the next reel, when VC guerrillas poked their weapons through the windows and sprayed the room with automatic weapons fire. M/Sgt Ovnand was hit with several 9mm rounds. He immediately switched the lights off and headed to the top of the stairs, where he was able to turn on the exterior flood lights. He died from his wounds on the stairs. Major Buis, at that time, was crawling towards the kitchen doors. When the exterior flood lights came on, he must have seen an attacker coming through the kitchen doors. He got up and rushed towards attacker, but was only able to cover 15 feet before being fatally hit from behind. His actions startled the attacker who was about to throw his satchel charge through the door. The attacker's satchel charge had already been activated and his moment of hesitation caused himself to blown up. Two South Vietnamese guards that were on duty that night were also killed by the Viet Cong. The wounded were, Captain Howard Boston (MAAG 7) and the Vietnamese cook's eight-year-old son.
Major Buis was buried in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.
See also [ edit ]Magnolia's Dave McLean on brewery sale deal: 'It feels extremely experimental"
Magnolia Brewpub founder Dave McLean. Magnolia Brewpub founder Dave McLean. Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Magnolia's Dave McLean on brewery sale deal: 'It feels extremely experimental" 1 / 7 Back to Gallery
The day before Magnolia's Dave McLean was due to debut his curation of the Beer Lands tent at the 10th anniversary of Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, news broke that his 20-year-old brewery was to be acquired by New Belgium, a much larger Fort Collins, Colorado-based brewing company, with a minority stake going to Oud Beersel, a Belgian lambic brewery.
The big reveal also came at a particularly odd time for San Francisco-based McLean because in the weeks before, The Chronicle reported that another of the city's stalwart brewing companies, Anchor, was also being acquired, and that 21st Amendment would sell a stake to Brooklyn Brewery.
"It blew up fast," says McLean, who was onsite at the San Francisco festival on Friday, Aug. 11. "It's been one week after another. What's going to happen next week?"
The acquisitions, to be sure, are all very different from each other. While Anchor's sale to Japan's Sapporo sees the Potrero Hill brewery continue to make their classic porters, barleywines, and of course, the Steam, New Belgium's purchase means that Magnolia would be allowed flexibility towards more experimental styles -- in particular, with the help of Oud Beersel, lambics.
"We've been focused quite a bit on the transaction," he says. "It's all very early, but there is a really cool idea of making the first lambic blendery outside of Belgium."
So much of the deal is nascent that McLean's not quite sure yet what his role will be, or what all three parties will get out of the partnership. He says that the group still needs to sit down and continue to talk about it — the whole sales discussion began less than six months ago — and adds the McLean the arrangement "feels extremely experimental."
"The basic lay of the land is New Belgium and Dick (Cantwell) and Oud Beersel created this new entity to create this wild — no pun intended — kind of lambic blendery. And with New Belgium, there was a lot of opportunity to work with their brewers and do some collaborative stuff. The biggest part of it all was Dick getting back into brewing after a couple years out of it."
As McLean stands at Beer Lands, surrounded by more than 25 local breweries that he's invited to pour for fest-goers, he considers how the industry has changed over the last year.
"The industry changes fast, and it seems like it changes faster the longer it goes. It's gotten really competitive and crowded and it's a lot of trying to find business relationships that work," he says. "The curve of growth just shot up."
That growth, though good for the industry, presented a strengthening challenge for Magnolia. The decision to sell may have been difficult, but it came only after McLean and the staff attempted every business strategy they could, he says.
"It was an evolving path of trying everything," he says. "Trying to find this outside capital without a sale was hard and by the end of last year, it became clear that for everyone involved we should go for the sale."
McLean, however, is optimistic about the "new chapter."
"There are breweries trying out what seems like different version of, 'How can we mature as an industry and deal with these challenges while still maintaining a soul?'" he adds. "That's what this deal seems like it is to me... From the beermaker perspective it's going to get a lot more interesting."
Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.NEW YORK -- Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina rose to power in 2011 on the promise of crushing organized crime. The former army general pledged high-security prisons, an increased police force and the deployment of soldiers in the fight against drug gangs, which have transformed Guatemala into one of the most violent places in the world.
But Perez Molina, in an apparent about-face, turned heads last year when he became the first sitting head of state to propose the legal regulation of illicit drugs in front of the United Nations General Assembly. The war on drugs has failed Central America, he said at the time, adding that legalization should be considered as an alternative way to combat drug-related crime around the world.
The Guatemalan leader on Thursday renewed calls for a new global strategy on drugs, one that emerges from an inclusive global discussion. He called on the United Nations to reassess international policy at a special session on drugs in 2016.
“Since the start of my government, we have clearly affirmed that the war on drugs has not yielded the desired results,” Perez Molina told the General Assembly. “We cannot keep on doing the same thing and expecting different results.”
In the face of the global drug problem, he said, leaders must seek innovative approaches to drug use, ones centered on public health and addiction prevention. Priority must be given to reducing the social violence associated with drugs and respecting human rights, he added. Perez Molina also lauded citizens in the states of Colorado and Washington for their “visionary decision” to approve measures last November legalizing the recreational use of marijuana.
“I think he correctly sees himself playing an historic role in the transition from the failed global drug-prohibition regime of the 20th century to a new 21st century global drug-control regime that minimizes the extraordinary costs and failures of the old approach,” Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, told Al Jazeera.
Earlier in the week, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos also pleaded with U.N. leaders to reconsider the strictly prohibitionist approach to fighting drug trafficking and consumption.
“Right here, in this same headquarters 52 years ago, the convention that gave birth to the war on drugs was approved,” Santos said. “Today we must acknowledge that war has not been won.”The United States is funding and in many cases arming the three ethnic factions in Iraq — the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunni Arabs. These factions rule over partitioned patches of Iraqi territory and brutally purge rival ethnic groups from their midst. Iraq no longer exists as a unified state. It is a series of heavily armed fiefdoms run by thugs, gangs, militias, radical Islamists and warlords who are often paid wages of $300 a month by the U.S. military. Iraq is Yugoslavia before the storm. It is a caldron of weapons, lawlessness, hate and criminality that is destined to implode. And the current U.S. policy, born of desperation and defeat, means that when Iraq goes up, the U.S. military will have to scurry like rats for cover.
The supporters of the war, from the Bush White House to Sen. John McCain, tout the surge as the magic solution. But the surge, which primarily deployed 30,000 troops in and around Baghdad, did little to thwart the sectarian violence. The decline in attacks began only when we bought off the Sunni Arabs. U.S. commanders in the bleak fall of 2006 had little choice. It was that or defeat. The steady rise in U.S. casualties, the massive car bombs that tore apart city squares in Baghdad and left hundreds dead, the brutal ethnic cleansing that was creating independent ethnic enclaves beyond our control throughout Iraq, the death squads that carried out mass executions and a central government that was as corrupt as it was impotent signaled catastrophic failure.
The United States cut a deal with its Sunni Arab enemies. It would pay the former insurgents. It would allow them to arm and form military units and give them control of their ethnic enclaves. The Sunni Arabs, in exchange, would halt attacks on U.S. troops. The Sunni Arabs agreed.
The U.S. is currently spending hundreds of millions of dollars to pay the monthly salaries of some 600,000 armed fighters in the three rival ethnic camps in Iraq. These fighters — Shiite, Kurd and Sunni Arab — are not only antagonistic but deeply unreliable allies. The Sunni Arab militias have replaced central government officials, including police, and taken over local administration and security in the pockets of Iraq under their control. They have no loyalty outside of their own ethnic community. Once the money runs out, or once they feel strong enough to make a thrust for power, the civil war in Iraq will accelerate with deadly speed. The tactic of money-for-peace failed in Afghanistan. The U.S. doled out funds and weapons to tribal groups in Afghanistan to buy their loyalty, but when the payments and weapons shipments ceased, the tribal groups headed back into the embrace of the Taliban.
The Sunni Arab militias are known by a variety of names: the Iraqi Security Volunteers (ISVs), neighborhood watch groups, Concerned Local Citizens, Critical Infrastructure Security. The militias call themselves “sahwas” (“sahwa” being the Arabic word for awakening). There are now 80,000 militia fighters, nearly all Sunni Arabs, paid by the United States to control their squalid patches of Iraq. They are expected to reach 100,000. The Sunni Arab militias have more fighters under arms than the Shiite Mahdi Army and are about half the size of the feeble Iraqi army. The Sunni Awakening groups, which fly a yellow satin flag, are forming a political party.
The Sunni Arab militias, though they have ended attacks on U.S. forces, detest the Shiite-Kurdish government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and abhor the presence of U.S. troops on Iraqi soil. They take the money and the support with clenched teeth because with it they are able to build a renegade Sunni army, a third force inside Iraq, which they believe will make it possible to overthrow the central government. The Sunni Arabs, who make up about 40 percent of Iraq’s population, held most positions of power under Saddam Hussein. They dominated Iraq’s old officer corps. They made up its elite units, including the Republic Guard divisions and the Special Forces regiments. They controlled the intelligence agencies. There are several hundred thousand well-trained Sunni Arabs who lack only an organizational structure. We have now made the formation of this structure possible. These militias are the foundation for a deadlier insurgent force, one that will dwarf anything the United States faced in the past. The U.S. is arming, funding and equipping its own assassins.
There have been isolated clashes that point to a looming conflagration. A Shiite-dominated unit of the regular army in the late summer of 2007 attacked a strong Sunni Arab force west of Baghdad. U.S. troops thrust themselves between the two factions. The enraged Shiites, thwarted in their attack, kidnapped relatives of the commander of the Sunni Arab force, and American negotiators had to plead frantically for their release. There have been scattered incidents like this one throughout Iraq.
If the U.S. begins, as promised, to withdraw troops, it will be harder to keep these antagonistic factions apart. The cease-fire by the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, extended a few days ago, could collapse. And if that happens, a civil war, unlike anything U.S. forces have experienced in Iraq, will begin. Such a conflagration, with the potential to draw in neighboring states and lead to the dismemberment of Iraq, would be the final chapter of the worst foreign policy blunder in American history.The demographics of those using the cards now vary widely, but those without checking accounts use the cards as their primary means of managing money. Nearly half of underbanked users have a direct deposit set up on their prepaid card, and three-quarters reload it regularly. Many users say they get prepaid cards in an attempt to avoid the fees associated with checking accounts, such as those charged for overdrafts. But that’s misguided, given the high and frequent fees that can be associated with prepaid accounts, including charges for loading money, using an ATM, checking a balance, and overdrawing.
Read just a few complaints about these cards on the CFPB website, and it’s easy to understand why many Americans are frustrated. “I proceeded to use my card to pay bills and do things I needed to do for my family. Tonight I looked over my charges because I was short and couldn't figure out why. I have various fees for every time I used that card … I counted over $30.00 in fees in TWO DAYS,” reads one complaint from a prepaid card user in North Carolina. Another complaint alleges that after a card expired, the owner simply lost the remaining funds instead of being sent a new card for the account: “I saved this card to spend on something special. $50.00 is a lot of money to lose.” The complaints go on, referencing issues with fees, poor customer service, and other troubles.
The CFPB has received more than 4,000 complaints about prepaid cards since July 2011, and the bulk of those have been about issues with unauthorized transactions, fraud or scams, and managing, opening, and closing accounts.
So the final rules the CFPB unveiled on Wednesday were based on years of data collection and complaints. The new regulations—which go into effect on October 1, 2017—would require companies offering prepaid services to provide more transparency about their fee structures, to clearly state whether customers’ funds are insured (such as through the FDIC), to make user agreements publicly available, and to be more responsive to customer complaints. More specifically, if a card user and a card issuer are not able to resolve a dispute within 10 business days, the issuer will be required to temporarily credit the customer’s account until a conclusion is reached. And in instances of fraud or card loss, issuers would be required to limit customers’ liability.
The new rule will also require prepaid operators to clearly state whether or not an overdraft option is available, and to then treat that option like what it is: credit. When providing that, issuers will be be required to do the same thing that credit-card companies do: They’ll need to determine a customer’s ability to pay, provide a monthly statement, and offer reasonable payment terms and fees (which can’t exceed 25 percent of the total credit line).777-year-old tree is a babe in Muir Woods
Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Emily Burns, the Director of Science with, Save the Redwoods League...
The tallest redwood tree in Muir Woods — a giant that was assumed to have sprouted up to 1,500 years ago in the Middle Ages — is a measly 777 years old, a puerile sprig in the hallowed halls of old growth, an analysis of tree-ring data has revealed.
The study, by a Humboldt State University scientist, is the first definitive determination of the age of trees in Muir Woods. The findings by Allyson Carroll, a tree-ring specialist, mean that a 249-foot-tall coast redwood known by the lackluster name of Tree 76 sprouted seven centuries later than originally believed, at the beginning of the Medieval Inquisition in the early 13th century.
The new birth date is curiously apropos since the tree is in a place called Cathedral Grove, presumably acceptable under the Inquisition, which was characterized by an effort by the Catholic Church to suppress heresy. The date nevertheless means the oldest and biggest tree that researchers could find in the Bay Area’s most famous redwood forest is a babe in the woods compared with the giant old-growth trees farther north.
Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle A cross second taken from the "Vortex" tree which fell in June of...
“It’s one of the largest redwoods in Muir Woods, so it probably represents one of the oldest,” said Emily Burns, science director for San Francisco’s Save the Redwoods League, which is documenting the age, size, health and tree-ring history of California's last remaining old-growth redwood groves as part a statewide project known as the Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative.
Carroll, a biologist at Humboldt State and a consultant for the League, came up with 777 years by comparing the tree rings from Tree 76 to a database of core samples taken from redwoods across California, including from Samuel P. Taylor State Park.
Specific dates can be fleshed out by comparing the size and thickness of the tree rings, which are larger during wet years and smaller during dry years.
The samples were taken in Cathedral Grove in March 2014. Although that was one of dozens of redwood study plots in California, the research represented the first significant scientific study of the tree canopy at Muir Woods.
The plan over time is to identify tree-ring patterns, or markers, that are consistent throughout the coast redwood range and figure out how the trees react to climate change. As of now, the collective redwood tree-ring record in California can reliably be traced back to the year 328, revealing drought years and other major weather events, Carroll said. Scientists must have data from multiple trees in different locations to compare traits, which is why the reliable record goes back only 1,687 years. However, individual trees have been found that are older.
Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle A cluster of Redwoods at the Muir Woods National Monument, Calif....
Growth accelerating
Dendrochronology, as tree-ring science is called, was used to document a coast redwood in Redwood National and State Parks, near Crescent City, that is 2,520 years old. The oldest giant sequoia, a redwood species that grows in the Sierra, is 3,240 years old, according to the record.
Scientists have found that the growth trend of redwoods has accelerated over the past few decades, and they have pinpointed 1580 and 1739 as particularly parched years in California. The tree-ring record has also been used in cultural history projects. Carroll all but confirmed that a wood remnant at Trinidad Head, north of Arcata, was part of a cross erected by the Spanish in 1775. The redwood altar at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco came from the Humboldt area, but there wasn’t enough information to pinpoint the age of the tree it came from or the date it was cut, she reported.
Dendrochronologists are now trying to determine the age of the old adobe found at the historic |
’t notified by investigators that he is a target of the probe, according to the officials.
“The Governor will certainly cooperate with the government if he is contacted about it,” said Marc Elias, attorney for McAuliffe campaign, in a statement to CNN.
As part of the probe, the officials said, investigators have scrutinized McAuliffe’s time as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, a vehicle of the charitable foundation set up by former President Bill Clinton.
There’s no allegation that the foundation did anything improper; the probe has focused on McAuliffe and the electoral campaign donations, the officials said.
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment.
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Trending: OSCARS 2019: A Hot Mess Of Leftist Politics and Activism On Display [Video]
Read more: CNNImage copyright kuleshovoleg.livejournal.com Image caption The Orel is not believed to have had weapons or nuclear fuel on board
A fire that broke out on a Russian nuclear submarine at an Arctic naval shipyard has been put out, Russian media report.
The blaze on the Orel began at a Severodvinsk shipyard during repairs.
There were no weapons or nuclear fuel on board the Oscar-II class vessel at the time of the incident and there were no reports of any casualties.
A shipyard's spokesman said that no environmental or radioactive contamination had occurred.
The Russian Investigative Committee has announced that it is launching an investigation into alleged safety violations that could have started the blaze during the repairs.
'Only steam'
"The source of the smoke on the submarine Orel, which is undergoing a refit at Zvezdochka [shipyard], has been completely put out," said shipyard spokesman Yevgeny Gladyshev, quoted by Interfax news agency.
"Smoke is no longer coming out, only steam."
He added that the vessel's dock had been submerged in water in order to put out the fire and that the submarine's hull was still being doused in water from above.
Earlier, Mr Gladyshev told Tass news agency that the water would not cause any damage to the equipment inside the submarine because the inner hull remained closed.
Image copyright FlashNord Image caption The Orel was submerged in water in order to put out the fire.
A spokesman for the corporation which runs the shipyard, Ilya Zhitomirsky, told the Associated Press news agency that the critical parts of the submarine's nuclear reactor had been removed long before the repair work had begun.
The Orel submarine joined the Northern Fleet's base in Murmansk region in 1992, reports say, and on operations it is armed with anti-ship missiles.
It was moved for repairs to Severodvinsk, a city near Arkhangelsk on the White Sea, in 2013.
Local media said that the blaze on the 155m-long (500ft) submarine began when some insulation material caught fire during welding work.
In 2011, the Yekaterinburg nuclear submarine was damaged in a huge fire during repairs in the northern Murmansk region.
Nine people were hurt fighting the blaze that started after the submarine's rubber-coated outer hull caught fire.Ron Paul appeared on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show last night and discussed the Presidential Election and the role of third parties in American politics:
Maddow asked Paul why he didn’t run as a third-party candidate and he brings up the familiar arguments about fundraising and ballot access problems which are largely correct, but Marc Gallagher thinks Paul doesn’t realize that he missed an opportunity:
What Paul doesn’t seem to realize is that his own candidacy on a Third Party/Independent ticket could have been a status quo breaker with the support he had.
Marc does have a point. The Libertarian Party offered Paul their 2008 nomination nearly a year ago and he refused it and stubbornly insisted on running a doomed-from-the-start campaign for the Republican nomination. While I generally agree with the idea of moving the Republican Party in a more libertarian direction, I think Paul would have had a far bigger impact on the political debate in 2008 if he had decided to ditch the GOP and run on a third-party ticket than he did by staying with the GOP and then endorsing a total nut job.Spread the love
Greene County, TN — Greene County Sheriff Pat Hankins is standing up for his deputy this week—noting that he supports his deputy’s decision to deploy his taser on an 81-year-old woman on Sunday. Apparently, 81-year-old women with dementia holding gardening tools are now cause for cops to fear for their lives.
The family of Beunos Erwin has now hired an attorney after police showed up to their home responding to a 911 call for help and ended up tasering the very old woman in the street.
The sheriff said he supports his deputy’s decision because the officer was forced to think fast and only had 14 seconds to decide what to do. According to Hankins, the deputy’s only options were to kill the woman or take a chance risking his life. Naturally, bravery was out of the question—apparently, so was walking backward.
As WJHL reports:
Some Sheriff’s Office reports we obtained claim she suffers from dementia and often sees things that aren’t there. On Sunday, September 24, Greene County deputies responded to a home on Wilkerson Road in Mosheim. Erwin’s son called 9-1-1 telling dispatchers his mother was being combative. According to an incident report, Erwin was using a broom to beat on cars and was yelling. That report, says she has dementia and says she often sees things that aren’t there.
According to reports, there have been more than 40 calls for help from Erwin’s home in just the last year. By all measures, police were familiar with the elderly woman. However, the deputy who responded was apparently unfamiliar with showing any type of courage in the face of the very tiny amount of danger—if it can even be referred to as such—presented by an 81-year-old woman holding a rake.
Many of the calls to 911 from Erwin’s home were actually made by her. Her dementia often caused her to see people on her property who were not actually there. However, when the deputy came this time, she could see him and so she demanded he leave her property.
According to the report:
This past Sunday, deputies left the scene but were called back about 40 minutes later. The report says when they arrived back on scene they saw Erwin had a garden rake in her hands. Sheriff Hankins said Erwin had already knocked out several windows with the rake when they arrived.
According to the deputy, Erwin started walking toward him saying “get off my land.” However, the deputy claims he was 50 feet from her, in the road, not on her land.
Clearly in a mentally diminished state, however, Erwin began walking toward the deputy holding the rake. To justify deploying the taser—which could’ve easily killed the 81-year-old—the deputy said she was holding the rake in a “threatening manner.”
Instead of backing up, walking away, grabbing the rake, or doing anything that required even the smallest amount of bravery, the cop made sure he wouldn’t have to risk a single little hair on his body and deployed his taser.
Erwin was 10-12 feet away when this deputy felt the need to take her out—because he thought an attack was imminent—from an 81-year-old grandma with a garden tool.
When the taser hit her, she fell to the ground. Only then did the officer move in to place her in handcuffs.
According to WJHL, EMS took her to the hospital for evaluation. The report indicates charges are pending.
Every day, in assisted living facilities across the country, elderly men and women with dementia lash out at what they perceive as a threat. And, every day, unarmed health care workers calm them down without having to taser them.
A police officer deploying a taser on a harmless 81-year-old woman illustrates the ominous training of police departments today. Do not be brave, do not risk injury, swiftly and immediately escalate force to avoid having to employ any heroic action to help an 81-year-old woman with dementia—god forbid you take a tiny risk to remove a rake from an elderly woman.
After all, when your only tool is a hammer—everything starts looking like a nail.A presidential candidate loathed by Moscow suffers a massive cyber-attack by Russian spies. Purloined emails that are embarrassing for the front-runner are dumped online by Kremlin fronts. Political chaos ensues as Vladimir Putin prepares to reap his reward.
That’s what happened in France a couple days ago. And if all this sounds familiar to Americans it should, since this is precisely the clandestine playbook employed by Kremlin spies against Hillary Clinton last year. However, this time the outcome was very different—and far less edifying to Moscow.
Marine Le Pen, Putin’s openly favored candidate, lost to Emmanuel Macron, the youthful centrist who became the impromptu white knight of everyone in France who wanted to halt Le Pen and her far-right National Front. In fact, yesterday’s election was a total blow-out.
In Sunday’s second-round of the presidential vote, Macron got 66 percent against just 34 percent for Le Pen, an almost two-to-one advantage. Of France’s 102 départements (roughly counties in American terms), Le Pen took only two. Although Macron was leading in late polling, few expected this kind of massive loss for the National Front, which has surged in recent years thanks to its Trump-like populist appeal: anti-immigrant, anti-European Union, and unabashedly pro-France and its sovereignty.
Europeans who support the EU and Atlanticists everywhere are rejoicing over Macron’s big win—one which they worried might fail to appear, particularly when his emails appeared online Friday, in a move calculated to embarrass the leading candidate at the eleventh hour.
What happened is clear enough. Early analysis indicates that Macron’s emails were stolen by a Russian hacking group termed APT 28 or Fancy Bear—the very same shadowy cyber-gang which stole Democratic emails in 2016. In reality, this notorious criminal group is part of Russian military intelligence or GRU.
This was anything but subtle. As I recently noted, Putin no longer cares that Westerners know how the Kremlin is trying to install pro-Russian governments in our countries—what is properly termed subversion. Moscow could have covered its tracks better, employing “clean” hackers not already identified by Western counterspies; they chose not to. Indeed, they were sloppy—some of the Macron hackers left behind Cyrillic letters, perhaps in a taunting gesture.
Just as unsubtle was how Moscow employed well-known fronts for its spy services to disseminate Macron’s stolen emails. Here WikiLeaks played a lead role, just as it did in last year’s Russian espionage and subversion campaign against the United States. American fringe-right activists with visible ties to the Kremlin played an important part in pushing this story, too.
France’s reaction to Russian spy-games, however, was markedly different from how Americans responded to the Kremlin’s attack on Hillary Clinton last year. In Paris, the national election commission warned the media not to publish the emails, which had been obtained in a criminal manner. Many voters saw this operation as an attack on France and an effort by foreigners to subvert their democracy—a wholly correct assessment.
The contrast with the United States could not be starker. Here, journalists fell over themselves to get at the WikiLeaks story, reporting GRU’s criminal findings with little or no skepticism. Even establishment journalists in America have reported the case all too uncritically. Really, who can blame them when the rewards for pushing the Kremlin line, intentionally or not, have included riches, fame and top-shelf awards?
In truth, Moscow’s blatant attempt to swing France’s election to Le Pen seems to have hurt her. She was already suffering from connections, real or imagined, to Donald Trump—a figure widely loathed across Europe. The last-minute cyber-dump by Kremlin agents probably helped Macron in the end. Online, French citizens poured mocking vitriol on Le Pen’s party and its naked ties to Putin, as well as on American far-right activists who were openly meddling in their country’s election. The spy-model which worked so well in America last year failed utterly in France.
It bears noting that the dissimilarities between Le Pen and Trump are as great as any similarities. The French far-rightist is a serious and seasoned politician with a command of the issues—not an amateur playing at populism without any grasp of policy matters. Moreover, Le Pen’s linkages to Putin are overt, not a matter of speculation. Last year, she and her National Front openly asked Moscow for a $30 million loan to support coming elections, while Le Pen’s public adulation of Russia’s president is as ebullient as anything uttered by Trump about Putin.
Let us be perfectly clear about what has happened here. Russia employed its full arsenal of what I’ve termed Special War—interlinked espionage, propaganda and subversion—against yet another Western country in an illegal effort to elect a leader more to Moscow’s liking. That this operation failed in France, just months after working in the United States, means that the Kremlin ought to reassess the viability of its clandestine model. Ever since the cunning occupation of Crimea in early 2014 by GRU’s Little Green Men, which worked almost flawlessly, countries bordering Russia have prepared for identical Kremlin aggression. That spy-trick will not work as advertised twice.
Nevertheless, NATO and the EU should expect that Russia will keep trying to elect pro-Moscow governments in our countries, using its spy services to subvert our democracy. Germany, which has elections in a few months, will be the next Kremlin target. Given Berlin’s dominance over the EU in political and economic terms—not to mention Putin’s hatred for Chancellor Angela Merkel—this promises to be a clandestine battle royal.
Putin has declared war on the West. Not kinetic warfare, but political warfare. Its aims are identical to the objectives of actual warfare. Too weak militarily and economically to challenge NATO on the field of battle with any hope of victory, the Kremlin has opted for more cunning techniques. Yet Russia’s objective—to install pro-Putin governments in Western capitals—is no different than if Moscow ordered the 1st Guards Tank Army to march westward.
It is past time for the West to get serious about pushing back on this aggression. Putin aims to subvert our democracies, and we must not let him do that any longer. Acknowledging what is going on is a start. Now that the heads of the FBI and CIA have publicly called out WikiLeaks as a hostile actor and front for Russian intelligence, NATO countries need to respond appropriately. Kremlin operatives in the West need to be rolled up, beyond just WikiLeaks, if we expect to successfully push back against Moscow’s political aggression.
Over three years ago I warned the West that we were in Cold War 2.0 with Russia, whether we wanted to be or not. That call was largely ignored, and as a result Kremlin aggression against the West has only increased. Now Putin is nakedly trying to subvert our democracies. To date his track record is 50-50, and any Chekist will keep gambling at those odds. Putin can only win this war if the West lets him—which is the choice before us now.
John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee.Two weeks after the announcement of a class-action lawsuit against Zuffa LLC, parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the company announced it has engaged a heavyweight in antitrust litigation in defense against the legal action.
New York-based firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP will represent Zuffa in the case filed on behalf of fighters Cung Le, Jon Fitch, and Nate Quarry on Dec. 16 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Lead litigator Bill Isaacson expressed confidence. "The antitrust laws have long favored companies that create new products and services that consumers want," Isaacson stated. "That is exactly what the UFC has done here through its long and substantial investment in building a popular sport."
Since the initial lawsuit filing, former UFC fighters Pablo Garza, Dennis Hallman, Javier Vazquez, and Brandon Vera have been added to the suit.
"We have built a popular business from modest beginnings by meeting the needs of fans and fighters," Zuffa stated. "Millions of people have watched our bouts, we have instituted leading health and safety measures for our athletes, and fighters are free to negotiate contract terms..... We are proud of the company we have built, confident in our legal position, and intend to prevail in this lawsuit."
Boies, Schiller & Flexner's credentials in the antitrust sphere include Apple's successful defense against a major class-action lawsuit. More recently, they successfully represented plaintiff Ed O'Bannon in the former UCLA basketball star's landmark case against the NCAA. The firm also earned client American Express a $4 billion settlement in a case against competitors such as Visa and Mastercard. It was also involved in United States v. Microsoft and Bush v. Gore.Are videogames allowed to depict sex? Aren’t they? Speaking with VG247, BioShock creator Ken Levine posed a different question: should they? For the time being, he’s not so sure.
“I think it’s not about being interactive. I think it’s more about people not understanding what it is. If you think about the amount of, for example, nudity in a videogame… it’s not even nudity. It’s a puppet with its clothes off. There are other problems as well. It’s kind of silly in videogames right now, because – again – puppets with their clothes off.
“It’s more like [the movie] Team America. The sex scene in Team America as opposed to, you know, the sex scene in Black Swan,” he said, speaking on the phone.
Levine, however, doesn’t think that’s the sole reason games don’t often tackle what is – like it or not – a fundamental life experience. He continued:
“The fact that’s even controversial says that the perception of the industry is that we’re making toys or something, as opposed to making creative expressions for a range of audiences – including adults. I think there’s still some prudishness.”
He added: “There’s even some prudishness in the industry itself. I did an interview recently and someone pointed out, ‘Ken, you use a lot of foul language.’ And I was like, ‘Jesus, come on. We’re all big boys and girls here.’ If I’m going to drop an F-bomb, I’m going to drop an F-bomb. I’m a big boy and I get to do that. It’s one of the privileges of being an adult.”
Look for the full interview later this week. Sadly, there are no more Team America references, but – while we know it can’t hope to fill the hole in your heart – some new BioShock Infinite info is a decent consolation, right? We’d like to think so, anyway.For centuries, men have found creative ways to propose marriage to that special someone. Here are seven examples of how some awesomely geeky grooms-to-be used video games to pop the big question.
Nothing says romance like boiling lava
Indie sandbox building game Minecraft allows players to create some pretty wild and imaginative things, so it was only a matter of time before someone used it to pop the big question. Last year, an unnamed BioWare employee proposed to his girlfriend by writing “Marry me?” in lava in the game world. He also built a gigantic engagement ring. According to the video, she said yes.
“I got better things to do than help some schmuck hit on his main squeeze!”
Leave it to Gearbox Software to come up with a totally irreverent and hilarious way to propose marriage. In this video, foul-mouthed Borderlands mascot Claptrap is coerced by an off-screen developer into asking superfan Tora if she’ll marry her boyfriend, Ben, but not before he hits on her himself. Ben tells Kotaku that playing Borderlands together “easily made that awkward starting out stage of any relationship go extremely smooth.”
Hacker puts his skills to good use
YouTube user TheRealPfhreak originally wanted to propose to his girlfriend at Mount Baker in Washington, the site of the couple’s first date. There was no discreet way of getting there, however, so he did what he thought was the next best thing and digitally recreated the mountain by hacking a copy of role-playing game Chrono Trigger. “I spent a long time debating whether or not this proposal was awesome or incredibly stupid,” he explains. “Her friends and my friends helped talk me into it, and it was a huge success!”
Now you’re proposing with portals
When Gary Hudston wanted to ask his girlfriend, Stephanie, to marry him, he enlisted the help of level designers from Portal 2 mapping community website ThinkingWithPortals.com — as well as Valve’s Eric Wolpaw and GlaDOS voice actress Ellen McClain — to build him a very special proposal, according to Time. “You can say no,” GlaDOS says. “I’m sure he’ll get over it … eventually.” Luckily for him, she said yes.
Love and marriage in Little Big Planet
Listen closely and you can hear an audible gasp when gamer “DimmuJed’s” girlfriend discovers his proposal in a custom-made level of Little Big Planet called “Love and Marriage.” “She was so shocked she kept playing and knew I was filming. Afterwards, we hugged, she cried, and I gave her an engagement ring,” he writes.
A Mobius Proposal
A Mobius Proposal is a co-op puzzle platformer created by Matt Gilgenbach for the sole purpose of proposing to his girlfriend. Players in the game are on opposite sides of a Mobius band and must work together in order to overcome obstacles. “I incorporated the proposal in the game by displaying a fake low battery message and hiding the ring inside the battery pack of the controller,” Matt writes. He then secretly turned on his webcam to record the above reaction.
There’s an app for that
Jen is a verifiable fiend for iOS puzzle games, according to Cult of Mac, so her boyfriend, Joe, asked Foozle creator William Thurston to create an in-app proposal. Thurston agreed and worked the message “Jen, I love you with all my heart and nothing would make me happier than to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” into his physics-based puzzle game. Beneath the message, there was just one button: “YES.” Not only did Thurston agree to create the proposal for free, he even offered the game as a free download for a limited time.Temperatures refuse to rise, exterminate polar bears, melt the icecaps, engulf coastal cities or make Tim Flannery seem rational. Not that there isn’t company in the upper ranks of ratbaggery. Meet Professor Matthew Liao, who yearns to bio-engineer smaller, drug-ready humans
People unwilling to act on the climate-crisis narrative should be assisted with drugs that improve and promote conformity, according to eminent bio-ethicist Professor Matthew Liao, of New York University, who also wants to see parents dosing their children with hormones and diets to keep them shorter and less of a burden on the planet.
He wants such people to be given the ‘love drug/cuddle chemical’ oxytocin. This would increase their trust and empathy and make them more ready to change to emission-saving lifestyles.
As his peer-reviewed study puts it, “Pharmacologically induced altruism and empathy could increase the likelihood that we adopt the necessary behavioral and market solutions for curbing climate change.” He emphasises there would be no coercion. The drugs would merely help those who want to be climate-friendly behaviour but lack the willpower
Once sufficiently drugged, parents would be less likely to reject notions of “human engineering” techniques that will be needed to create Humans 2.0. These amended species will be 15cm shorter than now, hence more energy efficient and less resource-demanding. His study, Human Engineering and Climate Change, is in Ethics, Policy and the Environment.[1]
Some US reaction to Liao has been adverse. Investor’s Business Daily used the headline, “Global Warming Fever Drove This Professor Completely Mad”.[2] It said that warmists are “bummed they can’t find enough naive people to buy into their story”. The looniest tune yet played is Liao’s, it said.
Liao’s study theorises that shorter humans could be achieved through embryo selection during IVF, plus drug and nutrient treatments to reduce birth weights. (High birth weight correlates with future height; low weights obviously correlate with risk to the baby).[3] Anti-growth hormones could be fed to toddlers by climate-caring parents to create earlier closing of their bubs’ epiphyseal (growth) plates. Oh, and he also wants ecocidal meat eaters bio-altered to induce unpleasant reactions if they put pleasure ahead of planet and tuck into a T-bone.[4]
His paper, although now five years old and sometimes mistaken for a sceptic hoax, features today on his personal website. It merited him a gig at a recent Leftist-stacked Festival of Dangerous Ideas at Sydney Opera House, where he spoke in front of a banner, “Engineering humans to stop climate change”. His compere was the respectful Simon Longstaff, boss of Sydney’s Ethics Centre, who introduced his guest as a “really great speaker…He is on the up, this guy. He is on the up!”
Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Moral Philosophy, Liao is chair of bioethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at New York University’s philosophy department — ranked world No 1 for philosophy, Longstaff said. Liao was earlier deputy director in the Program on the Ethics of the New Biosciences in the philosophy faculty at Oxford University. Longstaff said it was ranked world No 2. The mind boggles at what must go on those university philosophy/bioethics units ranked from third to 100?
Liao began his Opera House talk with a visiting speaker’s typical home-town warm-up, in this instance about Sydney being such a beautiful city. After that, warming to his topic, he fretted that the city “might go underwater” because of rising seas.
Many environmental problems, such as climate change, need collective action, he continued, but humans remain stubbornly individualistic, which why drugs that increase empathy and altruism might bestow the benefits of societal cooperation and engagement. Test subjects given oxytocin hormones were more willing to share money with strangers, behave in more trustworthy ways, and better read other people’s emotions, he said.
He continued, “Making children smaller may be unappealing, but so is the prospect of having our children grow up in a world blighted by the environmental consequences of our choices and lifestyles…
“To combat climate change we can either change the environment or change ourselves. Given the enormous risks associated with changing the environment, we should take seriously that we need to change ourselves.”
Liao insists his human engineering is all voluntary, but should be incentivised by tax breaks and health-cost discounts. What he failed to explain is how toddlers could volunteer to restrict their adult height to say, 5ft (152cm).
Liao asked, “Is it ethical for parents to make choices that would have irreversible effects on their children’s lives? Not all human engineering involving children is necessarily controversial. For example, many parents are happy to give their children [anti attention-deficit disorder] drugs, such as Ritalin, to concentrate better in school.
“Making children small is more controversial so proceed with care. But parents are permitted to give hormones so a daughter likely to be 6ft 6in (198cm) could instead be 6ft (183cm). On what ground should we forbid parents who want to give hormone treatments so that children become 5ft tall rather than 5ft 5in tall? If climate change would effect millions of children including one’s own children, then these children may also later appreciate and consent to the parents decisions.”
Liao’s paper says tall people create energy waste by their food intake, extra fuel for their cars, more fabric for clothes, and more wear and tear on shoes, carpets and furniture.[5] “Think of their lifetime carbon footprint, it is quite a lot,” he told interviewers during his Australian sojourn (he must have arrived by row-boat).
To curb planet-hurting population growth, a UK doctors’ group had recommended that Britons confine themselves to two children. Liao instead suggested each British family be given emissions targets and within that, be incentivised to have either two normal-height children or multiple smaller ones.[6] “We think we now have optimal height, and that we should not do anything to mess with our height, but the reality (can be) much more fluid,” he said, noting that everyone was much shorter in the 19th century with no harm done. He said height is seen by many as a social advantage but that was not a reason to scratch the shortness-creating idea. As his paper says, bungee jumping, tattoos and running marathons are also minority tastes but legitimate activities.
Ever-hopeful, Liao believes that once a few people started shortening their children, others might be similarly inspired, especially if given tax breaks. He conceded that poorer people are already shorter on average, and should not be encouraged to further shrink their offspring.
He told his audience that many people wanted to give up eating meat but enjoyed the taste too much. To assist, their immune systems could be primed to react to meat “and induce some sort of unpleasant experience, very mild. (Laughter). Even if the effect was not for a lifetime, the learning effect could persist a long time.”
A safe way to induce such intolerance could involve a “meat patch”, akin to a nicotine patch, that people could wear before going out to eat, he said. Liao concedes that the present “tackling” of climate change by changing behaviour (less travel, LED bulbs etc) and by top-down emissions schemes are inadequate. This has led to drastic and risky geoengineering proposals like mirrors in space and seeding oceans with iron filings. Better and safer to use existing bio-medical techniques to alter humans instead, he says.
Liao dropped political correctness to remark that US women “of lower cognitive ability” bred faster under 18 years. If they could be cognitively enhanced with Ritalin or Modafinil, which some parents already give their children to improve concentration at school, these women might have lower birth rates. He also pre-empted Pauline Hanson by saying various public health measures are similarly taken, despite risks. He said, “People routinely vaccinate to prevent acquiring diseases even though vaccinations have sometimes side effects and can even lead to deaths.”[7]
He agreed that bio-engineering against obesity would be climate-effective, “but I focus on height because the issue of obesity is very politically sensitive, raising a lot of issues and, on top, some discriminatory aspects — talk about obesity, you know…a tricky situation.” So Liao put this planet-saving measure aside because of potential backlash from “obesity identity” activists. Anti-height measures, however, are politically safe because tall people are already advantaged.
Liao wants each person to become carbon neutral, otherwise we should spend more money on space exploration – presumably so mankind find a new home on some other planet. “Scientists tell us we are close to the point of no return,” he said, apparently unaware of the hundreds of failed tipping point predictions.
Question time produced one ripper from an elderly lady, Margaret, who seemed a warmist sympathiser: “What percent of the population would need to adopt any of these measures before they became effective in altering the rate at which we are going through climate change?”
Liao, hitherto a picture of confidence, fumbled and stalled, saying it was empirical and had no idea in lieu of further and needed research: “So right now I am just sorting out ideas … we would need to figure out these further questions.”
I can tell him now: if the 7.5 billion people on the planet all shrank by 15cm, it wouldn’t lower global temperatures one jot.
The climate-catastrophe evidence Liao cites for his Humans 2.0 makeover is the notoriously-flawed UK Stern Report (Stern is now calling for US$90 trillion funding for climate change) and the melting-Himalayan-glacier 2007 IPCC report run by then-IPCC chair and Rajendra Pachauri. [8] This report was so howler-laced that the InterAcademy Council ordered a forensic audit. The report found “significant shortcomings in each major step of IPCC’s assessment process”.
Tony Thomas’s book of essays, That’s Debatable – 60 Years in Print, is available here.How the average American bra size has increased from 34B to 34DD over the past 30 years
The average national bra size has increased by three cup sizes over the last 30 years, according to a new study by Intimacy.
The lingerie retailer reported a bulging 34DD average today. This compares to the 34B bra-size average in 1983.
As Intimacy pointed out, this can be traced to women being more aware of their bodies and in turn, the market's support.
Bigger than ever: Average American bra sizes are at an all time high, increasing from 34B (left) to 34DD (right) over the past 30 years, new research has revealed
'Instead of forcing D+ breasts into A to D cup bras, women are beginning to purchase larger cup sizes (G cup, for example) that actually fit properly,' a spokesperson said to Racked.
Compared to twenty years ago, 'the American market carried less than 20 sizes, so women with bigger breasts squeezed into bras that were two or more cup sizes too small.'
Of course, the growth of women's breasts has been a known trend in recent years - Florence Williams published a book on the subject last year Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History.
British retailer Debenhams also conducted a study demonstrating similar results last year - however Intimacy's research reveals the most dramatic results to date.
'Instead of forcing D+ breasts into A to D cup bras, women are beginning to purchase larger cup sizes that actually fit properly'
Racked spoke with competing lingerie retailers and found supporting results. Figleaves.com reported the company's best selling bra to be a 34E, while also admitting plans to increase its sizing up to a 38G in an upcoming collection.
Similarly, Italian brand Cosabella relayed an increase in its sizes over the past year to include a 38 band for C, D and DD cups.
These testimonials attest to a spike in bra-size, but the question remains: are women asking for larger bras because their breasts are actually growing, or because the stigma toward wearing a larger size is lessening?
Guido Campello, VP of Sales, Branding and Innovation at Cosabella is in the latter camp.Jürgen Klopp believes news of Philippe Coutinho's long-term Liverpool contract acts as a 'big statement' in demonstrating the collective faith held in the club's ambitions for success.
The 24-year-old dedicated his future to the Reds on Wednesday by putting pen to paper on a new deal, which will come into effect from July 1, 2017.
And Klopp feels Coutinho’s commitment is something that will delight everyone connected with Liverpool.
The manager told Liverpoolfc.com: “This is wonderful news and I know everyone associated with LFC will be delighted when hearing this today.
“I think everyone knows what a great footballer Phil is, that is not in question - but not everyone sees what an incredibly positive character he is and what a big influence he is on the dressing room.
“I knew of Phil before I came to Liverpool and I was well aware of what a talent he was, but since arriving here I have not only witnessed his ability up close, but also his ever-continuing development. He is truly world-class - in that very top bracket.
“The fact he wants to stay here and be part of what we are looking to build and develop shows his personal commitment is to make himself better and be an integral part of something that is very special.
“We have total belief in our project, but when a player of Phil’s calibre and status commits for this length of time it shows that our faith is shared throughout the game. He knows he can fulfil his dreams and ambitions here at Liverpool. This is a big statement.
“I look forward to seeing Phil create many more great memories and moments for this club.”
Watch our exclusive eight-minute interview with Philippe Coutinho on his new long-term Reds contract in full on LFCTV GO now. Need a subscription? Sign up here.Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Knowing she had only weeks to live rather than her whole life ahead of her, a dying schoolgirl desperately turned to cryogenics in the hope she could one day be brought back.
Described as a “bright, intelligent young person”, the tragic 14-year-old spent her last months fervently researching how she could be frozen until a cure is found for her rare form of cancer in the future.
But as she ran out of time, her divorced parents were locked in a bitter battle about what to do with her remains.
Too young to make a will, the teenager went to court to protect her dying wish.
In a heartbreaking letter to the judge, she said that while she did not want to die, she had accepted her fate.
She wrote: “I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they may find a cure for my cancer and wake me up. I want to have this chance.”
(Image: Alcor Life Extension Foundation)
After a battle in the High Court, her wish came true and she made British legal history.
Details of the case can only be revealed now after the youngster passed away last month.
Her remains have already been shipped to the US for storage.
Presiding judge Mr Justice Peter Jackson said: “She died peacefully in the knowledge her body would be preserved in the |
the ranks of phenoms today. And yet it seems quite likely that he’d be at home in the twenty-first century, amongst the outsized cult personalities of our customarily hyperbolically overcharged world. “Fortunate, not fortuitous”: that’s how Paxton described his achievements, absolutely begging the question. On this 210th anniversary of his birthday, it’s about as open-ended as it ever was.
Tatiana Holway is an independent scholar and academic consultant with a doctorate in Victorian literature and society. Author of several studies of Dickens and popular culture, she also serves on the advisory board for the Nineteenth-Century Collections Online global archiving project. Currently, she lives outside of Boston, where she pursues a passion for gardening. Her most recent book is The Flower of Empire: An Amazonian Water Lily, The Quest to Make it Bloom, and the World it Created.
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Subscribe to only British history articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.BERLIN, April 2 (Reuters) - Germany exported more electricity last year than it imported, data from the Federal Statistics Office showed on Tuesday, dispelling fears about possible power shortages due to its transition from nuclear to renewable energy.
Europe’s biggest power market imported some 43.8 terrawatt hours (TWh) of electricity and exported 66.6 TWh, resulting in a surplus of 22.8 TWh, figures based on information from the four biggest grid operators showed.
“The year 2012 saw the biggest surplus in the last four years,” said the Statistics Office, adding it was nearly four times the 2011 surplus.
Some experts had warned of possible power shortages after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision in 2011 to accelerate Germany’s nuclear phase-out and switch to renewable energy.
In response to Japan’s Fukushima disaster, her centre-right coalition passed legislation leading to the closure of eight nuclear plants at a time when wind and solar power could not provide a reliable source of energy to plug the gap.
The main recipients of German power last year were the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland while Germany imported power from France, where nuclear plays a major role, Denmark and the Czech Republic, said the Statistics Office. (Reporting by Madeline Chambers; editing by Jason Neely)Possession was traditionally lost if the ball wasn't passed twice or more, but the new rule will enable hookers and halves to run the ball to the line, in a move designed to increase playmaking and decision-making abilities in the mod league (under 10 to under 12) competition. In the under 6s to under 9s, teams still have to pass twice to avoid losing possession. The rules are largely aligned with the NRL from the under 13s.
Rugby league Immortal Bob Fulton and former Kangaroos star Matt Johns played an active role in the revamp, as did Peter Corcoran, who helped introduce the modified laws in 1982. A review of junior rugby league was undertaken by the NRL in partnership with a Sydney University research team, where trial data was analysed between 2009 and 2014.
Other important changes for under-6-12 games include; the scrapping of all scrums, tap kick given to the non-scoring team to restart play following a try, standardised zero tackle and the removal of conversation attempts in the six and seven age groups.
NRL head of football Todd Greenberg said the changes were designed to keep children playing the game.
"Feedback from players, coaches, parents and referees indicated that fun, skill development and increased participation were key factors in recruiting young players and then retaining them in the game for longer" Greenberg said.Both a new subway line into downtown Toronto and Mayor John Tory's proposed SmartTrack will be needed to keep the subway system from overloading within 25 years, according to ridership projections in a new report for the city.
The findings paint a picture of the two proposed transit lines operating in a "largely complementary" way. But the new data also raise the stakes for the mayor. The project on which he ran for office has to have trains come every five minutes to play its necessary role in the city's transit future, and his plan would have less impact than a relief line unless they can be made to run that often.
Neither the cost nor the technical feasibility of five-minute SmartTrack service has been determined. The city and regional transit agency Metrolinx are hammering out a way to integrate Mr. Tory's proposal with the province's plans, with the final agreement some time off.
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Central to Mr. Tory's election campaign was a proposal to piggyback on provincial plans for more rail service on GO surface routes, saying there would be more local stops and promising people they would be able to ride on a Toronto Transit Commission fare. He said this would act as much-needed relief for the increasingly crowded Yonge subway. But critics said from the start his plan could not take the place of a new subway route into the core – the long-discussed relief line.
"The findings in this summary report make clear the importance of the relief line," Toronto chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat notes in an introductory memorandum to deputy city manager John Livey. "However, by 2041, only the combination of the relief line with five-minute SmartTrack service will bring the projected … ridership [down] to approximately the capacity of the line."
The report's findings have the potential to set the stage for a political battle over the best way to spend transit dollars. They will add weight to Mr. Tory's argument that both lines are necessary, with SmartTrack helping tide over the system in the shorter term and the relief line taking longer to be built. But with limited money to spend – and with varying effects on ridership depending on how the projects are built and operated – council may have to decide which combination of the two would best serve the city.
"It's not an either/or scenario. We need both," mayoral spokeswoman Amanda Galbraith said in a statement. "We now have data confirming that the two lines complement one another and are both needed to reduce overcrowding on the Yonge subway."
Most of the figures in the new report are projected out to 2031. They all assume people will be able to ride SmartTrack for the same cost as the TTC, sidestepping the ongoing and thorny issue of regional transit-fare integration.
The modelling found the Yonge subway is projected to be overcapacity in 2031, hitting a peak-hour volume of 39,600 riders. That's an increase of about 14,000 over the current ridership, according to the TTC, though by then the line's capacity should have been raised to 36,000, the report says.
Adding the first phase of the relief line as proposed by the city – a tunnelled subway route running from Pape to the area of Nathan Phillips Square – would divert 3,600 people off the Yonge line at peak hour by 2031, leaving that subway at capacity.
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Having SmartTrack instead, but running the trains at only 15-minute intervals, would divert 2,300 riders by 2031, leaving the line overcapacity. Adding the relief line as well as that level of SmartTrack service, though, would take another 2,700 people off the Yonge line, for a total of 5,000 people.
If SmartTrack were to run every five minutes, it alone would divert 6,600 people off the Yonge line by 2031. Having the relief subway as well would cut another 1,800, for a total of 8,400 people.
"Contrary to much prior speculation, SmartTrack and the [relief line] are not significant competitors, or substitutes for, one another," University of Toronto professor Eric Miller, who oversaw the modelling, wrote in the report. "Both should be considered as viable additions to the transit network, subject, of course, to engineering and cost considerations."Sen. Mike Enzi, a Republican lawmaker who represents the state of Wyoming, told a group of students last week that he has no idea how to stop anti-LGBT hate crimes because men who dress as women are basically asking to get beat up. These comments are alarming when spoken in any context, but Sen. Enzi's comments abut LGBT violence are especially troubling because he is a lawmaker who is tasked with protecting all citizens within his state's borders — regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identification.
During a speaking engagement at Greybull High School and Middle School in Greybull, Wyoming, last Thursday, a student asked Enzi what he was doing to support the local LGBT community. "How do you plan to help Wyoming live up to its name as 'The Equality State,'" the student asked, according to a transcript released by The Greybull Standard.
Enzi responded by stating that "one of the problems we have in this country [is] thinking that everything could be done by law," and that the real problem is a lack of "civility" between people. Although this initially seems to blame homophobia as the root cause of anti-LGBT violence, the rest of his statement seemed to incriminate LGBT individuals themselves:
We always say that in Wyoming you can be just about anything you want to be, as long as you don't push it in somebody's face. I know a guy who wears a tutu and goes to bars on Friday night and is always surprised that he gets in fights. Well, he kind of asks for it. That's the way that he winds up with that kind of problem.
The senator went on to say that he is "interested in any solutions" students have for solving this issue.
Enzi has since apologized for his remarks. "I regret a poor choice of words during part of my presentation. None of us is infallible and I apologize to anyone who has taken offense. No offense was intended," he said in a statement to CNN.
Enzi's comments are problematic, uninformed, and dangerous for many reasons. For starters, he assumes that the gender or sexual identity of an individual is somehow an affront to others, even though a person's decision to wear a tutu to a bar causes no harm to others. In fact, it is none of their business. A gay or transgender individual has a right to exist as well as to express their identity without being perceived as being "in somebody's face."
But what is most problematic is that Enzi, who is responsible for creating state laws and representing constituents, is contributing to a culture of victim-blaming that holds LGBT individuals responsible for the violence that is committed against them. Coming from a powerful and influential person, this statement could make others think that they are somehow justified in committing hate crimes, and that they might not be incriminated if they do.
Enzi seemed completely perplexed in suggesting how the law could possibly prevent future hate crimes. But as a lawmaker, it is his job to create legislation that protects all citizens, not just straight or cisgender individuals. Doing so might not be easy, but it starts with lawmakers like Enzi condemning this violence rather than contributing to a culture that justifies it.LONDON (Reuters) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has angered U.S. authorities by publishing secret diplomatic cables, was remanded in custody by a British court on Tuesday over allegations of sex crimes in Sweden.
Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, which has made public about 500,000 classified U.S. files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, holds a news conference at the Geneva Press Club in Geneva, in this November 4, 2010 file photo, the day before the United Nation's Human Rights Council examines the U.S. human rights record in its universal periodic review programme. Assange has been arrested by British police on a European warrant issued by Sweden over allegations of sex crimes including rape, London's Metropolitan Police said on December 7, 2010. REUTERS/Valentin Flauraud/Files
Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, had earlier handed himself in to British police after Sweden had issued a European Arrest Warrant for him. Assange, who denies the allegations, will remain behind bars until a fresh hearing on December 14.
He has spent some time in Sweden and was accused this year of sexual misconduct by two female Swedish WikiLeaks volunteers. A Swedish prosecutor wants to question him about the accusation.
WikiLeaks, which has provoked fury in Washington with its publications, vowed it would continue making public details of the 250,000 secret U.S. documents it had obtained.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates welcomed news of the arrest. “I hadn’t heard that but it sounds like good news to me,” Gates told reporters during a trip to Afghanistan.
At a court hearing in London, Senior District Judge Howard Riddle said: “There are substantial grounds to believe he could abscond if granted bail.”
He said the allegations were serious, and that Assange had comparatively weak community ties in Britain.
His British lawyer Mark Stephens told reporters a renewed bail application would be made, and that his client was “fine.”
“We are entitled to appeal to a higher court, to the High Court, and we are also entitled to go again in the magistrates court at another date,” he told reporters.
He said many people believed the prosecution was politically motivated, and that he would be “released and vindicated.”
But a Swedish prosecutor was cited in newspaper Aftonbladet as saying the case was not a personal matter and was not connected with his WikiLeaks work.
CELEBRITIES OFFER TO STAND SURETY
Assange, dressed in a navy suit and wearing an open-neck white shirt, initially gave his address in court as a PO Box in Australia. Pressed for a more precise address, he gave a street in Victoria, Australia.
Australian journalist John Pilger, British film director Ken Loach and Jemima Khan, former wife of Pakistani cricketer and politician Imran Khan, all offered to put up sureties to persuade the court Assange would not abscond.
Pilger, who offered 20,000 pounds ($31,600), told the court: “These charges against him in Sweden are absurd and were judged absurd by a senior Swedish prosecutor.
“It would be a travesty for Mr Assange to go within that kind of Swedish system.”
Vaughan Smith, founder of the Frontline journalists’ club in London, said Assange had worked out of the club for the past several months. Smith said he had offered him use of the club address for his bail request.
“I am suspicious of the personal charges that have been made against Mr Assange and hope that this will be properly resolved by the courts. Certainly no credible charges have been brought regarding the leaking of the information itself,” Smith said in a statement.
The U.S. government and others across the world have argued the publication of cables is irresponsible and could put their national security at risk.
The WikiLeaks website was shut down after apparent political pressure on service providers, but WikiLeaks said there were now 750 global mirror sites meaning the data so far released remained publicly available. More cables would be released later on Tuesday, it said.
Lawyer Gemma Lindfield, representing the Swedish judicial authorities, said the extradition case contained allegations of four sexual assaults by Assange against two women in Stockholm in August 2010. One charge over Miss A is that Assange “sexually molested her” by ignoring her request for him to use a condom when having sex with her.
Another charge relates to “Miss W,” who alleged Assange had sex with her without a condom while she was sleeping on August 7.
Slideshow (5 Images)
Swedish prosecutors opened, then dropped, then re-opened an investigation into the allegations. The crime he is suspected of is the least severe of three categories of rape, carrying a maximum of four years in jail.
Assange’s Swedish lawyer has said his client would fight any extradition and believed foreign powers were influencing Sweden.
Swiss PostFinance, the banking arm of state-owned Swiss Post, has closed an account used for WikiLeaks donations and online payment service PayPal has also suspended WikiLeaks’ account. Visa Europe said on Tuesday it had suspended payments to the WikiLeaks website.Ravens backup running back Bernard Pierce is expected to undergo surgery on his right shoulder to repair damage to his rotator cuff, Aaron Wilson of the Baltimore Sun reports citing a league source.
Pierce got a second opinion Tuesday at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia.
If Pierce gets surgery, as recommended, Dr. J. Milo Sewards is expected to perform the procedure. Sewards specializes in arthroscopic shoulder reconstruction and is the director of the orthopedic residency program at Temple.
Surgery hasn’t been scheduled yet. If Pierce has the procedure, it would take place this month to allow him sufficient time to heal for next season.
The initial recommendation for Pierce was that he needed to have surgery, which would require four to five months of rehabilitation this offseason. If Pierce opts not to have surgery, he would still require months of rehab to strengthen the shoulder.A rousing success for the world's smallest artificial heart.
Italian doctors successfully implanted the world's smallest artificial heart into a 16-month-old boy, keeping him alive for 13 days with a titanium pump until a heart transplant donor was found.
At 0.4 ounces, the astoundingly small piece of equipment weighed about 80 times less than a standard artificial heart for an adult human, Reuters reported. It can pump a little over 3 pints of blood a minute.
The little boy had a condition known as dilated myocardiopathy and spent almost his entire first year of life at Rome's Bambino Gesu hospital, where the artificial heart was also implanted.
The device was invented by Robert Jarvik, esteemed creator of the first permanent total artifical heart, but had only been tested in animals.BEIJING/TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s finance minister pressed the United States on Tuesday to quickly resolve its political deadlock over government finances to avoid a fiscal crisis that could damage the global economy.
The comment from Taro Aso is the latest sign that Japan and China - the biggest foreign creditors to the United States - are increasingly worried that the U.S. government shutdown and the standoff over the debt ceiling could wreak havoc on their trillions of dollars of investments in U.S. Treasury bonds.
“The U.S. must avoid a situation where it cannot pay (for its debt) and its triple-A ranking plunges all of a sudden,” Aso told reporters following a cabinet meeting.
“The U.S. must be fully aware that if that happens the U.S. would fall into fiscal crisis,” he said.
Japanese officials held several emergency telephone conferences with U.S. Treasury Department officials on Monday, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources.
However, a senior Japanese government official shrugged off the report, suggesting instead that the subject had only been discussed as part of regular contact between the two countries.
On Monday, Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said Beijing had been in touch with Washington over the standoff, in which House Republicans have refused to increase the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling as they seek changes in President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.
Unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, the United States would be left on the edge of an unprecedented default, the Treasury has warned.
The political standoff is in its second week, with much of the U.S. federal government closed and no signs of a breakthrough, although some glimmers of hope emerged on Monday as Obama said he would accept a short-term increase in the nation’s borrowing authority to avoid a default.
TRILLIONS AT STAKE
As at July 31, China held $1.28 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds and Japan held $1.14 trillion, Treasury Department data shows.
The last big confrontation over the debt ceiling, in August 2011, ended with an 11th-hour agreement under pressure from shaken markets and warnings of an economic catastrophe if a default were allowed to happen.
China is “naturally concerned about developments in the U.S. fiscal cliff,” Zhu told reporters, saying it was Washington’s “responsibility” to avoid a debt crisis and ensure the safety of Chinese investments.
Japan has previously expressed its concerns in diplomatic terms. Aso and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga both said last week that the fiscal standoff was essentially a U.S. domestic problem.
But Aso added the shutdown could push up the yen against the dollar - a concern for Japan’s export-reliant economy, which has benefited from a yen decline since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won election in December on a reflationist policy platform.
Should the U.S. default on its debt, which the Treasury Department says could happen as soon as October 17, “there would be a large international impact,” Aso said last week. “If there is no prompt resolution, various impacts will emerge.”
The yen has been rising this month as investors shed risk and seek the perceived safe haven of the Japanese currency. The dollar slipped on Tuesday to a two-month low of 96.55 yen.According to Reuters, on Sunday Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble commented to the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that he believes the answers to Greece’s financial woes should come in the form of reforms rather than debt relief.
In order to sustain itself as a viable country in the eurozone, Schaeuble stressed that Greece must first concentrate on structural reforms and that debt relief or forgiveness would not help the financial crisis gripping the country.
When he was asked if the German people should be left to vote on the matter of debt forgiveness specifically, Schaeuble said “That would not help Greece…Athens must finally implement the needed reforms. If Greece wants to stay in the euro, there is no way around it – in fact completely regardless of the debt level.”
His comments come just one day before the Eurogroup meeting on December 5 is scheduled to further discuss Greece’s third bailout as well as reform policies and debt relief that will be required by European lenders.By default, if you have an on-board sound card or PCI soundcard installed; it would be very easy to get that working in Linux. As long as you have correctly installed the hardware on your motherboard, Linux would take care of the audio drivers itself and it would run without any hassle after installation. These drivers can be using ALSA and they are included with your distribution packages by default.
But things are very different if you are using an external Firewire audio interface. Typically, these are professional audio recording interface that are often used in music production. To get this to work; there are some things to be done so that you can use your audio interface as a default sound device. Default sound device would mean you can use it in all of your PC audio tasks. This includes the following:
a.) Playback and listen to MP3 files (also WAV files, CD audio, etc) in your Linux PC using your preferred multimedia player.
b.) Watch movies and use the audio interface as the sound device.
c.) Record and playback music with your Firewire audio interface in your digital audio workstation software.
d.) Route the audio from your browser to your Firewire audio interface. This is useful if you are listening to music or watching movies in the Internet.
This tutorial is written using Ubuntu 11.10 distribution in Linux but would also apply in other distributions such as Linux Mint.
Step1: Configure your Firewire Audio Interface to work in Recording
Since your external Firewire audio interface is primarily used for recording, the first step is configuring it to work with recording. The objectives of this step are the following:
a.) Enable Linux to detect your installed Firewire audio interface.
b.) Install the necessary Firewire audio drivers for it to work.
c.) Install JACK, a low latency sound server that can be used with Firewire audio drivers.
d.) Record through your audio interface using a digital audio workstation.
To accomplish the above steps, you can read this tutorial on the installation guide of Saffire Pro40 in Ubuntu 11.10. Take note that the illustrated Firewire audio interface is Saffire Pro 40 although you can try using the steps on that tutorial to install any Firewire audio interface.
Unlike in Windows where the manufacturer supplies the drivers; in Linux there is only generic Firewire audio driver called as FFADO. These drivers are designed to work with many Firewire audio interfaces. You can find out if your hardware is supported here.
Do not proceed to step two until your Firewire audio is fully working and attained the objectives set previously.
Step2.) Configure your Audio Interface to Accept Non-Jack audio streams
In Step1, your Firewire audio interface communicates with JACK daemon. However, by default, you cannot use JACK to accomplish the rest of the audio task below without additional configuration.
a.) Listen to MP3 using your favorite multimedia player.
b.) Watching movies.
c.) Use audio along with your browser.
Outside the JACK world, there is ALSA; an audio driver designed for general consumer and multimedia applications. These are the ones used by your multimedia MP3 players, movie streamers, browsers, etc. except for serious music production/recording where JACK is used.
To make your Firewire audio interface work with ALSA, you need to route the audio from ALSA (coming from your audio client) to JACK. Once in the JACK, it will be easily communicated with your Firewire audio interface through FFADO.
Below are the detailed steps on how to do this:
1.) Install the ALSA-JACK PCM plug-in. Go to Ubuntu software center and type: libasound2-plugins
You need this installed. Once it is properly installed you see a green marked below the plug-in, see screenshot below:
2.) Open up your terminal by pressing Control – Alt – T. Type this command (take note of the dot before asoundrc):
$ pico.asoundrc
Assuming its empty, copy the code from here to the.asoundrc file. This is how it looks like after copying the code:
To save, click Control- O, and then type Control X to exit.'Sense8' Co-Creator J. Michael Straczynski on How Netflix's Show Changed Him, and Could Change Television
When Indiewire spoke with J. Michael Straczynski, we’d only seen three episodes of the brain-bending sci-fi thriller he’d co-created with Andy and Lana Wachowski for Netflix — not nearly enough to truly understand “Sense8,” but enough to be able to ask informed questions that lead to no shortage of interesting revelations. Such as: How it wasn’t Lana’s idea for the transgender character of Nomi to be transgender, what Straczynski had learned from working with James Cameron, why the show has a five-year plan and how “Sense8” could be a game-changer for science fiction on television.
READ MORE: Watch: Netflix and The Wachowskis’ ‘Sense8’ Reveals 8 New Trailers, Teases Characters and Tells Nothing
So I’ve gotten a little bit of backstory as to when the show came together, but I’m curious about when it first became a thing you wanted to do.
I’ve known Lana and Andy for a number of years, and they actually were fans of “Babylon 5” and my comics work. They invited me to the last “Matrix” premiere, so that’s how I met them for the first time. We worked on “Ninja Assassin” together, then they said, “We want to do television. Why don’t you come up to the house for the weekend and we’ll figure something out?”
So I went up to Lana and Karin’s [Lana’s partner] house for the weekend and we were big on […] notions of connectivity and the fact that we wanted to do this on a global scale. There’s something to be said for the notion that we are stronger together than we are pulled apart. We were heated up early on about the idea of making this real, to the point where after we did the basic structure on it, Lana and I and Andy, spec’d out the first three hours — which no one ever does. Maybe the first episode, but not three. We just couldn’t stop writing.
At that point, we were committed to it. If we were going to write this much, we wanted to make this thing happen. So we went to pitch around town, and our first meeting of the week was with Netflix at 11:00am.
It was the weirdest pitch. Usually you’re pitching the action stuff or things that are very commercial. We’re talking about gender and identity and secrecy and privacy, and figured, “We probably blew this.” So we went to lunch, and after lunch Netflix called and said, “We’re buying this. We’re taking it off the market. We’re straight-to-series, go. Prep.”
Now you gotta do it.
Now we gotta do it.
But it sounds like you already had a pretty clear sense of what direction the show was going to go from the beginning.
Definitely.
So when you spec’d out those first three hours, how different are they from the three episodes I watched?
Quite a bit. As we began moving forward, we thought that we really needed to do our research. We wanted to make each place in the show its own character, so it’s not just set against the Indian backdrop; it’s about Indian culture and language and history and religion and so on. So during the writing process we’d been going to all of these different places and immersing ourselves in those cultures. That changed the shape of the show over time into something, I think, more colorful.
As a parenthetical, I’m just curious what you thought of the first three episodes.
I really liked them. What I found myself really responding to was that each story is very much its own little human story. As a viewer, I have very little idea of how this all adds up. But even on an individual basis, taking the stories one at a time, I don’t even know how each might work with the other storylines. But I was compelled by the character and the scenario.
That’s perfect.
I imagine that was a clear intent you had going in.
Oh yeah. We felt that each character should deserve their own series, and each story should be compelling enough to stand on its own. Then we take that, and all of a sudden you have eight characters tracking with each other and gradually interacting with those different stories. It has a cumulative effect, where all of those stories all become more interesting as they go along.
I worked briefly with Jim Cameron to do a new draft of “Forbidden Planet” for Warner Bros. It’s still sitting on a shelf there. And Jim said a pretty interesting, cool thing. He said, “I used to think that science fiction was about familiar characters, not familiar settings. It took me 10 years to realize I was wrong. It’s familiar relationships, not familiar settings.”
So “Terminator 2” was a father and son, even though it’s not. “Aliens” was a mother and daughter, even though it’s not. You may not be able to relate to interstellar battles or get into each other’s minds, but a relationship — Nomi and her lover or Capheus and his mom — will draw you in, whereas you may not necessarily get what the whole “Sense8” thing is. We wanted those individual stories to be really strong and compelling.
In terms of the research and development, which of the storylines required the most?
Probably India. We spent a lot of time there and really had to delve into the culture more to learn more about it. The cool thing was that before we began shooting, we had a meeting with the Indian production coordinator who said, “We are so excited that you are coming to do this show because there’s two kinds of things that shoot in India: our own movies, which are about our own culture but don’t have much market outside the country, and Western movies where it’s a Western story against an Indian backdrop. Here, India is the story, from the wedding practices to the dietary things to the religion. So you got it right.” That says we’ve done our homework properly, and it took a fair amount of time.
By living in the culture and talking to people?
Yeah, and learning the smallest things that were delightful. One of the things that comes up over the course of the show: wedding planners. When they do a wedding in India, the baseline is six hours for the ceremony. If you value the priest more, you pay him double and it’s three hours. You pay him double again, it’s an hour-and-a-half. That’s an investor! [laughs] It’s the most wonderful thing we’d ever heard, and that went into the show. Just sitting with them and having the time and just absorbing it all.
I know this is such a collaboration between you and the Wachowskis, but for you personally, are there specific characters that you really connect with?
It’s funny. We, all three of us, have different characters that we connect with a lot. Nomi [Jamie Clayton] and Lana, obviously, have a strong connection because they’re both transgendered. For me, it’s Wolfgang, especially with his father and what he’s going through. So there are certain characters that we relate to more than others.
The funny thing is that when we were working out who the characters were going to be, we had pretty much all of them locked except Nomi. I was saying, “This is a character who’s a hacker, who is a bridge between different kinds of worlds. It would be kind of cool if she was transgendered.” And Lana shot up out of her chair, dancing around, going, “It wasn’t me this time! It was him! It was his idea!”
That’s amazing because I’m sure every single person assumes that’s not the case.
I think she was deliberately holding that back. But Nomi became her constant true north in the storytelling, the way that for me, Wolfgang was my true north in the storytelling.
Can you say who Andy’s was?
Andy probably should say that.
Totally fair. In talking with the other cast, they feel really intensely about this series… I don’t want to say they talk about the making of the show like it was a religious experience, but it seems like it was really transformative.
It was.
Was that consciously something you guys set out to do for the cast?
It just happened. It wasn’t something that we could have anticipated. It came from a number of things: The kinds of stories we were telling, the issues we were confronting, but also in how we shot it. It unified the cast in a very unusual sort of way. We block-shot it, so for instance, we shot all of the San Francisco scenes with Nomi first. And because we’re a subjective camera, we don’t go outside our character’s point-of-view. You’re always in someone’s point-of-view. She, therefore, was in every single scene, every single day for like three weeks. To carry the burden of all that with the other cast supporting her…
Then, like in the Olympics, she hands off the baton to Will [played by Brian J. Smith] in Chicago. Now he’s in every single scene, and now the rest of the cast has to support him. He stands for Chicago. And then we go to Tuppence [Middleton] in London, and she has to stand for England. And it caused them to say, “We need to support each other because my turn in the barrel’s coming. I’m going to need everybody else.” Bringing them to each different location — all the cast traveled to every single location because we needed to have a conversation where one character’s in City A, one character’s in City B — so you’re seeing each other as if they’re in the same room. So you need to have them in both places. We didn’t want to do green screen — we didn’t want to fake. We wanted to do it real. Even if the scene was two seconds long, they all had to go to every location, and they got to see parts of the world that they’d never seen before.
So between all of that and the intimate storytelling we were doing… I’ve worked with a lot of casts before, but I’ve never seen one bond like this one has. It was, for a lot of people — including Lana, Andy and myself — a very transformational experience.
There’s something about stepping off the road in “Lord of the Rings” and into the wilderness, and seeing the larger world outside it. I think we all fall asleep in our own lives until something happens to wake you up. It could be something great, something terrible — marriage, death, cancer, whatever. And there’s your life before it and your life after it. For a lot of people, myself included, this was it.
It also seems like it’s not just like you guys traveled around the world together making this show. It’s also the fact that it seems like it really speaks to things that people really connected with. Is there specific stuff that you did in the writing, that you feel like is hopefully going to communicate that same message to the audience?
I hope so. My feeling has always been that the more global you want your story to work, the smaller you go. We can’t always write to the big stuff, but the small stuff, you can relate to. I think that’s the point of all this.
In terms of when it rolls out, what kind of reaction are you expecting from people? A lot of eyes are on what the Wachowskis do next, after “Jupiter Ascending.”
I don’t know what the reaction is going to be. I know it’s going to be controversial, particularly as the deeper you go in, the more controversial it gets.
In terms of subject matter?
Oh yeah, subject matter, sexuality, full-frontal nudity. It’s got a lot of moving pieces in it.
Is it going to be a Netflix show with actual penis in it?
Yes. More than one.
It’s about time.
Close up. Trust me on this. I know folks are going to be confused by the first hour because you only know what the characters know, and they don’t know what the hell is going on with them for the first hour. It’s like, “What the hell is this all about?” So Episode 1 is “What the hell?” and Episode 2 is “Eh?” and Episode 3 is “Okay, I got it.” So there’s going to be some measure of consternation, but my hope is that what this will do ultimately is transform the science fiction genre, in the following way:
There was a time when cop shows were not considered a franchise. They were a niche programming for those who like police procedurals. Two shows changed that: First there was “Dragnet,” the first time a show showed cops who got married, had picnics on dates — they were people suddenly, and that bumped it up here. The show that finished that process was “Hill Street Blues,” which showed cops having affairs, drug problems, drinking problems.
First they had lives, and then they had complicated lives.
Correct. And science fiction has had its “Dragnet” — “Star Trek,” “Battlestar.” But it really hasn’t yet had its “Hill Street Blues” moment. I think this might be it.
One interesting thing is working with an ensemble like this: when people ask you who’s in your show |
do as well.Honestly, if this wasn't one of iAlwaysSin's favourite games there's absolutely no way I would continue running a server for it. Our current one is quite expensive so we will be looking for a cheaper option since a few people do enjoy it still. To be clear: Unless there's a mass exodus from it, our server will continue as normal.Due to the massive price increase along with the awful quality and support of the Linux version, I suggest this goes firmly in your nope pile. I'm sad to say that, truly I am, as I was so very excited about playing this one, but they've done nothing to earn my respect. It could be a great game, who wouldn't want to tame and ride on a massive dinosaur? There's just too many issues right now and this new price I fear will lock out a lot of potential new players.Mike Tomlin and his infamous filibuster approach to media relations took the stand this afternoon, and addressed the health of the Pittsburgh Steelers as they attempt to limp their way into the the postseason.
The Steelers secondary, who for a time this season ranked as the best against the pass, has had its ranks destroyed by unexpected injuries. Ike Taylor, who fractured his ankle against the Baltimore Ravens in week 13, has been given permission to start working outside his protective boot. While Tomlin expressed his optimism about Taylor's recovery, he has been ruled out for the next game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
As the remainder of the secondary attempted to cope without Taylor, other members suffered injuries of their own. Cortez Allen who suffered a hip flexor and a groin injury in week 14 against the San Diego Chargers forcing him to miss the recent loss to the Dallas Cowboys, is expected to return to practice this week.
Keenan Lewis started the game against the Cowboys, but failed to finish as a hip flexor hindered his ability to participate. Lewis suffered a similar, possibly the same, injury the week before against the Chargers, but he is also expected to practice this week. Both Lewis and Allen will be limited early in the week, but are both expected to participate on Sunday, barring any further setbacks.
This comes as good news for the remaining healthy members of the secondary. DeMarcus Van Dyke suffered a dislocated shoulder, and has been placed on injured reserve. To compensate for his loss, the Steelers signed former St. Louis Ram and Indianapolis Colts defensive back, Justin King. King was invited for a workout at the same time Stanford Routt was reported to have a similar appointment. Tomlin spoke highly of King's combination of youth and experience, and that King as already in the building and getting himself up to speed.
King will be supporting Josh Victorian, Curtis Brown, and Robert Golden as the Steelers observe the progress of Lewis and Allen throughout the week.
The offense got some reassuring news as Emmanuel Sanders, who suffered a rib injury against the Cowboys, is expected to play though he will be limited in practice the early portion of the week.
While the secondary has been a major focus as the Steelers struggles, the major concern on the offensive side of the ball was not addressed at all. Tomlin spoke highly of David DeCastro and Kelvin Beachum, as the two rookie linemen played with "very few mental errors", but made no mention to the status of either Willie Colon, or Mike Adams, outside of saying that Adams would be monitored leaving his chances of playing up in the air. Failing to give timelines for either as the Steelers continue to struggle to run the ball tends to whisper that neither will be available this week, but the return of Rashard Mendenhall screams that a roster move is imminent.
With Van Dyke already being placed on injured reserve to make room for King, either Colon or Adams will suffer the same fate to make room for Mendenhall, whose roster exemption due to suspension expires today at 4 p.m. ET. If neither player is IR'ed, then the Steelers will have to cut a healthy player to compensate for the return of the beleaguered ball carrier.Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
SCHOOL meals blogger Martha Payne has received 2000 thank-yous from the school in Malawi where a new kitchen will be named after her.
Donations to Scots charity Mary’s Meals prompted by the nine-year-old’s website – featuring pictures and ratings of her school dinners – were last night edging towards £85,000.
After the Record revealed that a kitchen to be built by the charity at Lirangwe Primary School in Blantyre, Malawi, is to be named Friends of NeverSeconds, the school’s pupils paid tribute to their new pal in Scotland.
Children wrote, “Thank you Martha and your friends” on a classroom blackboard and sang songs in honour of the Lochgilphead Primary pupil whose blog inspired readers from around the world to donate funds.
Mary’s Meals founder Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow said Martha had raised enough not only to build a kitchen at the school and feed all of its 2000 pupils for a year, but also to feed an additional 5800 kids one meal a day for 12 months.
Martha said: “It’s really good because it can feed lots of children for a long time.
“Calling the kitchen Friends of NeverSeconds is important as it’s a thank-you to everyone who has supported me and Mary’s Meals.
“Mary’s Meals is a very simple charity and can achieve so much with so very little.”
In Malawi, Mary’s Meals provides children with a daily mug of likuni phala, a nutritious porridge with vitamins and minerals.
The charity’s programmes not only help feed children in poverty, but also help attract them to school so they can improve their education.
Yesterday at Lirangwe Primary, individual pupils also sent Martha personal messages to thank her for efforts.
They included nine-year-old orphan Gilbert Chigomere who lives on the streets of Blantyre.
He first began attending school when Mary’s Meals launched their project there.
He said: “Please say hello to Martha for me. I want to thank her for all of her hard work.
“I like the porridge because, after I eat it, I am active and can concentrate in class. It really helps me because it takes me a while to get hungry again.”
Gilbert was joined in thanking Martha by 13-year-old Lirangwe pupil Modesta Vincent.
She said: “I hope that Martha continues having such a kind heart, so that she – and others like her – can help us to continue having the porridge at school.”
Martha’s blog began getting thousands of hits from around the world just days after she started posting pictures of her school dinners last month.
She soon passed her target of raising £7000 for Argyll-based Mary’s Meals as she won support from celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Nick Nairn.
She got a further funding boost after receiving a lesson from Nairn at his Lake of Menteith Cook School.
Humourless council chiefs reacted angrily to a light-hearted headline in the Daily Record accompanying the story of her visit and banned her from taking any more photos, only to quickly reverse the decision amid a furious backlash.
The global publicity the story received resulted in nearly 6000 people donating money, while hits on her blog are nearly six million.
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow added: “I am humbled by Martha and her friends. We feel extremely proud of them. Because of what they are doing, and all those generous people who are donating, the lives of thousands of the world’s poorest children will be transformed.
“For every £10.70 donated, we are able to ensure another child will get a good daily meal for a whole school year.
“Many schools on waiting lists for Mary’s Meals will soon get very good news.
“We refuse to accept that any child in this world of plenty must endure a day without a meal and it is so heartening to realise that so many people around the world share that vision.”The erratic anti-feminist and purposefully politically incorrect Gavin McInnes added his take on the Confederate flag controversy. McInnes, a frequent Fox News guest, tweeted to more than 50,000 followers on June 23, 2015, that the Confederate flag should continue to fly.
Why? Because, "The Civil War wasn't about slavery," he wrote. "It was about secession."
In a companion tweet, McInnes said anyone, like Northerners, who think the Civil War was about slavery should go to Google. "Look it up," said McInnes, who was born in England and grew up in Canada.
So we did.
We typed in "causes of the Civil War." The first hit was History.net which told us, "The burning issue that led to the disruption of the union, however, was the debate over the future of slavery. That dispute led to secession, and secession brought about a war in which the Northern and Western states and territories fought to preserve the Union, and the South fought to establish Southern independence as a new confederation of states under its own constitution."
The second link on Google was to PBS and its History Detectives series. There we read, "What led to the outbreak of the bloodiest conflict in the history of North America? A common explanation is that the Civil War was fought over the moral issue of slavery. In fact, it was the economics of slavery and political control of that system that was central to the conflict."
No. 3 on the Google hit parade was Americanhistoryabout.com. That page offered five main reasons and the first one was "Economic and social differences between the North and the South." And what were those differences?
Well, slavery.
"With Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became very profitable. This machine was able to reduce the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton. However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations willing to move from other crops to cotton meant the greater need for a large amount of cheap labor, i.e. slaves. Thus, the southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery."
In fact, most of the causes listed on that page, four out of five, revolved around slavery, including the growth of the abolition movement, the fight over allowing slavery in new states, and the election of Abraham Lincoln, who was seen as anti-slavery.
The fourth link on Google was from the Civil War Preservation Trust. The trust wrote "The Civil War was the culmination of a series of confrontations concerning the institution of slavery."
Just in case the Internet led us astray, we also reached out to a pair of experts on the history of the Civil War.
They, too, said McInnes got it fundamentally wrong.
Eric Foner, professor of history at Columbia University, used the words of secessionists themselves as proof of their intentions.
"Read South Carolina's Declaration of the causes of secession," Foner said. "It is all about protecting slavery."
Indeed, the first sentence refers to slaveholding states, and throughout, the institution of slavery is the pivot point around which all else turns.
Historian Stephanie McCurry at the University of Pennsylvania points to Mississippi’s declaration of secession. Sentence two begins, "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery."
So just to be clear: Slavery led to secession, which led to the Civil War.
Our ruling
McInnes said that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery. McInnes’ preferred research method, Google, proved him wrong. In the words of the seceding states themselves, the South wanted to secede because it wanted to preserve slavery. That, in turn, started the Civil War.
McInnes’ Twitter profile shows a man staring intently with eyes crossed, which captures the accuracy of tweet.
We rate this claim Pants on Fire.Mr. and Mrs. Met appear at the Mets' spring training sendoff on Feb. 15, 2016, at Citi Field. (credit: Sonia Rincon/1010 WINS)
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — For the first time, the Mets will host an LGBT-themed Pride Night at Citi Field this baseball season.
The team will hold a news conference on Tuesday to announce the plans for Pride Night. LGBT Network chief executive officer David Kilmnick talked with WCBS 880 about the plan.
“We’re real excited about it, because sports and athletics is one of the last bastions of homophobia that we have to tackle, and a lot of people – about lot of LGBT people – do not feel safe either going to games or on the ballfield if they’re in school or in college,” Kilmnick said.
Kilmnick said the Mets are sponsoring the Pride Night for all to feel welcome at Citi Field, and part of the proceeds from ticket sales will go to support anti-bullying efforts in Long Island and New York City schools.
He said Pride Night was the brainchild of the LGBT network, but the Mets were fully onboard.
“We approached the Mets back in October, as they were getting ready to go on their journey to the World Series, and the Mets were incredibly responsive, and the Mets have always been seen as an underdog in the New York sports landscape, so it makes sense for the Mets to stick up for every single New Yorker,” Kilmnick said.
He said the Mets are the first New York team to hold a Pride Night.PLANS are being put in place to afford one of the highest civic honours to new England soccer manager Sam Allardyce.
Mayor Kieran O’Hanlon says he is to put forward plans to hold a mayoral reception for the former Limerick FC boss, who spent one season on Shannonside between 1991 and 1992.
Mr Allardyce, who has managed in the English Premier League since the year 2000, has been appointed to one of the most high-profile roles in world football.
“As mayor of Limerick, I would like to congratulate him. I’m sure the people of Limerick will be delighted to see a man of his ability taking up this new position. It reflects well on Limerick.”
He said if Mr Allardyce – known to millions to soccer fans affectionately as ‘Big Sam’ – is invited back to Limerick for a reception, he would be welcomed with open arms.
“I’m sure if we had a reception for him, it would get huge promotion through all of Britain, as well as Ireland. I would be delighted, because it is a very positive thing for Limerick. Anything we can do to capitalise on this from the point of view of tourism and visitors to our city would be very welcome,” the mayor added.
Mr Allardyce – who will leave his role as Sunderland AFC boss – will be given a contract worth €3.5m a year.
Fr Joe Young, who brought him to Limerick, said: “I only wish I could afford to bring him back”.
In Limerick, Sam led the Super Blues to the League of Ireland first division title, before heading back to England where he had managerial spells at Blackpool, Notts County, Bolton Wanderers, Newcastle United, Blackburn Rovers, West Ham and Sunderland.
“One thing I will always say about Sam is he has passion, purpose, and drive. He had that in abundance. When I thought who would be good for Limerick FC, I thought immediately of Sam Allardyce.”In a speech in Salt Lake City March 3, former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney denounced support for candidate Donald Trump, saying Trump "is playing the members of the American public for suckers." Here are key moments from that speech. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)
President-elect Donald Trump is entitled to nominate anyone he wants to be his secretary of state, including his daughter, Ivanka, or son-in-law, Jared Kushner. He could pick Bozo the Clown, for all I care. Trump owes me no explanation.
But if Trump’s State Department nominee turns out to be Mitt Romney, then it is Romney who has some explaining to do. Not to me, but to the country and the world.
It all comes down to Romney’s words and what he means.
No one, Republican or Democrat, delivered a more scathing indictment of Trump than Romney’s devastating critique in the spring at the Hinckley Institute of Politics Forum in Utah.
Did Romney believe at the time that no one was listening or cared what he had to say? Because his words were heard around the world.
If Romney is offered and accepts the nomination to State, does he expect us to believe that the words he expressed about Trump did not reflect his sincere beliefs?
And if that’s the case, when Romney steps out on the world stage, should global leaders simply wipe out the meaning of whatever comes out of his mouth out of concern that he will be delivering a rash of deliberately false statements?
[If Trump’s smart, he’ll pick Mitt Romney]
The question is inescapable.
Dear reader, repair to a quiet corner and review this media compilation of what Romney had to say in Utah and in a CNN interview about then-GOP front-runner Donald Trump:
“His domestic policies would lead to recession. His foreign policies would make America and the world less safe. He has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president. And his personal qualities would mean that America would cease to be a shining city on a hill.”
On Trump’s businesses: “His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who work for them. He inherited his business, he didn’t create it. And whatever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? And then there’s Trump Magazine and Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks and Trump Mortgage. A business genius he is not.”
Trump’s foreign policy: “Donald Trump tells us that he is very, very smart. I’m afraid that when it comes to foreign policy he is very, very not smart.”
His character: “Dishonesty is Donald Trump’s hallmark: He claimed that he had spoken clearly and boldly against going into Iraq. Wrong. He spoke in favor of invading Iraq. He said he saw thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11. Wrong. He saw no such thing. He imagined it. He’s not of the temperament of the kind of stable, thoughtful person we need as a leader.”
Trump’s wealth: “I predict that there are more bombshells in his tax returns. I predict that he doesn’t give much, if anything, to the disabled and to our veterans.... And I predict that despite his promise to do so, first made over a year ago, that he will never ever release his tax returns. Never. Not the returns under audit, not even the returns that are no longer being audited. He has too much to hide.”
[What Romney should tell Trump]
Trump’s morality: “Mr. Trump is directing our anger for less than noble purposes. He creates scapegoats of Muslims and Mexican immigrants. He calls for the use of torture. He calls for killing the innocent children and family members of terrorists. He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit first amendment freedom of the press. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.”
Trump and Putin: “Donald Trump says he admires Vladimir Putin, at the same time he has called George W. Bush a liar. That is a twisted example of evil trumping good.”
On fear of Trump legitimizing racism and misogyny: “I don’t want to see a president of the United States saying things which change the character of the generations of Americans that are following. Presidents have an impact on the nature of our nation, and trickle-down racism, trickle-down bigotry, trickle-down misogyny, all these things are extraordinarily dangerous to the heart and character of America.”
So, which Donald Trump is it?
Either before or if he decides to take the job, Mitt Romney’s got some explaining to do.The Tissue Monitoring System (TMS) is an algorithm that estimates changes in body tissue from a series of daily weight measures. It is intended to provide people with a feedback of changes in their tissue weight so they may have a basis for estimating how much they would have to change their intake or expenditure to maintain their weight at a prescribed level. We tested the effectiveness of the TMS to prevent freshmen from gaining weight during their first semester in college. In two similar but independent studies (Fall 2002, 2003), female freshmen college students were given analog bathroom scales and instructed to weigh themselves each morning immediately after rising from bed, then e-mail their weight to our staff. After 7 days, a linear function was performed on the most recent 7 days of the weight-day function for each participant. In the first study, the slope of this function was e-mailed back to the participants. In the second study, the difference between last point and the original weight was determined, using linear regression techniques, converted to calories, and the information was e-mailed back to the participants. Control participants in both studies were weighed at the beginning and the end of the semester. The untreated controls gained 3.1+/-0.51 kg and 2.0+/-0.65 kg, respectively (P<0.01 for both studies), whereas weight gain of the experimental groups was 0.1+/-0.99 kg and -0.82+/-0.56 kg, values that were not significantly different than zero. The TMS appears to be an effective technique to help female college freshmen resist gaining weight in an environment that is conducive to weight gain. These results suggest that the TMS may be a useful method to help curb the slow increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity that is characteristic of all industrialized societies.The media’s kissing up to the Clinton family, expected once Hillary Clinton jumps into the 2016 presidential race, has already arrived, thanks to Katie Couric’s fawning interview of former first daughter Chelsea, who gave birth for the first time just six weeks ago.
Couric, the former "Today" hostess and CBS Evening News chief turned “global news anchor” for Yahoo!, not only praised Chelsea’s parents but lauded their daughter’s international “power” in an interview linked to Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year Awards, which has Clinton on this year’s list.
“It must be so flattering to be added to that list,” Couric opened, adding with a wide smile, “A woman of the year, and I think it’s safe to say, probably a ‘Mom of the Year.’ ”
After some chit-chat about baby Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky, Couric probed the issue of Chelsea’s switch to public service and the difficulty in coming out of the shadow of her parents.
“To have parents who are so accomplished, I’m wondering, was it difficult for you, Chelsea, harder, perhaps to find your own way, to make your own mark, when you have parents that are celebrated or as well known as yours are?” asked Couric.
Then praising her “considerable influence” to helping girls globally, she told Chelsea, “you could lend your name and your power to a lot of different causes.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.United Airlines has flown into another public-relations storm — it’s facing a lawsuit after a gay dad was accused by a flight attendant of having his hand too close to his 5-year-old son’s genitals on a flight from Newark to his home in North Carolina.
Henry Amador-Batten told The Post Saturday an airline representative called him to offer what she called an “apology.”
“It was not an apology,’’ the angry dad told The Post.
“She just wanted to make the problem go away. She asked me if I would keep it ‘low key’ ” to help her keep her job, he said.
“I don’t know how anyone could consider that an apology,’’ he added.
After Amador-Batten got off the plane at the Raleigh-Durham airport on May 20, police told him about the flight attendant’s complaint, spoke to him and then quickly let him go.
He thinks it’s “very possible’’ the attendant singled him out because he’s gay.
“I can’t speak to that man’s heart, and I don’t wear a sticker on my head that says I am gay — but you could possibly look at me and make an assumption,’’ he said. “Somehow he didn’t like what he saw.’’
Amador-Batten said he has been a stay-at-home dad since he and his husband adopted Ben. Before that, he worked as a hairdresser.
He has hired a lawyer and might sue the airline.
United’s recent problems began when it called airport police to drag a passenger off one of its planes in Chicago on April 9 because he refused to give up his seat after being informed the flight had been overbooked.Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, planned a private meeting with House Republicans on Tuesday morning, to discuss the party’s process for selecting their Presidential nominee, Politico reported. They are set to gather at GOP hangout The Capitol Hill Club, near the RNC headquarters.
The party’s nomination rules have come under question lately, amid controversy surrounding Colorado’s caucuses, and Donald Trump complaining that the process is rigged. There has also been discussion of the process as it becomes increasingly likely that there will not be a clear-cut winner going into the Republican National Convention.
The Committee had said that the rules have been established and the process has been transparent, so it is unclear as to exactly what they plan on discussing at this meeting, or why there is a need for secrecy.
[Image via Christopher Halloran/Shutterstock]‘We’ve got the numbers and the big hitters,’ says ally of former shadow business secretary as pressure on Corbyn builds
Angela Eagle is expected to launch a bid for the Labour leadership on Thursday as Jeremy Corbyn continues to resist intense pressure to resign, including from his deputy.
She is expected to pledge to reunify the fractured party, which has been locked in a vicious internal battle since the weekend, when Corbyn sacked his shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, for plotting against him.
“We’ve got the numbers, we’ve got the big hitters, it will probably be [Thursday] afternoon,” said an ally of Eagle, the former shadow business secretary.
Earlier Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, became the most senior party figure to call on Corbyn to resign, intensifying the pressure on the embattled leader on a day of drama in Westminster.
“It’s a great tragedy,” Watson told the BBC. “He does have a members’ mandate, but those members who join a political party know that you also need a parliamentary mandate if you are to form a government.
“You have to have the authority of the members and your members of parliament, and I’m afraid he doesn’t have that with our MPs.”
Watson said he would not stand in any leadership election himself, apparently clearing the way for Eagle to mount her challenge.
However, Eagle’s local members may oppose her candidacy. The deputy chair of the Wallasey constituency Labour party, Paul Davis, told BBC North West Tonight: “Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t been given a chance to be a good leader.
“If you are being stabbed in the back all the time by your own people on the Labour benches it’s very hard to get your message across. So yes, I do think he’s a good leader.”
Watson said he had attempted to discuss the leadership issue with Corbyn, after his predecessors Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband added their voices to those calling for him to go, but the Labour leader had refused to engage in conversation about his future.
“I’m afraid Jeremy was not willing to discuss that with me,” he said. “I’m assuming that he remains in office. That’s where the situation stands.”
In other developments on Wednesday:
Earlier, Corbyn’s spokesman insisted that he would stand again if challenged, and would expect his name to appear automatically on the ballot.
Watson said: “I just think he feels very strongly that he has that mandate from the members. He holds less weight on parliamentary politics, and that’s where he is.
“He’s obviously been told to stay by John McDonnell [the shadow chancellor] and his team, and they’ve decided they’re going to tough this out. It looks like the Labour party is heading for some kind of contested election.”
Corbyn was also backed by 10 of Britain’s biggest trade unions. In a joint statement they said: “Jeremy Corbyn is the democratically elected leader of our party who secured such a resounding mandate less than 10 months ago under an electoral procedure fully supported by Labour MPs.
“His position cannot and should not be challenged except through the proper democratic procedures provided for in the party’s constitution. We urge all Labour MPs to abide by those procedures, and to respect the authority of the party’s leader.
“The only party that can win for working people is a strong and united Labour party.”
The signatories to the statement included the general secretaries of Unite, Unison, the GMB and Ucatt.
Speculation was rife among Labour MPs in Westminster that Corbyn was close to crumbling, after days of resignations and acrimony, and a vote of no confidence in which more than 80% of his MPs withheld their support. A letter signed on behalf of Labour’s 20 MEPs called for Corbyn to go.
But McDonnell said Corbyn would fight on and denied rumours that he was trying to persuade him to stand down. “Jeremy’s well up for it, he’s enjoying it,” he said.
He added that he expected Eagle to stand at some point in the future, but speculated that there may be some problem in filing the necessary papers because of infighting among Corbyn’s opponents.
“I will continue to support Jeremy. We have been friends for 30 years; if he stands again, I’ll be his campaign manager,” McDonnell said.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shadow chancellor John McDonnell vowed to stand alongside Corbyn. Photograph: Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images
Later at a pro-Corbyn rally in London on Wednesday evening, McDonnell described Monday’s parliamentary Labour party meeting at which the leader was urged to resign as “a lynch mob without a rope”.
“MP after MP urged Jeremy to resign on the basis that we could not win an election with him in office,” McDonnell said. “The irony is we were welcoming the winner of the Tooting by-election who doubled her majority.
“They used the referendum as a chance to mount a coup. What is happening is a very British coup going on. But I’ve been trying to explain to some members of the parliamentary Labour party that there’s an extremely recent Greek invention called democracy. This is a battle for democracy.”
In addition to McDonnell, the 200-strong crowd at the rally at the School of Oriental and African Studies was addressed by members of Young Labour and other students.
One student speaker said they were determined to make it “an annual event” to elect Corbyn back to the leadership of the Labour party, no matter what opposition he faced. Though the crowd were mostly students, there were older people as well as a family with young children holding pro-Corbyn banners.
Corbyn’s backers will now hope to win the argument at the national executive committee to have his name automatically included on the ballot paper for any contest, despite the fact that he is unlikely to muster the support of 50 MPs necessary for a candidate to secure a nomination.
The Norwich MP Clive Lewis, a Corbyn backer promoted to shadow defence secretary in the reshuffle held to replace the scores of resigning MPs, said: “I think, speaking to people in the parliamentary Labour party, everyone is desperate for a resolution to this, but I think it’s not acceptable for 170 people to dictate who should be on that ballot paper when there are hundreds of thousands of people who want him on there.”
• This article was amended on 30 June 2016. An earlier version said “All 20 of Labour’s MEPs signed a letter calling for Corbyn to go.” To clarify: the letter, representing the official position of Labour’s MEPs, was signed by the party’s leader in the European parliament, Glenis Willmott, on their behalf; 16 MEPs were present at the meeting that passed a motion about the sending of the letter, of whom 11 supported it and five voted against; four MEPs were not present.RIM Employee Stabbed at BlackBerry Party in London Has Died
A Research In Motion employee who was stabbed earlier this week at a London party hosted by the BlackBerry maker died on Sunday.
“It is with great sadness that we confirm a BlackBerry employee was the victim of the fatal attack in Southwark on April 3rd,” RIM said in a statement to AllThingsD. “We are all shocked by this news and deeply saddened.”
According to a Reuters report, the man was stabbed with a broken bottle at the event on Tuesday.
British police identified the man killed as Phillip Sherriff, 37, and said that 25-year-old Ashley Charles was in custody in connection with the stabbing.
“We are deeply saddened to hear our colleague has died as a result of the attack on Tuesday 3rd April,” RIM said on its U.K. Twitter page. “Our thoughts are with his family and those close to him and we ask for the respect of their privacy at this difficult time.”Mr Cheney has a history of heart problems and has a pacemaker
Former US Vice-President Dick Cheney has been taken to hospital in Washington after experiencing chest pains, his office has said.
They said Mr Cheney, 69, was "resting comfortably" at George Washington University Hospital and his doctors were evaluating the situation.
Mr Cheney, who left office in January last year, has a history of heart problems.
He has had four heart attacks and quadruple bypass surgery.
Hospital doctors told NBC News that the former vice-president was stable and may receive additional treatment on Tuesday.
The television network said that Mr Cheney had had an angiogram test so that doctors could look into his coronary arteries, and that the results showed he might need more treatment.
AFP reported that Mr Cheney was due to meet former US President George W Bush and other members of the Bush administration on Friday, for the first time since they left office in January 2009.
Mr Cheney has undergone several operations to clear blocked arteries and was fitted with a pacemaker in 2001.
In October 2008 he underwent treatment to correct an abnormal heart rhythm.His players implored him to belly-flop into a California hotel pool, and he complied -- at age 75. He once took a running plunge into the mud during a soppy game in Oregon. He adored when players pulled pranks on him, insisted players use his first name -- Frosty! -- and corrected them if they used "Coach."
He sometimes halted practice to have players spend five minutes gazing beyond the giant evergreens to Mount Rainier. He sometimes halted practice to have players go to other sporting fields and cheer on, say, the soccer team. He always halted two-a-day practices in August and instructed players to go help freshmen move into dormitories.
He believed deeply in singing. His players sang before games, after games. Sometimes they sang to the mock direction of the coach's cane. Always they learned to sing without embarrassment, for it had become uncool to refrain from the refrains. For his 300th win in September 2003, an offensive lineman led the team in James Taylor's "Steamroller." During warmups for the NCAA Division III national championship game in December 1999, right there on the field in Virginia, his players sang "The Twelve Days of Christmas," then proceeded to win 42-13.
Can you imagine warming up on the other side, then losing 42-13 to that?
During three of the best days of my career -- those in his company, in Tacoma, Wash., in 2003 -- he requested that I join his players for supper in their dining hall. Three of them drove me, in a pickup truck, back to my car. Along the way, they sang "Leaving on a Jet Plane."
"Why singing?" I asked the coach.
"When you sing," he said, "your consciousness is raised."
And lest you think this guy some Left Coast flake, let me hurl at you this biographical detail: former drill instructor, United States Marine Corps.
Did you know one of the most remarkable American coaches died on Friday? Did you know that Frosty Westering, who had 32 seasons at Pacific Lutheran without a losing record in any, who never mentioned playoffs or titles to his players but won four national championships and four runner-up finishes on two levels, died at 85 surrounded by his considerable family? Please know. Please, please know.
An airline pilot wrote to the university president. He wrote because the Pacific Lutheran presence on his airplane had taken a routine day and whipped it up into memorable. He wrote because Westering insisted his players respect other people's work. He wrote because that respect included rapt attention to the flight attendants, which in turn included a phenomenal sound that came when the players clicked their seat belts in unison.
He wrote because at the destination gate, the college football players had held back and lined up on two sides in a "go" tunnel so they could give high-fives to disembarking crew.
A janitor wrote to the university president. He wrote because when he came upon Pacific Lutheran's visiting locker room one postgame in Portland, he found the chairs lined up in impeccable order. He wrote because he found the floors and lockers completely free of the normal detritus. He found the place just about spotless.
He wrote because, when he arrived in the room, he found a note on the whiteboard suggesting he go home and join his wife by the Christmas tree.
A man in a wheelchair came to the "Afterglow," a Westering postgame concoction where a few hundred players, coaches and fans would gather in the bleachers. They might discuss the game. Players might thank the fans for support. Fans might thank the players for inspiration. Everyone would sing "Happy Birthday" to anyone with a birthday nigh. The "Afterglow" would happen after wins, but -- oh yes -- the "Afterglow" would happen also after losses, because in Westering's mind, losing meant you had just completed the privilege of playing.
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On a weekday after the "Afterglow," Westering happened upon the man in the wheelchair and invited him to practice. Soon after that, he made the man an assistant coach, and so John Nelson, a quadriplegic Singaporean-American born with a debilitating condition and spinal-cord problems, came to head up the freshmen players. And they, in turn, had to take on responsibilities for his care: dressing him, helping him eat, helping him go to the bathroom. Do you suppose that taught them anything?
By 2003, Nelson had lost count of |
DeBaun, 25
Kimberly Foster, 26
Heben Nigatu, 24
Anjelica Nwandu, 25
Doreen St. Félix, 23
Zim Ugochukwu, 27
Education
Constance Iloh, 28
Social Entrepreneurs
Alexandria Lafci, 26
Catherine Mahugu, 27
Nedgine Paul, 29
Law & Policy
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Forbes released their annual 30 Under 30 lists to kick off the year. Each year the editors choose 600 young people in 20 categories that they feel are doing extraordinary work in the fields. This year, Black women represented in 10 of the 20 categories.s editor-in-chief was chosen for the media category. Take a look at the dynamic black women below.Fashion DesignerBorn in Haiti and raised in Atlanta, Jean-Pierre debuted her line in 2012. Michelle Obama wore one of her dresses on the cover of Essence and Solange Knowles is a fan. This spring Jean-Pierre showed knit white dresses accented with long fringe hanging from a flowing silhouette.Photo: Courtesy of Azede Jeanne-PierreFashion Designer, The CratedThe first fashion designer to be picked as a recipient of the $100,000 Thiel fellowship, Maxey dropped out of Parsons after one semester. In 2013 she founded The Crated, a design and engineering studio that makes clothes that incorporate technology, like a black dress, funded by Google and designed by Zac Posen, infused with multicolored LED lights.Photo: Spencer KohnMusicianBorn to a drug-addicted single mother the Oakland, CA, native was first exposed to R&B while living with an aunt. After an injury paused her dance career, she began singing and ended up a finalist on America’s Got Talent with band Poplyfe in 2011. Four years later, Kehlani inked a deal with Atlantic Records.Photo: 2014 Roger KisbyActor-SingerZendaya is the latest triple threat from the Mouse House. The monomynous teen got her start in Disney Channel's "Shake It Up" and released her self-titled musical debut in 2013. With a shoe line and a Timbaland-produced album in the works, the burgeoning style icon (36 million+ followers) has a busy future.Photo: Disney Channel/Craig SjodinCofounder, PartpicAn entrepreneur from a family of entrepreneurs, Burks began her career at Google before her grandmother’s breast cancer diagnosis led her to decide to move back home to Atlanta. There, she took a job working at McMaster-Carr, a top U.S. industrial parts distributor. But when it came to hunting down supplies from its stock of 550,000 products, it was a far cry from what she was used to at the search giant. “I was surprised that there was this huge company that was having fails in their technology on a daily basis,” she says. “I wanted to create a better way.”That experience spurred her to create PartPic, which allows customers to use a smartphone to search for a needed part using computer vision technology and order it quickly. She cofounded the company with Jason Crain, another former Googler, who was working at Shazam, along with the help of a few Georgia Tech programmers. The pair has raised $1.5 million to date but their biggest validation was meeting President Obama this summer for the first-ever White House Demo Day.Photo: Jamel Toppin For ForbesFounder, Ellis Island Tropical TeaSix years ago, she was living in her mother's basement and selling an old Jamaican family recipe for tea out of the trunk of her car. 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Blavity is set on providing a platform just for them. Founded in 2014, the site brings in nearly 1 million visitors a month, the cofounders have also launched extensions like Blavity Life Style.Founder, For HarrietInitially launched by Foster when she was an undergrad at Harvard, For Harriet, a online community for women of color, now consists of five web properties. Foster, who is founder and editor-in-chief, also scours the Internet for personal blogs, listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos to find dynamic black women to work with.Senior Editor, BuzzfeedAlong with Tracy Clayton, Nigatu co-hosts the popular and influential BuzzFeed podcast Another Round. The show, which has monthly listener numbers in the hundreds of thousands, has already attracted a slew of high profile guests, like Hillary Clinton.Founder, The Shade RoomNwandu has revolutionized celebrity gossip with The Shade Room, which the New York Times recently dubbed "the TMZ of Instagram." The site, which was initially published anonymously only on Instagram, currently boasts 2.5 million followers and pulls in an additional 100,000 followers every 10 days.Editor-at-large, LennyPart of the launch team for Lena Dunham's Lenny newsletter, which included Lena Dunham, Jenni Konner, and former Jezebel writer Jessica Grose. They have already reached 400,000 subscribers. St. Félix also writes for The New Yorker, The New York Times, n+1, Pitchfork, Wags Revue and others. She also worked as a consultant on Steve McQueen's HBO pilot, Codes of Conduct.Founder, Travel NoireUgochukwu launched TravelNoire.com in 2013 after struggling to find images of young black travelers like herself on Instagram. The site now boasts a highly engaged social media presence with more than 180,000 Instagram followers, tools and tips to make traveling easier and a weekly online travel show, Travel Noire TV. Ugochukwu is at the forefront of what is being called the Black Travel Movement.Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Irvine School of EducationIloh, an incoming assistant professor at U.C. Irvine, offered a preview of her work at this year's Black Excellence in Higher Education summit sponsored by the White House. She's now a post-doctoral fellow exploring "narratives of the most underserved students and understudied sectors of postsecondary education," including for-profit and community colleges.Cofounders, New StoryNew Story collaborates with local partners to build homes for families in developing countries. So far, they’ve built 151 houses in Haiti. New Story takes pride in transparency – individuals see where every dollar they donate goes. It’s paying off; New Story received over $1.2 million in donations since last year.Founder, SokoSoko connects nearly 1000 sub-Saharan artisans' jewelry with the world while providing them a sustainable income. Within two months of starting work, the artisan’s incomes increase by four times. Soko sells their products online and in-store at retailers like Nordstrom and Anthropologie.Cofounder, Anseye Pou AyitiForty-three percent of the Haitian population is under the age of 15. That’s why Haitian-born Nedgine Paul has created a company that works to raise the education outcomes in disadvantaged areas of the country by recruiting and training local teachers for existing schoolsPhoto: Courtesy of Nedgine PaulHaben Girma, 27Staff Attorney, Disability Rights AdvocatesHaben Girma is a first generation immigrant, and Harvard Law's first deaf-blind lawyer. She was honored at White House for 25th anniversary of ADA, works in disability rights. She helped achieve a legal victory in National Federation of the Blind v. Scribd, the second case to hold that the ADA applies to e-commerce. She is a staff attorney at Disability Rights Advocates, and holds a BA from Lewis and Clark College, and a JD from Harvard Law School.Cold calling salespeople who bullied a farming couple with one home printer into buying enough ink to last them nearly 1700 years acted illegally, a tribunal has found.
The Melbourne-based office supplies company has been ordered by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal this week to pay more than $90,000 to the Queensland cattle farmers after it sold them more than 2000 printer ink cartridges.
James Murray, CEO of Corporate Office Supplies Credit:Facebook
The company's jet-setting CEO and owner regularly posts on social media showing how the business has helped fund his glamorous lifestyle, which includes BMW cars and nights out in Las Vegas.
Salespeople from Corporate Office Supplies began making multiple cold calls to the home of husband and wife Rod and Charmaine Sharp in mid 2015.On top of being considered one of the happiest and healthiest states in the U.S., Hawaii may have another added benefit for people from the mainland — its diverse environment can reduce prejudice the longer someone lives here.
A study released late last month finds that people from racially homogenous areas show a noticeable decrease in racist views after exposure to multiethnic communities.
As part of the study, 99 white University of Hawaii Manoa students from the mainland filled out a questionnaire before moving to the islands and again nine months later. They were asked about the number of nonwhites in their friend groups, whether they identified with a set of racist assumptions and whether they viewed race as a biological or social construction.
Cory Lum/Civil Beat
“The purpose of the study was to see, what are the factors that influence our thoughts about racism?” said Kristin Pauker, a UH associate professor of psychology who led the study.
“The primary thing that we saw change (at the end of the study) was how they thought about race,” Pauker said. They became less essentialist over that nine months, which I think is kind of cool because it does show that prejudice isn’t fixed, it’s something that can be changed.”
The Pod Squad Interviews The Study's Author Emily Dugdale/Civil Beat Pod Squad: Talking About Race In Hawaii October 17, 2017
Race essentialism refers to the tendency to believe that certain character traits are race-based. The study found that 66 percent of students reduced their race essentialism over the nine-month period.
An example of a racially essentialist view is the belief that Asians are naturally good at science and mathematics.
Students who participated in the survey were asked to answer on what level they agree with statements such as:
A person’s race is fixed at birth
Racial groups are primarily determined by biology
It’s possible to be a full member of more than one race
How a person is defined racially depends on the social context
Olivia Peterkin/Civil Beat
Those who strongly identified with the first two statements were more likely to have race essentialist views, and according to previous studies on the topic — people who have more of these views tend to have more prejudices and biases toward other ethnic groups.
According to the study, the decrease in race essentialist views could be directly affected by the increase in diverse interactions and friend groups.
Hawaii is unlike any other state because of its unique multicultural population; the Aloha State has the most multiethnic babies and interracial couples in the country.
Clement Bautista, director of the office of multicultural services at UH Manoa, said Hawaii is unique because its wealth of diversity in people and perspectives differs from neighborhood to neighborhood — and that’s just on Oahu.
“Coming here from outside Hawaii, you’re going to experience a different world,” Bautista said.
At the end of the nine-month period, the students were asked to fill out the same questionnaire, and exhibited a noticeable shift in the amount of answers that represented race essentialist views.
The study also said that a decline in race essentialist views can correspond with a decrease in racism and social dominance orientation, or one’s degree of preference for inequality among social groups, as well an increase in the ability to creatively solve problems, over time.
Pauker, who grew up on Oahu, says that while the outcome of the study looks positive in terms of the impact diversity has on perceptions of race, it’s important to note that the state is not without its vices in this area.
“The point of the paper wasn’t to say that Hawaii is perfect and that we don’t have issues with race relations,” Pauker said. “There still are issues.”shadawg Idiot Fanboy.
Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: S. NJ
Shocktech is back. Via Facebook: link to orignal post from Renick Miller via BBT/shocktech owners group
Renick Miller
5 hrs · Lansing, IL
We'll post this here first for our closest fans and players. You have probably noticed us asking your opinions periodically, here as well as speaking to many of you individually. Its not been to no end, rather than to see what direction Danny and i wanted to go. He has a fantastic career in another industry and a young family to tend to. I sold off our machines and shuttered our manufacturing years ago. Back when the wheels came off this whole industry.
But, we've been talking and he has decided he wants back in and of course i never left. Tried but, here i am. Now here he is as well.
We will start off round two with a classic line of parts and guns. All the great stuff you're familiar with, first up will be beaver tails followed closely by our original design.45 frame. After that who knows, you tell us what you want more of. You can certainly look forward to a new SFL as well as regs and other guns.
We are well aware of the value some collectors place in their inventory. Rest assured we won't do things to devalue your investment.
Another thing you can look forward to is more original designs. We don't, nor have we ever looked at another manufacturers design and taken it for our own. Not the look, not the function. Can we cut more weight from a body? Of course, will it handle Bruno landing on it after he bunkers someone? Can we thin out our frames? Yes, but will spuddy still be able to crash his way thru the palmettos at the world cup? That is the standard we build to, not some things, everything.
No wall hangers, just the cockers that have won more than all others combined ( except Bud of course because ultimately this is all his baby ).
Stay tuned, the Man is back.
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"The future is already here - it's just not very evenly distributed." Shadawg's Feedback https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forums/f...tml#post932780 Quote: the_chemist Originally Posted by "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull****" is my motto __________________Most single tenants renting privately in London are now paying more than half of their monthly salary on average to rent a one-bedroom property.
Research undertaken by the property website Sellhousefast.uk which analysed the latest data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) found that the average rent for a one-bedroom property in London is now almost £1,330 per month.
Despite having the highest costs of any housing type, the private rented sector has the worst property standards. In February 2016, it was reported that 60% of London renters are forced to live in unacceptable conditions. Private renters are also one of the most deprived groups with almost 25% of households at risk of fuel poverty.
ONS data revealed that single tenants in 25 of London’s 32 boroughs are spending more than half of their monthly salary – after income and council tax deductions – on rent for a one-bedroom property.
Unsurprisingly, housing affordability is worst in prime areas of the capital, with those renting a one-bedroom property in Kensington and Chelsea paying the equivalent of 85% of the average London monthly salary on rent.
The cheapest accommodation for single tenants was in the boroughs of Bromleywell and Havering with the average rental cost for a one-bedroom home coming in at 42% of monthly salary.
Robby Du Toit, managing director of Sell House Fast commented: “As demand has consistently exceeded supply over the last few years, Londoners have unfortunately been caught up in a very competitive property market where prices haven’t always reflected fair value. This notion is demonstrated through this research whereby private rental prices in London are certainly overstretching single tenants; to the extent they must sacrifice over half their monthly salary.
“For those single tenants with ambitions to climb up the property ladder – their intentions are painfully jeopardised, as they can’t set aside a sufficient amount each month to save up for a deposit or explore better alternatives. It’s not only distressing for them but worrying for the property market as a whole – where the ‘generation rent’ notion is truly continuing too spiral further.”The United States said Tuesday it would send another 800 troops to South Korea as the allies warned North Korea against any provocation, amid deepening worries over the regime's stability.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se (L) and US Secretary of State John Kerry deliver remarks to the media at the US State Department on January 7, 2014, in Washington, DC
Amid concern after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un executed his uncle, Secretary of State John Kerry met in Washington with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se and said there was "not a sliver of daylight" between the two countries.
"We will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state," Kerry said at a joint press appearance with Yun, rejecting a top demand of the communist dynasty.
"We remain fully committed to the defense of the Republic of Korea, including through extended deterrence and putting the full range of US military capabilities in place," Kerry said, referring to the South by its formal name.
"We will continue to modernize our capabilities so that we are prepared to face any threat," Kerry said.
The Pentagon said that the US Army would deploy another 800 soldiers, armored vehicles and tanks starting next month at camps Hovey and Stanley near the demarcation line with the North Korea.
The rotational deployment from the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment is part of the US strategic shift toward the Asia-Pacific region "and allows for greater responsiveness to better meet theater operational requirements," the Pentagon said in a statement.
Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said that the United States, which already has 28,500 troops in South Korea, would step up its presence through the decision but that the move had "been long planned."
"This is a plus-up," Warren told reporters. The "combat-ready" cavalry unit will serve a nine-month tour and leave behind its 40 Bradley armored fighting vehicles and 40 Abrams M1 tanks for troops that follow them, the Pentagon said.
Coordinating with China
South Korea and the United States watched in dismay as North Korea took the unprecedented step of publicly announcing the execution of Jang Song-Thaek -- young leader Kim's uncle and former mentor -- for an alleged plot.
While the circumstances remain murky, North Korea observers were stunned by the admission of dissent within the totalitarian state -- and voiced fear that the regime could try to renew unity by targeting the South.
Yun, who also visited the Pentagon, said that the United States and South Korea were closely consulting with China -- North Korea's closest ally -- on North Korea's nuclear weapons program and discussing the regime's "increasing volatility."
"In the event of any North Korean provocation, South Korea and the United States will firmly respond based on our robust combined defense posture," Yun told reporters.
"In addition to our actions, we will ensure that UN Security Council will take prompt measures which it deems necessary," he said.
Kerry voiced support for diplomatic efforts by South Korean President Park Geun-Hye, who has proposed a resumption of reunions of ageing families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War.
Park, while warning of dangers from the North, also said Monday that South Korea would increase humanitarian aid to North Korea via international organizations.
The fears of conflict come as basketball star Dennis Rodman pays a controversial visit to North Korea, where he will stage a game Wednesday to mark Kim's birthday.
Rodman has angrily rejected criticism of the trip, which comes as North Korea imprisons US missionary Kenneth Bae. The United States has said that Rodman is playing no official role.Wonder Woman’s golden lasso has a whole new purpose.
Six Flags Fiesta Texas announced Thursday that it will open the world’s first single-rail roller coaster, Wonder Woman Golden Lasso, next spring.
Unlike most steel roller coasters, which have two tracks and can be bumpier if the wheels aren’t perfectly aligned, the new ride will feature a single 15.5-inch wide steel bar, according to USA Today.
courtesy of Six Flags Entertainment
That construction means the ride can fit three people per row and use fewer supports. The ride will also feature two airtime hills, a 180-degree stall and a 90-degree plunge, according to the amusement park’s website.
“I expect it to be crazy smooth,” Six Flags VP Larry Chickola told USA Today. “And crazy fun. There will be extremely quick twists and turns — quicker and smoother than regular coasters.”
Six Flags already has a few super hero-themed rollercoasters including the Batman: The Ride and Superman:Krypton Coaster.
Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot, came out earlier this summer and has already pulled in more than $700 worldwide — breaking the record for the highest-grossing film directed by a woman. And earlier this month, DC announced that the sequel will hit theaters in Dec. 2019.
Write to Julia Zorthian at julia.zorthian@time.com.There will be posturing.
There will be statistics. There will be anger, real and manufactured. Nevertheless today's Commons debate on capping the level of welfare benefits for the next three years marks a defining moment.
In the blue corner, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith. who has spent the run-up to this debate telling anyone who'll listen that his Government's welfare reforms are about fairness, backing strivers against scroungers.
In the red, the Labour opposition, wobbling on a self-imposed tightrope between protecting the vulnerable while promising to be tough on reluctant jobseekers.
And, in the middle, the bulk of a bruised and battered British public wondering if there's a chance of a lifeboat any time soon to take them off the SS Austerity and ferry them to something resembling financial security.
If nothing else, this debate has highlighted the value of relentless propaganda. Until now the historical wisdom was that tough times brought a lessening of knee-jerk hostility to people living on benefits.
As more and more people found out the shocking reality of benefit rates for themselves when they lost jobs, it tended to bust the myth that life on the dole was feather-bedded.
Nevertheless a TUC poll last week found a majority of people thought benefits were much higher than they are, and supposed that the fattest chunk of them went on the jobless. It's 3%, as it happens. And, thanks to the relentless reporting of the antics of a few rogue families, respondents supposed more than a quarter of claims were fraudulent. True statistic? 0.7%. Most cash wrongly spent goes not in fraud but department error.
The strategy, says Julian Unwin of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, seems to have been to create a divide between the poor and the very poor. The foundation has flagged up the astonishing news that for the first time – minus pensioners – there is more poverty among working households than workless ones. So the perceptions found in the TUC poll may alter when the cost of the cap, and all the other cuts due, begin to impact on a much wider spectrum of families.
The Resolution Foundation, an independent number cruncher, has worked out that 60% of those affected will be working people on low incomes. People like single-parent nurses, and soldiers who rely on working family tax credits to keep their heads not very far above water.
Difficult to characterise either as workshy, you might suppose. But then the hallmark of this Coalition has always been a facility to look through the wrong end of the telescope. Consider its plans to cap the total amount of benefits any one family can claim. Sounds perfectly sensible does it not?
It's when you start to unpick it that the logic unravels. The housing benefit bill in places like London has burgeoned largely because unregulated landlords found housing benefit a very profitable way of charging ludicrous amounts for basic property. But rather than crack down on that scam, some councils have deported families to other regions of England distant from schools, families and friends.
Welfare is not a devolved matter, so these are issues which profoundly affect Scotland too.
The Scottish Government, which has just set up a panel to examine "Scottish values" in terms of how welfare should work, has given Scottish councils £40 million to help offset cuts to council tax benefit and put £9m into a crisis fund.
But the scale of hit that families will take can be gauged from the fact that even before today's proposed benefit cap, £2.5 billion will come out of Scottish household incomes thanks to the "reforms" already in place.
According to Rowntree's Julia Unwin, in just eight years' time, one in four families in the UK will be in poverty. That is a truly mind-boggling prospect for a supposedly civilised group of comparatively wealthy nations.
There are other pathways to reform available. Taking many more low-waged people out of tax whilst increasing the rates for those well able to pay more; offering a living rather than a minimum wage to remove more people from benefit need; clawing back aggressively-avoided and evaded tax; addressing the ongoing scandal of obscene bonuses and top executive pay levels.
A successful society can only be built on fairness. To suggest today's proposals are about that is simply disgraceful.Thomas Cat is a fictional character and one of the title characters (the other being Jerry Mouse) in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's series of Tom and Jerry theatrical animated short films. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Tom is a grey and white anthropomorphic domestic short haired Tuxedo cat who first appeared in the 1940 MGM animated short Puss Gets the Boot. Tom was known as "Jasper" during his debut in the short;[1] however, beginning with his next appearance in The Midnight Snack he was known as "Tom" or "Thomas".
History [ edit ]
Tom and Jerry cartoons [ edit ]
His name, "Tom Cat", is based on "tomcat", a phrase which refers to male cats. He is very rarely heard speaking with the exception of a few cartoons (such as 1943's The Lonesome Mouse, 1944's The Zoot Cat and 1992's Tom and Jerry: The Movie). His only notable vocal sounds outside of this are his various screams whenever he is subject to pain or panic. He is continuously after Jerry Mouse, for whom he sets traps, many of which backfire and cause damage to him rather than Jerry. His trademark scream was provided by creator William Hanna.
Tom has changed over the years upon his evolution, especially after the first episodes. For example, in his debut, he was quadrupedal. However, over the years (since the episode Dog Trouble), he has become almost completely bipedal and has human intelligence and he is similar to his previous appearance, in 1945 shorts he had twisted whiskers and his appearance kept changing. In the 1940s and early 1950s, he had white fur between his eyes. In newer cartoons, the white fur is gone. As a slapstick cartoon character, Tom has a superhuman level of elasticity. Tom is usually defeated (or very rarely, killed, like in Mouse Trouble, where he explodes) in the end, although there are some stories where he outwits and defeats Jerry.
Tom has variously been portrayed as a malicious tormentor and a victim of Jerry's blackmail attempts, sometimes within the same short.
Anchors Aweigh and Dangerous When Wet [ edit ]
Tom and Jerry appeared together in the 1945 Technicolor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical Anchors Aweigh where Tom briefly appears as a butler for King Jerry, the latter who has a dance sequence with Gene Kelly, and also in another musical with the same studio Dangerous When Wet (1953), where, in a dream sequence, main character Katie Higgins (Esther Williams) does an underwater ballet with Tom and Jerry, as well as animated depictions of the different people in her life.
Voice actors [ edit ]
Tom has a had a number of different voice actors over the years. When the character debuted in Puss Gets the Boot, Clarence Nash (best known as the voice of Donald Duck) provided the screeches and meows for Tom. He would continue to do so until Sufferin Cats (1943). Beginning with the short The Night Before Christmas (1941), co-creator William Hanna provided the vocal effects for the character until the last Hanna-Barbera short Tot Watchers (1958). During this time period, voice actor Harry E. Lang also did some vocal noises for Tom between 1941–1953. Billy Bletcher also voiced him in a few shorts between 1944–1947. Stepin Fetchit also voiced him in a sequence in the short Mouse Cleaning (1948). In 1961–1962, when Gene Deitch took over as director after the MGM cartoon studio shut down in 1957, Allen Swift did vocal effects for Tom throughout that time period. When Chuck Jones took over during 1963–1967, Mel Blanc (best known for voicing Bugs Bunny and other characters) voiced Tom.
In The Tom and Jerry Show (1975), Tom was voiced by John Stephenson. Frank Welker and Lou Scheimer voiced him in The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show in 1980–1982. Welker also voiced him in Tom and Jerry Kids in 1990–1994. Other voice actors include Richard Kind (in Tom and Jerry: The Movie), Jeff Bennett (in Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring), Bill Kopp (in Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars and Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry), Don Brown (in Tom and Jerry Tales), Alan Marriott (in Tom and Jerry in Fists of Furry), and Marc Silk (in Tom and Jerry in War of the Whiskers). In The Tom and Jerry Show (2014 TV series) his vocal effects are provided by archival recordings of William Hanna, Harry E. Lang, and Mel Blanc from the original theatrical shorts.
Popular culture [ edit ]
Tom and Jerry were planned to appear as a cameo in the deleted scene "Acme's Funeral" from the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Tom has been the source of erotic fan fiction predominantly written by Bobcat Goldthwait.[1]
See also [ edit ]Like many UC Berkeley students, Aaron Glover is overworked. He’s got a full schedule of classes as an integrative biology major, holds down a job at the campus library and fills his off hours with homework.
But at the end of the day, instead of heading back to a home in Berkeley, Glover faces another exhausting task: a 30-mile commute to Benicia by bus, BART and car. He spends 2½ hours a day commuting.
With housing prices sky-high in an ultracompetitive market, Glover can’t afford to live near where he goes to school — so he’s staying with his parents. He’s one of many UC Berkeley students who, given the alternative of paying bloated housing costs for a tiny living space, are commuting from afar.
“It’s been a big strain on me,” said Glover, who transferred to Berkeley last year from Napa Valley College. “My first year, I looked back on all the hours I had just wanted to read my textbook and study and make sure I understood the homework. It just never happened.... It’s emotionally taxing.”
Rents for studio and one-bedroom apartments in Berkeley increased by more than 20 percent from 2014 to 2015, according to city data. The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $2,400 a month, a $250 leap from last year.
According to Nick Traylor, a division manager for Berkeley’s rent stabilization program, when a lease turns over, students’ rents can rise $500 to $1,000 a month.
“This is a long-term crisis,” said Karen Chapple, a UC Berkeley professor of city and regional planning. “Unless we take definitive action, it will be much worse in 10 years.”
Berkeley provides on-campus housing for all incoming freshmen and new transfer students, but after that first year, most students must find their own places to stay, often off campus. Not everyone succeeds.
Kevin Sabo, former president of the UC Student Association, spent a semester homeless because he couldn’t afford to pay rent.
“It totally turned the hierarchy of needs on its head,” Sabo said. “I can... be homeless because I need textbooks and I need to pay tuition.”
In fall 2014, he slept at a friend’s apartment free of charge. On nights that he couldn’t stay with his friend, he would sleep in his car or in UC Berkeley’s student government offices.
“We’ve been trying to get folks to realize that this is an extensive problem,” said Sabo, who graduated in 2016 with a degree in peace and conflict studies. “This is a full-blown crisis that a sizable percent of students are dealing with.”
UC Berkeley spokeswoman Janet Gilmore said the campus is well aware that housing is a top concern for students, especially given the cost of living in the Bay Area.
“We are committed to doing everything that we can to assist new and continuing students with their housing needs,” she said in an email.
UC Berkeley estimates housing costs for students living off-campus to be $7,546 for the school year. A 2015 study by the real estate website Trulia estimated the true cost to be $12,375, assuming two students shared a two-bedroom apartment.
It’s not just cost of rent — it’s availability of housing for students. UC Berkeley and the 10-campus UC system have turned their attention to housing in recent years.
UC Berkeley is building a new dorm on the south side of campus to house 770 students by fall 2018. UC plans to add 14,000 more beds systemwide by 2020, President Janet Napolitano said in January.
UC Berkeley welcomed an additional 750 students to campus this fall. To accommodate the growth, for the first time 100 students will be housed in Oakland, at Mills College and Holy Names University. The universities will shuttle the students to and from campus free of charge.
Still, many students think taking on the housing crisis will require a greater effort from both the city and university. Graduate student Tyler Barnum, chair of the Graduate Assembly’s Housing Committee, suggested loans to help students with security deposits and moving stipends, and urged more construction of new housing.
Junior Tyler Long and his roommate had to pay $9,000 to secure an apartment for the school year. They rent a two-bedroom apartment in West Berkeley for $3,000 a month. To sign a lease, they had to pay first month’s rent plus a $6,000 security deposit. Long said he dipped into his savings and asked family members for help to gather enough cash. He and his roommate converted their living room into a bedroom and are renting it to a third student to reduce their monthly costs.
Barnum said hefty fees up front to sign a lease can be severe barriers to entry for students who are apartment hunting. Half of UC Berkeley graduate students spend about 50 percent of their income on housing, according to Barnum. One in 5 spend 65 percent of their income on housing.
“The main sacrifice students make coming to Berkeley is their financial stability.... We’re hitting a ceiling where grad students can’t pay any more to live in Berkeley,” Barnum said. “We’re going to be losing people at Berkeley — they will go elsewhere.”
Stress about housing has many at Berkeley unable to focus on student life. Rachel Regelein, a UC Berkeley senior studying Egyptian archaeology, has commuted from her Santa Cruz home for her entire time as a Berkeley student. She and her husband share a studio for $900 a month. The couple couldn’t find comparable rents anywhere around campus or in the greater Bay Area.
Regelein spends some nights sleeping at a friend’s apartment in Berkeley, and three or four days a week commuting, often spending five hours in the car for a single day of school.
“If it’s a commute day, there’s no way I will get any homework done, I am so exhausted. It cuts down on the hours of productivity I have,” Regelein said. “Plus being away from home a couple nights a week is hard on my family. It’s been a big sacrifice.”
UC Berkeley senior Katie Revilla also decided to commute rather than struggle to pay for housing. She drives every morning from her parents’ home in Manteca (San Joaquin County) or her brother’s house in San Jose, often hitting rush-hour traffic and rarely staying around to see friends or study on campus.
“I’m focused on everything else besides school, and it’s taking away from my experience of being a student,” Revilla said. “Just trying to find a place to live and the commute, I’m exhausted.”
Libby Rainey is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: metro@sfchronicle.comDoppelganger: Irish father can't tell daughter and Swedish teenager apart BelfastTelegraph.co.uk An Irish student is the latest person to find her doppelganger after meeting a Swedish teen so alike, her own father admits to not being able to tell the pair apart. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/news/doppelganger-irish-father-cant-t |
where I’m coming from. That “port” isn’t even a port. It’s a defecation of coding with Mega Man’s franchise title on it. The sprites are crap and look like they were made in Flash by an amateur. The backdrops are stapled in and make it seem like zero progress is being made in the stage. Finally, the gameplay with the touch buttons is mostly unresponsive and very trying. With the first torrent of screen shots for Mega Man XOver, it is very easy to get the same feeling. Everything looks the same minus the brand new “Mega Man” robot, who sports a feathery boa.
I think the worst part is the inclusion of the Auto Play button and Skip feature for boss battles. That is just… wow. Is it a game or an animated movie at this point?
Is this really the best Capcom can do for the 25th Anniversary of Mega Man, one of their longest running franchises? I’m sure this won’t be the only thing we get for the 25th, but with the way things are going right now it is safe to say that it might be. There are countless fans crying out for more Mega Man but this isn’t what they want. It makes the situation even worse when you cancel multiple games, ignore the fans, give cryptic updates on the franchise, and then come out with something no one asked for. Mega Man XOver. Where is X9? Battle Network 7? Star Force 4? Mega Man 11? Command Mission 2? Zero 5? ZX 3? You know, the titles fans are wanting?
While it should be a great thing to see a new Mega Man game right now, this just goes to frustrate me and what seems to be most of the people talking about this announcement. One of the first things I see being said in comment sections around the internet is “why?” and I echo that 110%. If you aren’t going to listen to fans and give some effort (effort at least past some new art and Flash-like sprites) then don’t do anything at all. Capcom is just making this whole thing more of a mess.
Listen, I like Capcom. I’ve been playing their games since i started playing video games. Mega Man was one of the first titles I ever played as a kid. I’ve stayed with the franchise since and it hurts to see the way the Blue Bomber is right now. We’re still holding on, Capcom. Why do you hate money? Listen to the fans. There are obviously tons of us. You satisfied your craving for a new IP with the successful Dragon’s Dogma. You celebrated Street Fighter’s 25th Anniversary greatly. Don’t do more injustice to Mega Man.
Sincerely,
Mega Man’s fandom, which grows more restless every day.
0 SharesRuth Ben-Ghiat is a frequent contributor to CNN Opinion and a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. Her latest book is "Italian Fascism's Empire Cinema." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) We're not even two weeks into the Trump presidency. Has your head exploded yet? If so, you're right where Donald Trump and our shadow ruler, Steve Bannon, want you to be.
The onslaught of executive orders and threatening talk, while entirely in keeping with what Trump promised during the campaign, have left Americans of many political leanings feeling overwhelmed and fearful of what may come next.
The confusion and chaos generated at the bureaucratic and individual level by Trump's most spectacular executive order -- his ban of individuals from selected predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States -- came in part from its sudden announcement. From enforcers to the public, many were thrown off guard.
Welcome to the shock event, designed precisely to jar the political system and civil society, causing a disorientation and disruption among the public and the political class that aids the leader in consolidating his power.
Those who still refuse to take Trump seriously cite his incompetence for the rough start in office. Yet this blitzkrieg was intentional. "Get used to it. @POTUS is a man of action and impact... Shock to the system. And he's just getting started" his counselor Kellyanne Conway tweeted Saturday.
Get used to it. @POTUS is a man of action and impact.
Promises made, promises kept.
Shock to the system.
And he's just getting started https://t.co/AoUsZWClXt — Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) January 28, 2017
As Conway implies, these first days of the Trump administration could be considered a prologue to a bigger drama, and one that reflects the thinking of Trump and Bannon alike. From their actions and pronouncements, we cannot exclude an intention to carry out a type of coup.
Many may raise their eyebrows at my use of this word, which brings to mind military juntas in faraway countries who use violence and the element of surprise to gain power. Our situation is different. Trump gained power legally but this week has provided many indications that his inner circle intends to shock or strike at the system, using the resulting spaces of chaos and flux to create a kind of government within the government: one beholden only to the chief executive.
"Strike at the enemy at a time and place or in a manner for which he is unprepared," reads one US Air Force formulation of the old military doctrine of surprise. Trump has long been an advocate of this tactic and complained various times during the campaign that our armed forces were far too transparent about their planned operations.
Yet Bannon is the mastermind of this takeover strategy as it's been adapted to the domestic realm. Well-versed in military tactics and the history of the radical left and right, Bannon has repeatedly talked about "destroying the state" in the name of securing power for "an insurgent, center-right populist movement that is virulently anti-establishment."
Besieging your targets until nothing makes any sense -- giving them no time to absorb or recover from attacks -- is a time-tested strategy in the history of war and authoritarian takeovers. One might cite what's gone on in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
It's now being employed at the pinnacle of American democracy. It's particularly useful in situations where the leader is vulnerable due to possible investigations, blackmails or other circumstances that close off gradualist approaches to implementing an agenda. With all the emergencies going on, who is bothered at the moment about those Trump tax returns, or even his ties to Russia?
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Second is the unleashing of the political purges that authoritarians so love. Some purges are punitive (say the firing of acting Attorney General Sally Yates because she defied Trump's immigration order) and some pre-emptive (the expulsion of senior State Department staff) but the effect is to cleanse the government of troublemakers and leave a power vacuum to be filled with loyalists -- or not filled at all, for added disruption of the state bureaucracy.
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Trump campaigned on a platform of unifying the nation, but by striking at the state he and Bannon intend to turn us against each other.
Their blitzkrieg not only throws us off balance but forces us to take sides. Do I work for Trump or leave the government? Do I issue a statement that my company disapproves of the travel ban? What will my shareholders and stakeholders think? It's no accident that the World War II language of resistance and collaboration has come back into circulation -- these are the situations authoritarians create to divide us, making it easier for them to restrict our freedoms.The powerhouse team of lawyers assigned to the multi-pronged federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election has expanded to include 15 members.
Plucked from the Justice Department and white-collar law firms by special counsel Robert Mueller, the attorneys boast years of experience prosecuting cases involving national security, fraud, money laundering, cybercrime and espionage. There are experts in witness-flipping, Russia, organized crime and public corruption. Several have worked with Mueller in the past.
Though the team is holed up away from the public eye in their office in the Patrick Henry Building on Washington, D.C.’s D Street, their previous work experience offers a window into where the investigation into Russia’s attempts to influence the election outcome—and whether any members of the Trump campaign assisted that effort or committed any financial crimes—could be headed.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel, confirmed that the following 13 lawyers have been publicly identified out of the 15-member team, and told TPM that more were “in the pipeline.”
Here’s what we know about the legal team Mueller has assembled thus far:
ANDREW WEISSMANN
Most recently the chief of the Justice Department’s fraud section, Weissmann joins Mueller’s team with decades of experience prosecuting cases involving organized crime, corporate misconduct and criminal fraud.
Some of the blockbuster cases he has taken the lead on include the prosecution of executives from now-defunct energy company Enron for their elaborate schemes to conceal their firm’s financial woes, and his conviction of members of the Gambino, Colombo and Genovese crime families as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn.
In the 1990s, Weissmann worked on a case involving Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman with organized crime connections who would go on to become a business associate of Trump’s. Weissmann signed a deal Sater struck to become a government informant after he pleaded guilty in a $40 million fraud scheme, according to the Financial Times.
Weissmann is also renowned for his expert in flipping witnesses, as Reuters has reported—a skill that could come in handy as the special counsel team tries to determine if anyone associated with the Trump campaign colluded with Russian operatives.
MICHAEL DREEBEN
The Justice Department’s deputy solicitor general is working part-time on the special counsel investigation, where he brings decades of experience in criminal law.
Dreeben has argued over 100 cases before the Supreme Court, and represented the federal government on cases including the public corruption probe into former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R).
His addition to Mueller’s team was “widely seen as a sign that Mueller was investigating possible criminal violations by President Donald Trump or others,” according to the National Law Journal.
JAMES QUARLES III
Quarles kicked off his career working as an assistant special prosecutor on the special prosecution force investigating the Watergate scandal. After that investigation ended with the conviction of several of President Richard Nixon’s top aides for various abuses of power, Quarles joined the white-shoe D.C. law firm WilmerHale in the mid-1970s.
JEANNIE RHEE
Another WilmerHale veteran, like Mueller himself, Rhee has extensive experience working on criminal investigations. As a young lawyer, she served as an assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia, where she prosecuted Washington Teachers Union officials who embezzled some $5 million.
Rhee later served as deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s office of legal counsel and, in private practice, focused on advising clients who were the subjects of federal investigations. Some of Rhee’s most high-profile cases involve the Clintons: She was on the legal team representing the Clinton Foundation in a racketeering lawsuit brought by Freedom Watch, a litigious conservative advocacy group, and represented Hillary Clinton in a lawsuit that sought to obtain access to her private emails.
Rhee, like several other special counsel attorneys including Quarles and Weissman, has been criticized for donating to political campaigns for Democratic politicians including Clinton and former president Barack Obama.
AARON ZEBLEY
A former FBI special agent on counterterrorism cases and assistant U.S. attorney in the National Security and Terrorism Unit, Zebley has had a long working relationship with Mueller. He served as Mueller’s chief of staff during his tenure at the FBI and then worked alongside him as a partner at WilmerHale.
Prior to joining WilmerHale, Zebley worked as senior counsel in the DOJ’s national security division. His expertise is in national security, terrorism and violent crime cases.
BRANDON VAN GRACK
Van Grack is a veteran prosecutor in the counterespionage section of the DOJ’s national security division. In two recent cases, Van Grack helped prosecute a former government contractor who stole classified national defense documents and a computer hacker who provided the Islamic State with the names and contact information of over 1,000 government and military workers.
Van Grack had led a grand jury inquiry in the Eastern District of Virginia into ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn’s lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, which reportedly has since been picked up by Mueller.
RUSH ATKINSON
A trial attorney in the fraud section of the DOJ’s criminal division, Atkinson has worked on complex cases involving corporate malfeasance. Earlier this year, he helped indict a former top executive at Bankrate Inc., a financial services company, for manipulating the company’s statements and artificially inflating its earnings.
ANDREW GOLDSTEIN
Goldstein joins the special counsel team from his post as head of the public corruption unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York. Under former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, a frequent critic of the administration who was fired by Trump earlier this year, the office burnished its reputation for aggressively prosecuting cases involving white-collar crime and public corruption.
Goldstein was a prosecutor on the team that convicted longtime State Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver and other members of the state government of public corruption, according to the New York Times. He has experience working on money laundering and asset forfeiture cases.
ZAINAB AHMAD
An assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York, Ahmad served as the deputy chief of the national security and cybercrime section. As the New Yorker documented in a recent profile, Ahmad successfully prosecuted 13 international terrorism suspects for the U.S. government without losing a single case.
Some of her biggest cases include the prosecution of a Pakistani al-Qaeda operative planning a terrorist attack on a U.K. shopping center and of a Nigerian citizen convicted of providing material support to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
ELIZABETH PRELOGAR
An assistant to the solicitor general’s office, Prelogar previously clerked for Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan and worked in private practice at Hogan Lovells.
She appears to be fluent in Russian from her undergraduate and graduate studies, and served as a Fulbright Scholar in Russia, as the National Law Journal reported.
LISA PAGE
Page developed experience in money laundering and organized crime cases during her tenure as a trial attorney in the DOJ’s organized crime and gang section. She prosecuted a member of the Lucchese organized crime family and Bulgarian nationals who conducted a money laundering scheme using fake eBay ads.
ADAM JED
Jed has worked for the DOJ since 2010, most recently in the civil division, according to the National Law Journal. He defended the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive insurance requirement on behalf of the federal government in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Sebelius, and received an exceptional service award from the DOJ for helping implement the Supreme Court decision that effectively legalized gay marriage.
AARON ZELINSKY
An experienced line prosecutor who has worked on organized crime cases, Zelinsky has spent the past three years working as as assistant U.S. Attorney in Maryland under Rod Rosenstein, who is now the deputy attorney general overseeing the special counsel probe. Zelinsky has taught constitutional and national security law at Peking University and the University of Maryland, respectively.ORLANDO — The A.F.L.-C.I.O., the nation’s largest federation of unions, has issued an apparent endorsement of the Keystone XL oil pipeline — apparent because it enthusiastically called for expanding the nation’s pipeline system, without specifically mentioning Keystone.
And while some union leaders said the federation’s stance stopped short of an official endorsement, the nation’s building trades unions — eager for the thousands of jobs the pipeline would create — issued a statement saying the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s stance was a clear endorsement of the Keystone pipeline.
The labor federation’s embrace of the pipeline, even with some ambiguity, will give President Obama some political cover as he weighs whether to approve the pipeline, which would carry more than 700,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil each day to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.
But the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s move is likely to strain the alliances that organized labor has sought to build with the environmental groups that are battling the pipeline.Sometimes it makes sense to not cut a good player.
That’s what the Miami Dolphins are thinking now because the team has decided not to cut left tackle Branden Albert, after all.
Although the team had made a decision to release the 32-year-old veteran, spoke to him Thursday morning to break the news, and Albert told his agents he was out, the plans changed sometime Thursday afternoon.
So when the league deadline to report transactions came and went at 4 p.m., Albert was not on the transaction list.
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Branden Albert remains with the Miami Dolphins.
Why?
Per a league source with knowledge of the issue, it seems there is sudden and significant interest from at least one and perhaps other teams in acquiring Albert. And that being the case, the Dolphins are apparently going to pause and assess the possibilities.
This doesn’t mean Albert will be with the Dolphins in 2017.
That is not the plan. The Dolphins still expect to position second-year player Laremy Tunsil into their starting left tackle job.
But if the Dolphins can gain something for Albert, that would obviously be the smart thing to do.
This pause, by the way, comes with no certainty. If a trade happens, the earliest it could be consummated is March 9, the first day of the league year and the first day the 2017 trading period.
SHARE COPY LINK Miami Dolphins tackle Branden Albert talks about starting the season uninjured and getting his mental and physical game together at the Miami Dolphins training facility in Davie, Florida on Mon., Aug. 8, 2016.
If no trade can be worked out, Albert would be cut and become a free agent.
One thing: This issue is a complex matter that obviously involves the player’s wishes. For Albert to be traded, he’d have to be comfortable reporting to the new team.
And why, one might ask, would a team trade for Albert if the Dolphins’ early intentions were to cut him anyway?
Simple: A team trading for Albert gets a starting caliber left tackle. And the new team is buying certainty.
If Albert becomes a free agent, multiple teams are likely to bid for his services and there is no certainty he’ll end up with any one particular team.
Bottom line: Branden Albert remains a Miami Dolphin for now.Jordy Smith's injury at last year's Pipe Masters was the first in a string of setbacks, making his return to competition something of a triumph. WSL / Kirstin Scholtz
After a year in which he's been plagued by injury, Jordy Smith (ZAF) is determined to finish his season on his feet. The South African missed five of the last six Championship Tour (CT) events, but will compete in all three of the Vans Triple Crown contests which include two Qualifying Series events, the Hawaiian Pro and the Vans World Cup, as well as the last CT event of the season, the Billabong Pipe Masters.
Smith's ongoing injury woes make his return to competition all the more meaningful. His setbacks began almost exactly a year ago, at the 2014 Pipe Masters, when he injured his shoulder. He came back for 2015's opening contests in Australia but had to bow out of the third stop, the Drug Aware Margaret River Pro, with a deep cut in his foot and a meniscus tear in his knee.
He competed at the event that followed, the Oi Rio Pro in May, but later reflected that he wasn't 100 percent recovered. Smith opted out of the Fiji Pro in June but paddled out for July's J-Bay Open in South Africa. But after the first round there, he left the water with back pain, and walked up the beach visibly uncomfortable. That last injury kept him out of competition for the rest of the season -- until now.
From Smith's Instagram: Can't wait to throw a jersey back on... Really excited for Hawaii #23 WSL
The good news for Smith is that no matter how he fares in Hawaii, he'll have the opportunity to be considered for a WSL Wildcard spot on the 2016 CT roster. The good news for Smith's fans is that they'll finally get to see the powerful pro back in the water.
Watch his return to competition starting Thursday, November 12, at the first event of the Vans Triple Crown, the Hawaiian Pro. Watch here and on the WSL app.Story highlights Police don't elaborate on how they confirmed the identification of the body
No family stepped forward so body will be handed over to Malaysian Health Ministry
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) Malaysian police have confirmed that a man killed last month at Kuala Lumpur's airport was Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the country's top police official told reporters Friday.
"We have fulfilled the requirement of the laws on his identification," said Khalid Abu Bakar, inspector general of the Royal Malaysia Police.
He declined to elaborate on how police confirmed the man's identity, citing the security and safety of witnesses. It marks the first time police have officially confirmed the victim is indeed Kim Jong Nam.
Asked if Kim's relatives had been notified about the positive identification, the police chief replied: "Yes, we have already informed the relatives, so it seems no one is taking (the body)."
He said police will hand Kim's body over to the Malaysian Health Ministry since no one has claimed it.
Read More1 Francis Coquelin
Dietmar Hamann has told talkSPORT Arsenal could win the Premier League title this season – if Francis Coquelin reproduces his form of last term.
The 24-year-old midfielder emerged as a key man for Arsene Wenger’s side, and the former German international feels he will have a vital role to play once again.
He told the Colin Murray show: “They’ve never really filled the void left by Alex Song and, in Coquelin, a player appeared last year who’s done ever so well.
“He made a huge difference to them, results improved dramatically [when he came into the side], and he gave them that protection in front of the back four.
“He had a massive influence and if he can repeat what he did last season I think they are set fair. With the likes of [Aaron] Ramsey and [Jack] Wilshere going forward they’ve got so much quality and you know they are always going to score goals, so defensively was always the problem with Arsenal.
“Coquelin deserves a big mention. Can he do it again? It remains to be seen but, if he does, they will be a lot closer come the end of the season.
“I expect them to be fewer than five or six points off the Premier League winners, and I think they’ve got a fighting chance to win it.”The bodyguard was arrested last week and faces charges of kidnapping
She told an armed aide he had to ‘kill this dog, he doesn't deserve to live’
The daughter of King Salman of Saudi Arabia has fled the French capital
Published: 07:59 EST, 2 October 2016 | Updated: 08:22 EST, 2 October 2016
The daughter of King Salman of Saudi Arabia has fled Paris after allegedly instructing one of her bodyguards to murder a painter and decorator, it was claimed today.
Princess Hassa, 42, has pleaded diplomatic immunity against prosecution after telling the armed aide: ‘You have to kill this dog, he doesn't deserve to live.’
But the bodyguard, who has not been named, was arrested in the French capital last week and, following two nights in custody, appeared before an instructing judge on Saturday.
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Copy link to paste in your message +2 The daughter of King Salman of Saudi Arabia (pictured) has fled Paris after allegedly instructing one of her bodyguards to murder a painter and decorator, it was claimed today
He was put under formal criminal investigation for a range of charges including violence with a firearm, kidnapping, and assisted kidnapping.
The bodyguard is likely to face a criminal trial, which could see him imprisoned if found guilt on what amount to extremely serious allegations.
He is said to have attacked the unnamed 53-year-old workman inside a palatial flat on September 26th, after the Princess told the Frenchman to kiss her feet, and then issued the threat.
But Elie Hatem, the bodyguard’s barrister, disputes this version of events, saying: ‘There were more than twenty people in the apartments.
‘How can the facts as outlined by the complainant have been overlooked?’
There was no sign of Hassa in court, and she too insists she was not guilty of any wrongdoing.
The royal involved was originally identified as a close relative of the late Saudi King Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
Now, however, Le Point magazine, which broke the story, says she is the 42-year-old ‘ only daughter’ of the current king, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
He has five sons, and his only daughter is Princess Hassa, who was born in 1974. Hassa has always been a regular visitor to Paris, where she is known for enjoying the lifestyle of a multi-millionaire.
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Copy link to paste in your message +2 The bodyguard was accused of wanted to sell the images of the inside of the flat in Avenue Foch (shown), the prestigious road close to the Arc de Triomphe, to the media
During questioning by the judge on Saturday, the bodyguard said he done the ‘minimum necessary’ to ‘restrain’ the workman after the Princess caught him taking pictures.
He was accused of wanted to sell the images of the inside of the flat in Avenue Foch, the prestigious road close to the Arc de Triomphe, to the media.
In turn, judicial police said it was perfectly normal for painters and decorators to take pictures on their smart phones during jobs.
The bodyguard confirmed the Princess was present during the incident, and that he was carrying an automatic pistol, as he was entitled to as a diplomatic guard.
The Princess is said to have ordered her bodyguard to beat the unidentified Frenchman up, tied his hands and feet together, and then made him kiss her feet.
After a four-hour ordeal, the workman was kicked out of the flat, and told to 'never return' to the area.
Later he asked for the equivalent of some 16,000 pounds for work done, and for the return of his tools.
Detectives entered the Avenue Foch flat last week, where they were said to have retrieved the tools of the decorator, who was officially signed off work for a week because of shock and severe bruising.Accuracy vs. Overkill: An Overview of HistWar Napoleon By Colonel (Retired) Bill Gray
Whoa.
There’s not a lot that gets me speechless, ask anybody, but for about 20 minutes this past weekend that’s what happened. Mouth open, deer in the headlights stare, yup that was me. I sat down to play perhaps the ultimate Napoleonic Wars tactical battle computer game, HistWar’s Napoleon (or HWN) and just, wow. Without question this software is far more a simulation than a game, but more than that it is a labor of love of one genuine French Grognard named J M Mathe. Designed many years ago under the name HistWar les Grognards (the Grumblers, Napoleon’s pet name for his Old Guard), the game was to be published by Battlefront but after four years of delay, negotiations broke down and JMM (as he is often called) decided to self-publish. HWG is in actuality a second, much improved edition of les Grognards, and hit the scene in 2013.
This is also a work in process, and one that will never end. The basic game is a digital download only and will run you 34,91 Euros at the HistWar Boutique, and more robust editions with pdf manuals and what not, cost more. That said, the designer offers free upgrades and new editions for the life of the project, and given that well may be eternity minus a single day, it’s not a bad deal. And if you want to dip your toe in the proverbial water first, les Grognards is still available at a heavily discounted price as well.
Here are the particulars.
Installation and Interface
I purchased the basic software package titled General de Brigade, and this meant I was stuck learning the game thru its three tutorials and Help section. The transaction was by PayPal and although not automatic and instantaneous, it took only a day for the emails with the links and key codes to arrive. After that, download was flawless, but I thought quite long. On the other hand, installation went without a hitch and was lightning fast. I had no issue running the game in Win 10 and did not have to use compatibility mode. Official, recommended hardware specs are as follows:
OS – Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8
Processor – Intel i5 or equivalent
RAM – 1 GB +
Graphic Card Memory – 1 GB
Graphic Card – NVidia GTX 650 Ti Boost or equivalent
Sound Card – Direct X compatible
Direct X – 9.00 (shader 3)
The game took quite some time to load, but once the title screen was in place, it ran very fast. Like most games of this sort, the package included a Map Editor, an Order of Battle Editor, but in a bit of a surprise, a National Doctrine Editor. I didn’t delve too much here with the exception of the latter. What this thing allows you to do is change the attributes and specific reactions the military units perform in the game under certain conditions. For example, what type of combat mode does an infantry unit go into after it gains its objective? Would that be defensive or something else? The game also allows multiplayer if desired, but I didn’t so I dove right into the three tutorials.
The first tutorial is for Newcomers to the system and teaches the interface of the game, the next tutorial is called First Battle and shows how to move units and engage in combat, while the last for Commanders in Chief covers advanced operations such as controlling several corps in a semi real time environment. You really have to go thru all tutorials to “get it,”, but once done the game is actually pretty easy to play. The tutorials themselves, however, are a bit tedious because of an issue that plagues the game overall. This is the often imprecise translation of the French text into English. In that same vein, the designer obviously expects players to have some knowledge of the period because things like unit designations are left in their original languages. Thus Regiment de Legere is a French light infantry regiment and Chasseur a Cheval refers to French light cavalry.
The tutorials are all done under the standard game interface, which like the rest of the game is pretty Spartan and amateurish in design. There is a small battlefield map in 2D in the upper left corner of the screen and a similar unit data display in the upper right corner. At the center top there is a tool bar with several icons. This is a cascading tool bar in that any icon clicked might well replace the current tool bar with another unique, specialty bar. It all looks a bit old fashioned, but it works.
The rest of the screen is the 3D map, and here is where a highly calibrated mouse is a must. The center scroll wheel elevates the camera up or down, but the mouse with the right button held controls the camera’s direction uniquely. If the cursor is in the center, the view stays put. Move the cursor to the top the camera moves forward, to the bottom rearward, and to right or left as appropriate. However, the speed the camera moves is keyed on how far the cursor is away from the center point of the screen. Far away, to the edge, everything moves fast, but close to center point, the movement slows down. It took some getting used to, but again, it worked well.
Playing the Game
This game simulates individual battles at a grand tactical level. Units are artillery batteries, infantry regiments and cavalry regiments, as well as groups of commanders and staff, and watching them maneuver and shoot at one another is the first of two really hard hitting strengths of the game.
At the start of a scenario (and several historical are included) the player views a 2D map from above with unit icons using NATO symbology. The map is divided into layers so something like a “no units” view is easily done. The toolbar for this map also allows you to set unit boundaries or measure the ground between units and objective to determine both distance and march time. The real function of the map is as a battle planner, however. Here you can select a unit or a command, give an order (like Move) then draw an arrow from the unit to its destination. Clicking on the unit allows you to specify what type of movement – Scouting for example – and change formation before taking that first step.
After this has been all done for all units, typing “P” starts the game in 3D and your forces execute their plan and the enemy react... or not. Little in this game is immediate or automatic, but must be triggered by a messenger from the boss to begin. Otherwise, the formation acts according to doctrine, if you remember that Editor we discussed above. During the battle you can manually direct any unit or higher level command to change formation, limber artillery and fire, among other things. There is still a time delay however, which is why moving commanders is important as well.
Nevertheless, the software is exceptionally quick and smooth, with absolutely no lag or stutter. This means some of the most realistic combat visuals I have ever seen become even better. Horses bob up and down when their regiment gallops, dust is kicked up, smoke from black powder weapons is much more intense than in other games and often blows back in the face of the firer. Troop formations are by regulation, to include the number of formations allowed and how they change from one to the other. It’s not just line or column, but column of divisions, column by platoons and more. And if you make the formation change, the AI will often do it for you based on terrain and other factors.
Seriously, I ordered a French regiments of Dragoons to move its four squadrons from column into line and it did it... doing a perfect formation en avant en bataille par peleton per the provisional ordinance of 1800 (Title IV, Article II, Paragraphs 551 – 559, Plate 107). I was stunned. I’ve read about the thing and even have the regulation, but I never thought I would actually see this movement executed. It was as if I and the Doctor had just stepped out of the TARDIS.
Anyway, the game continues like this until the software stops it and proclaims victory or defeat, and it seems to happen without a software hiccup one. Well, OK, the screen went dark a couple of times, but I flipped it back to 2D, then back to 3D and everything was perfect.
Sound and Graphics
I found the sound a bit spotty and uneven, with no sound effects or music where there should be, or at least delayed for some 20 – 30 seconds. All of the commands and voices for the armies, however, were in the native language.
Graphics was something else however, and like the section above, is a huge plus for the game. First, the terrain is the best I have ever seen, particularly as it seems more animated than in other games. The hills, trees and towns seem as if they were designed specifically for each battle and not compiled from a generic set. Towns are especially sharp and much more detailed and period appropriate, and do not seem to blur when you pan close to them. Wind can actually be heard whistling if appropriate, while leaves fall from trees, grass and wheat sways and the clouds in the sky even move. Not only that, but the shadows on the ground produced by the clouds is represented, and move along with their skyward brethren. Fog lists in valleys and dissipates as the temperature rises.
The military units and individual soldier sprites are all 3D, move flawlessly, realistically and are unbelievably accurate as regards uniforms and similar. For example, each French Chasseurs a Cheval regiment has its own historically accurate facing color displayed on their dark green uniforms. The flag is actually carried by a properly positioned ensign and the squadron commander not only has the requisite gold braid, but sits on the popular leopard skin saddle blanket. One company in the first squadron wear bearskin bonnets vice shakos as they were the regiment’s elite company, kinda light cavalry horse grenadiers. The trumpeters, meanwhile, sit on white horses in uniforms with the regular trooper’s uniform colors reversed. Heavy artillery come with six horses pulling the limber, not two, because that is what happened historically. And Napoleon’s command group isn’t just a couple of figures, but some 20 plus sprites to include marshals, aides, Guard Chasseurs a Cheval as security and even the Emperor’s personal Mameluke bodyguard, Roustam.
Alas, close up these doughty lads show they are no competition for the likes of the Total War series, or even the 2D representation of Scourge of War products. At a reasonable distance, however, they do look impressive, in part because of the game’s 1 to 1 scale. That’s right, an 800 man Chasseur a Cheval regiment actually has 800 3D sprites on screen, and the game’s Webpage says up to 500,000 are quite doable.
Conclusion
So would I recommend this game? Well, no, or at least not without some heavy qualification. If you belong to that very small niche which worships uber detail and highly history oriented, then this is your game and I suggest you buy it right now. It does exactly what its designer intended and more. It is likely the closest you will ever get to seeing how a Napoleonic battle really, REALLY looked and worked. Seriously, just look at the enormous distance between units to allow for deployment in this game.
And that’s really the problem. The game is simply too damn good at what it does; the rest of the gaming world doesn’t have PhDs in the History of the 1st Empire. The visuals will be not only complex but confusing, and low non Hollywood casualty rates along with time delayed decision making will not attract customers. And truth be known, when I say the raw numbers of soldiers displayed for a 1 to 1 scale, I simply felt intimidated. I’ve studied this period of history for a good 40 years, and I knew the numbers, but seeing them deployed was jaw dropping. If nothing else, I just gained new respect |
Thanks to the storm, two Disney Cruise Line intermediaries have been altered. According to Disney Cruise Line Blog, the four-day Bahamanian Cruise aboard the Disney Dream that began on September 4 is visiting Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island in the Bahamas, on Tuesday and will visit Nassau on Wednesday. The ship will spend a day at sea before arriving at Port Canaveral on Friday.
the DCLBlog also reports that the seven-day Western Caribbean cruise aboard the Disney Fantasy has changed its schedule. That cruise started on Saturday, September 2 at Port Canaveral. On Monday, the cruise went to Falmouth, Jamaica before heading to Grand Cayman on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Fantasy will visit Cozumel.
The Disney Cruise Line has announced what its plans are for other upcoming cruises. The latest NOAA map shows the outer bands of Irma reaching South Florida by Sunday, September 10.
The Disney Dream cruise on Friday, September 8 and Monday, September 11 have been cancelled. The Disney Fantasy cruise scheduled to begin on Saturday, September 9 has also been cancelled Here is the refund policy for these cruises:
Refunds will automatically be processed back to the original form of payment used for the cruise booking. Guests are invited to book a future cruise at a 25 percent discount by calling us at 1-855-347-2784 or 407-566-7054 from September 18, 2017, through October 18, 2017.
According to the Disney Cruise Line site, they will update ticketholders on cancelled cruises on its website or for itinerary changes on its Disney Cruise Line Navigator app. Here’s the policy from the site:Trigger Warning. If you are into Trump-hate there probably isn’t any reason for you to read any further. It’s going to be a waste of your time and just raise your blood pressure. Thanks for the click, though.
Today Trump was at a rally in Melbourne, FL. There has been a lot of criticism of him being there, mostly from the same people who say he’s too dumb to do his job. For consistency’s sake you’d think they’d be happy he was at the rally and wasn’t signing executive orders or whatever, but no. Dislike of Trump has its own logic. Some interesting things happened. First, Melania opened the even with the Lord’s Prayer. Not some mumbo-jumbo non-sectarian Unitarian Universalist horsesh** collection of platitudes but the Perfect Prayer.
Powerful imagery.
To understand where I’m going next you have to understand communications and how the visual is much more powerful than the verbal. There is a great story from Hedrick Smith’s classic, The Power Game, that takes place during Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign. Reagan had been campaigning at a series of venues bedecked with flags. The media was, naturally, laughing at the hokiness of it all. Leslie Stahl decided to do a “news” piece to reveal Reagan as an empty suit. She and her producer showed footage of Reagan surrounded by American flags while they patiently explained to Middle America why Reagan was a fraud.
During the rally some random seeming guy, acting much like a Price is Right contestant, was invited by Trump onto the stage. Listen at the very beginning of the video to hear Trump tell Secret Service to let the guy up on stage. And he got a chance to address the crowd.
So the facebook page of the guy pulled onto Trump's stage is pretty much as you'd think. — Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) February 19, 2017
The guy Trump invited on stage has a 6 foot cardboard cut out of Trump that he salutes and prays to/for every day. pic.twitter.com/Ldpx0MOvE2 — John Aravosis (@aravosis) February 19, 2017
A few tweets from the guy Trump asked up to the stage at his rally and had speak from the podium with the Presidential Seal. pic.twitter.com/tUCsSiOp1B — Beau Willimon (@BeauWillimon) February 18, 2017
https://twitter.com/RobProvince/status/833099894667800576
journos: “why do people hate media so much?” *trump pull random guy on stage* *journos shit all over random guy* Just a total mystery! — T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) February 18, 2017
I will be the first to admit that, based on the later interviews, the guy Trump invited on stage seems a little too embued with Trump-love for my taste. Having said that, do you really think the media going after this guy is really a great idea? Of course not. Nobody likes or respects a bully and that is all you can really call the media going through this guy’s Facebook account and making fun of his interview. People will notice. They might laugh at the guy but they will despise the people in the press mocking him. Yet, the media will laugh about it and pat themselves on the back.
Let’s recap what happened here.
Trump had news coverage of his rally and his content was 100% his talking points. For instance:
“I want to speak to you without the filter of the fake news,” Trump said to huge cheers. “The dishonest media, which has published one false story after another with no sources, even though they pretend they have them – they make them up in many cases. They just don’t want to report the truth.” “When the media lies to people, I will never, ever, let them get away with it. I will do whatever I can that they don’t get away with it,” he said. “They have their own agenda and their agenda is not your agenda.”
The media can fact check this until their ears grow hemorrhoids and it doesn’t matter to anyone but them. No one cares about media fact checking.
Second, Melania led with the Lord’s Prayer.
Third, Trump calls a random guy (or so he seems) from the crowd up. The Secret Service goes to stop the guy and Trump tells them to let him up.
The media can critique the rally, the speech, and the random guy all they want but they can’t take away from what the cameras were forced to show. It was pure showmanship. And the outcome will be in Trump’s favor. The pro/anti-Trump sides are going to just dig in but the people in the middle, that 20-30% of the electorate that wants both sides to get along, are going to see a guy who isn’t afraid to mix with the crowd and they are going to see a petty and backbiting media going after him. And they are going to see the media ganging up to ridicule the guy who went on stage. The result is that in the critical battle being waged, between Trump and the media, Trump just improved his credibility and the media hurt theirs.An ancient legend speaks of a mysterious door which is located in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca. This door, will open one day and welcome the creator gods of all mankind. These gods will return in their “Solar Ships” and all mankind will be in awe.
Strangely such a door seems to exist according to researchers.
Located near the mountainous region of Hayu Brand, 35 Km of the city of Puno in Peru, we find the mysterious “Gate of the Gods”. Since immemorial time, this region has been revered by local natives who actually consider it as the “city of the gods” Even though a few structures have been discovered, researchers believe that there are numerous monuments hidden beneath the surface.
This “Gate” was discovered by accident when local tour guide Jose Luis Delgado Mamani was hiking in the surrounding area. Curiously Mamani stated that he had long before dreamed about this structure and saw what appeared to be a door covered with pink marble with several figures located to the sides. These visions are closely linked to the legends of the native Indians of the area that tell that this “door” was a “gateway to the land of the Gods”. Legends speak that in the distant past, great heroes crossed into the land of the gods, enjoying a prosperous and glorious immortal life.
Another legend says that during the time of the Spanish conquest, an Incan priest called Amaru Muru, from the temple of the seven rays fled from his temple with a sacred golden disk known as “the key to the gods of the seven rays“. The priest hid in the mountains of Hayu Brand afraid that the Spanish might take the key from him.
Later the priest arrived at the “Gate of the Gods” at Hayu Marca, where he showed the key to several priests and shamans of the area. After they performed a ritual, the door opened with a blue light emanating from it. The priest, Amaru Muru handed the golden disk to one of the shamans and entered the door, he was never seen again.
Mysteriously, researchers have found a circular depression to the side of the door where a smaller disk-shaped object could have been placed.
Visitors who have traveled to the “Gate of the Gods” at Hayu Marca, and who have placed their hands on the small door state that they feel a great energy that flows through their bodies, they have also described strange visions like stars, columns of fire and music which some described as being “rhythmic, unusual and extraordinary”.
The “Gate of the Gods” at Hayu Marca resembles the Puerta del Sol de Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) and five other archaeological sites in the vicinity. Mysteriously if we draw straight lines between the Gate of the Gods” at Hayu Marca, the Puerta del Sol de Tiwanaku, and other archaeological sites, we get a strange cross that joins at the center at the plateau of Lake Titicaca, one of the most sacred places in the region.
Researchers have even found the remains of an ancient city beneath Lake Titicaca, presumed to have existed thousands of years ago, predating the known cultures of the region.
Is it possible that there are “portals” located on Earth which are connected to other galaxies? Planets? Dimensions? And that one of those portals is the “Gate of the Gods” at Hayu Marca? Is it possible that these ancient texts are more than just stories of the past? And that there is something true and unique about them? We look forward to finding out more about these mysterious locations and their hidden secrets.New light today on Phil Jones’ notorious request that Mann, Briffa, Wahl and Ammann “delete any emails”.
The original email here is one of the most notorious Climategate emails. The UK Information Commissioner said that “more cogent” prima facie evidence of an offence under the FOI Act was impossible to contemplate, but noted a statute of limitations limited their jurisdiction. The UK Parliamentary Committee asked Muir Russell to investigate. Muir Russell refused. Muir Russell pointed out to the Committee in his evidence last fall that asking Jones about delete emails might result in the identification of an offence.
It was the second question considered by the inquiry stage of the two-stage Penn State process, articulated as follows:
2. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?
The “inquiry” reported as follows:
He [Mann] explained that he never deleted emails at the behest of any other scientist, specifically including Dr. Phil Jones, and that he never withheld data with the intention of obstructing science; … On January 15, 2010, and on behalf of the inquiry committee, Dr. Foley conveyed via email an additional request of Dr. Mann, who was asked to produce all emails related to the fourth IPCC report (“AR4”), the same emails that Dr. Phil Jones had suggested that he delete. On January 18, 2010, Dr. Mann provided a zip-archive of these emails and an explanation of their content. In addition, Dr. Mann provided a ten page supplemental written response to the matters discussed during his interview.
They summarized their results as follows:
Allegation 2: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones? Finding 2. After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee finding is that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data related to AR4, as suggested by Dr. Phil Jones. Dr. Mann has stated that he did not delete emails in response to Dr. Jones’ request. Further, Dr. Mann produced upon request a full archive of his emails in and around the time of the preparation of AR4. The archive contained e-mails related to AR4.
New Information from Eugene Wahl
The Inspector General of the Department of Commerce (to which NOAA belongs) has recently reported on an investigation of issues arising out of the Climategate emails. (They did not interview me or, to my knowledge, any critics.)
However, in their investigation, they interviewed Eugene Wahl, now a NOAA scientist. Astonishingly, Wahl was not interviewed by either the Penn State or UK inquiries. (Wahl is not named as such in the report, but is readily identified from the context.)
The original email request from Jones to Mann had asked:
Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise… Can you also email Gene [Wahl] and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise.
Cheers, Phil
Mann replied the same day as follows:
Hi Phil,
… I’ll contact Gene [Wahl] about this ASAP. His new email is: generwahl@xxx
talk to you later,
mike
Wahl told the Inspector General that “he believes that he deleted the referenced emails at the time”. The excerpt from the report is as follows:
The timing is interesting here. Mann’s deletion request to Wahl came on May 29, 2008, only a few months before Wahl became an employee of NOAA (Aug 2008.) Because Wahl’s deletion of the emails took place prior to him becoming an employee of NOAA, NOAA policies on record retention were not applicable.
The question asked by Penn State was:
Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?
Previously we knew (from the Climategate emails) that Mann had told Phil Jones that he would ask Wahl to delete any emails on AR4. Now we know that Wahl “believes that he deleted the referenced emails at the time”.
Now this does not prove that Wahl deleted his emails on or about May 29, 2008 as a result of receiving an email from Mann asking him to do so – it might have been a coincidence. But – contrary to Penn State findings – it is certainly prima facie evidence warranting an investigation.
In earlier CA posts on the Penn State inquiry, I observed that Penn State thumbed their noses at Office of Research Integrity procedures for academic misconduct. These procedures state that first stage inquiries are only charged with determining prima facie evidence and should not attempt to make the findings that are the province of an investigation. Instead of adhering to ORI procedures, Penn State purported to make final findings on key issues (including deletion of emails) without a full investigation. The issue of email deletion should have been passed from the inquiry to an investigation and the investigation committee should have interviewed Wahl, before purporting to dispose of the matter.Rep. Jim McDermott and his senior legislative aide earlier this month traveled to Indonesia on what appears to be the most expensive privately financed trip based on per person costs since Congress amended its travel rules in 2007.
The development company Chemonics International, which contracts with the U.S. Agency for International Development, spent almost $45,000 to send the Washington Democrat and Jessica Lee to Bali and Jakarta to attend a democracy forum and meet with government officials. McDermott’s travel expenses totaled about $21,000 and Lee’s were almost $24,000.
According to records maintained by the website LegiStorm, a private entity has not spent that much per person since Congress amended its rules related to privately sponsored travel five years ago in an effort to curb the influence of lobbyists on lawmaking. Many types of costly trips that had previously drawn criticism were eliminated. Privately financed travel is distinct from official congressional delegations, or CODELs, which are paid for by the federal government.
Neither Chemonics nor USAID lobbies Congress.
For McDermott’s office, the purpose of the trip to Indonesia was twofold.
The 12-term lawmaker from Seattle co-chairs the Congressional Indonesia Caucus with Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. The caucus has in the past hosted several briefings on Indonesia’s pro- democracy movement and its role in Southeast Asia. Because of McDermott’s caucus role and his position as ranking member on the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton invited him to attend the Bali Democracy Forum on Nov. 8 and 9.
The visit coincided with Indonesia implementing restrictions on imported fruit. Indonesia is the fifth-largest importer of Washington state apples, which generated $51 million in sales last year. New licensing and inspection standards could be economically devastating for Washington apple, cherry and pear interests, according to a McDermott spokesman.
“Congressman McDermott has heard from the businesses in the district and throughout Washington state about the trade disruption caused by the regulations that will affect all imported horticulture goods,” spokesman Kinsey Kiriakos wrote in an email.
“The Congressman has sent several letters to the Indonesian government about the new regulations, but has always felt that addressing issues of such importance is more effective when done in person,” he added.
Chemonics paid for McDermott and Lee to visit Indonesia because it administers a program there that supports public policy research and effective-governance efforts.
McDermott and Lee spent the first two days in Bali at the democracy forum before attending breakfast briefings, site visits and other meetings to discuss issues including female representation in politics and regional animal diseases. The final two days, in Jakarta, included meetings with Indonesia’s minister for the economy and other economic, agriculture and trade officials.
Chemonics paid about $12,400 for Lee’s airfare, $1,250 for her lodging and $1,000 for her meals. McDermott’s airfare from Seattle was about $9,500, and receipts for his lodging and meals came to about $980 and $750, respectively. The total cost of each trip also included more than $9,000 for airport departure taxes, hotel Internet access, printing charges, interpreters, meeting rooms and other costs, according to filings maintained by the Clerk of the House.
Police escorts for Mercedes Benz motorcades, per diems for Indonesian meeting participants and business class airfare also added to the total tab.
Chemonics and USAID also paid about $10,000 for Lee to attend a democracy-training program in Indonesia in June.
As CQ Roll Call has reported in the past, Congress amended its rules for privately sponsored travel in 2007 as part of a larger effort to curb outside influence. Reports that super lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others spent lavishly on trips that included golf junkets in St. Andrews, Scotland, prompted the inclusion of travel restrictions in the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act.
After trips financed by entities that employ lobbyists were, in most cases, capped at one day, the year-end tally for privately funded congressional travel dropped precipitously, from $9.9 million in 2005 to $3.6 million in 2007. But in recent years that figure has been on the rise.
Last year, private groups spent about $6 million on congressional travel. Though only $3.6 million has been spent so far this year, it exceeds the amount spent in the 2010 election year. Private travel outlays are typically lower in election years, according to LegiStorm figures.
Some of the most expensive per-person trip costs on record include the $28,000 that the American Enterprise Institute and the Vail Valley Foundation paid to send former Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., on a two-night trip to Beaver Creek, Colo., in 2005, and a trip that J. Scott Bensing, a staffer of former Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., took to Australia that cost General Atomics Aeronautical Systems almost $27,000 during the same year.Image copyright Reuters
One of Italy's largest migrant centres has been in the hands of the mafia for more than a decade, police have said.
Police say the Arena clan made money by providing services at Isola di Capo Rizzuto in Italy's far south and siphoning off state funds.
The clan is alleged to have hidden behind a local Catholic charity which officially runs the centre.
The claims came to light on Monday, when officers arrested 68 people, including a local priest.
Another of those arrested was Leonardo Sacco, head of the Catholic Misericordia association that is supposed to control the Sant'Anna Cara immigrant centre. The centre holds 1,500 people at a time.
It is alleged the Arena clan, part of the powerful 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate, may have taken more than a third of the €100m ($109m/£85m) destined for the centre in the past 10 years.
The priest, named as Edoardo Scordio, had received €132,000 already this year for "spiritual services", an assistant prosecutor alleged.
Police in Catanzaro, a city in the southern Calabria region, said more than 500 agents were involved in the arrests of suspects "accused of mafia association, extortion, carrying illegal weapons, fraud, embezzlement to the detriment of the state, (and) theft".
The arrests come two years after L'Espresso magazine published an investigation, alleging funds were being stolen and managers were making money by starving the migrants who lived there.
A year earlier, it was alleged the number of migrants said to be living at the centre had been greatly over exaggerated, while in 2013 a health inspection found asylum seekers were being fed small portions of out-of-date food.
Police believe the clan, through Mr Sacco, was awarding contracts, including for food supplies, to other members of the 'Ndrangheta syndicate, as well as setting up its own associations.
According to Rosy Bindi, the head of parliament's anti-mafia commission, the centre had effectively been transformed into "a money printing operation for organised crime".
"This operation shows the ability of the mafia to take advantage of the weaknesses and fragility of our times with its predatory and parasitic approach," she added.The Venetia Fair
We're a band called The Venetia Fair and we have no fucking clue what we're doing.
Our names are Benny, Mr. Chark, Mike, Joe Brown, and Chris. My name, specifically, is Benny and I feel like I'm babysitting four 12-year-olds all the time. Actually, I feel like I'm a 12-year-old babysitting four other 12-year-olds and doing a really bad job (even for a 12-year-old). Mr. Chark is like that weird 1...2-year-old who has a calculator watch, carries a compass (but still gets lost all the time), and loves the sound of his own voice, especially when he's not using words. Mike's more like a hyperactive 14-year-old who got held back and has to hang out with the younger kids but doesn't mind because he gets to be better than them at everything and the older kids are boring,anyway. Joe Brown is the obnoxious 12-year-old who steals "chromies" off of tires in the parking lot and learns obscene words to scream so he can explain that "it actually means female dog!" to his angry teachers. And then there's Chris, the excitable 12-year-old who can't wait to get a sip of his dad's beer or a peek down a girl's shirt. Hanging out with us is probably more aggravating than anything else but I think we're all best friends. If we actually were 12 years old, we'd be in a secret club and have an awesome fort.
We get compared to a lot of different bands that don't sound anything like each other so it's hard to believe anyone. We try to make music that is theatric, chaotic, catchy, and sometimes a little silly but not too silly because it's also serious business. We have a lot of fun writing the music we write and performing the way we perform.
Not a single one of us had any substantial training in our instruments or music in general so being in a band was really hard for us sometimes but we worked really hard to make up for it. It takes a lot of work to pretend to be good at something. Then Mike joined up with us and he knows how to play stuff but we still talk to him like we're idiots (we're idiots) so we're still working pretty hard (not smart). We try to play together every single day and some of that playing involves music.
We tour a lot (but never enough) and consider the van our primary home. It doesn't have an address that you can mail stuff to (we've tried Van, USA. No dice.) so if you want to mail us something just wait until we get to where you are and then just hand it to us. When we play shows, all of our shit gets broken because we pretend we have infinite money to replace things and then we perform accordingly. We also pretend we're invincible. I think Mr. Chark might actually BE invincible. After our first tour, Chark and Chris had to build all new equipment so they just made everything bigger because we like stuff big.
We crash our van all the time. Our van gets towed all the time. We don't take care of ourselves, each other, or really anything. The only thing we care about is that after you see us play, you tell your friend(s) that you have no idea what you just watched.At the conclusion of the fifteenth century, Italy remained divided. There were four kingdoms: Sardinia, Sicily, Corsica, and Naples; many republics such as Venice, Genoa, Florence, Lucca, Siena, San Marino, Ragusa (in Dalmatia); small principalities, Piombino, Monaco; and the duchies of Savoy, Modena, Mantua, Milan, Ferrara, Massa, Carrara, and Urbino. Parts of Italy were under foreign rule. The Habsburgs controlled the Trentino, Upper Adige, Gorizia, and Trieste. Sardinia belonged to the kingdom of Aragon. Many Italian states, however, held territories outside of the peninsula. The duke of Savoy possessed the Italian region of Piedmont and the French-speaking Duchy of Savoy along with the counties of Geneva and Nice. Venice owned Crete, Cyprus, Dalmatia, and many Greek islands. The Banco di San Giorgio, the privately owned bank of the republic of Genoa, possessed the kingdom of Corsica. Italian princes also held titles and fiefdoms in neighboring states. Indeed, the duke of Savoy could also claim that he was heir and a descendant of the crusader kings of Cyprus and Jerusalem. All of this confusion often remained a source of contention in Italian politics.
The Muslims became the greatest threat to security when the Arabs occupied Sicily in the ninth century. Later Muslim attempts to conquer central Italy failed as a result of papal resistance. Although the Norman conquest of southern Italy and Sicily removed the immediate threat. Muslim ships raided the Italian coast until the 1820s.
This conflict with Islam resulted in substantial Italian participation in the Cru- sades. The Crusader military orders such as the Templars and the Order of Saint John were populated by a great number of Italian knights. Italian merchants, too, established their own warehouses and agencies in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. Thanks to the Crusades, Venice and Genoa increased their influence as well. They expanded their colonies, their revenues, and their importance to the Crusader kingdoms. Their wealth exceeded that of many European kingdoms.
The fall of the Crusader kingdoms, the Turkish conquests, and the fall of Constantinople by 1453 led to two significant consequences: the increasing influence of Byzantine and Greek culture in Italian society, and the growing Turkish threat to Italian territorial possessions in the Mediterranean. The conflict between Italians and Muslims was complex. For centuries Italians and Muslims were trading partners. So the wars between the Turks and Venetians therefore consisted of a combination of bloody campaigns, privateering, commerce, and maritime war lasting more than 350 years.
Despite a common enemy, common commercial and financial interests, a common language, and a common culture, Italian politics remained disparate and divisive. For much of the fifteenth century the states spent their time fighting each other over disputed territorial rights. Although they referred to themselves as Florentines, Lombards, Venetians, Genoese, or Neapolitans, when relating themselves to outsiders, such as Muslims, French, Germans, and other Europeans, they self- identified as “Italians.”
The Organization of Renaissance Armies
The lack of significant external threats led to the reduction in size of Italian armies. The cost of maintaining standing armies or employing their citizenry in permanent militias was too expensive and reduced the productivity of the population. Italian city-states, duchies, and principalities preferred to employ professional armies when needed, as they were extremely costly to hire. Larger states, such as the Republic of Venice, the Kingdom of Naples and the Papal States possessed a limited permanent force, but the remainder of the Italian states had little more than city guards, or small garrisons. Nevertheless, Italian Renaissance armies, when organized, were divided into infantry and cavalry. Artillery was in its infancy and remained a severely limited in application. Cavalry was composed of heavy or armored cavalry, genti d’arme (men at arms), and light cavalry. Since the Middle Ages, genti d’arme were divided into “lances” composed of a “lance chief”—or corporal—a rider, and a boy. They were mounted on a warhorse, a charger, and a jade respectively. The single knight with his squire was known as lancia spezzata— literally “brokenspear,” or anspessade.
Infantry was divided into banners. Every banner was composed of a captain, two corporals, two boys, ten crossbowmen, nine palvesai, soldiers carrying the great medieval Italian shields called palvesi, and a servant for the captain. Generally the ratio of cavalry to infantry was one to ten. There was no organized artillery by the end of the fifteenth century, as it was relatively new to European armies.
An Evolution in Military Affairs, or the So-Called “Military Revolution”
Artillery was in its infancy during the fifteenth century, but in the early days of the sixteenth century, a quick and impressive development began. The Battle of Ravenna in 1512 marked the first decisive employment of cannons as field artillery. Soon infantry and cavalry realized the power of artillery and proceeded to alter their tactics to avoid or at least to reduce the damage. Moreover, the increasing power of artillery demonstrated the weakness of medieval castles and led to a trans- formation of military architecture. The traditional castle wall was vertical and tall and could be smashed by cannon-fired balls. In response, the new Italian-styled fortress appeared. Its walls were lower and oblique instead of perpendicular to the ground. The walls resisted cannonballs better, as their energy could also be diverted by the obliquity of the wall itself. Then, the pentagonal design was determined as best for a fortress, and each angle of the pentagon was reinforced by another smaller pentagon, called a bastion. It appeared as the main defensive work and was protected by many external defensive works, intended to break and scatter the enemy’s attack. The fifteenth-century Florentine walls in Volterra have many bastion elements, but the first Italian-styled fortress was at Civitavecchia, the harbor for the papal fleet, forty miles north of Rome. It was erected by Giuliano da Sangallo in 1519, but recent studies suggest that Sangallo exploited an older draft by Michelangelo.
The classical scheme of the Italian-styled fortress often referred to as the trace italienne was established in the second half of the sixteenth century. Its elegant efficiency was recognized by all powers. European sovereigns called upon Italian military architects to build these new fortresses in their countries. Antwerp, Parma, Vienna, Györ, Karlovac, Ersekujvar, Breda, Ostend, S’Hertogenbosch, Lyon, Char- leville, La Valletta, and Amiens all exhibited the style and ability of Giuliano da Sangallo, Francesco Paciotti, Pompeo Targone, Gerolamo Martini, and many other military architects, who disseminated a style and a culture to the entire Continent. The pentagonal style was further developed by Vauban and soon reached America, too, where many fortresses and military buildings were built on a pentagonal scheme.
This evolution in military architecture—generally known as “the Military Revolution”—meant order and uniformity. A revolution also occurred in uniforms and weapons. Venetian infantrymen shipping on galleys for the 1571 naval campaign were all dressed in the same way; and papal troops shown in two 1583 frescoes are dressed in yellow and red, or in white and red, depending on the company to which they belonged. Likewise, papal admiral Marcantonio Colonna, in 1571, ordered his captains to provide all their soldiers with “merion in the modern style, great velveted flasks for the powder, as fine as possible, and all with well ammunitioned match arquebuses... ” Of course, uniformity remained a dream, especially when compared with eighteenth- or nineteenth-century styles, but it was a first step.
Although a revolution in artillery and fortifications remained a significant aspect of the military revolution, captains faced the problem of increasing firepower. The Swiss went to battle in squared formations, but it proved to be unsatisfactory against artillery. Similarly, portable weapons could not fire and be reloaded fast enough, and it soon became apparent that armies needed a mixture of pike and firearms. The increasing range and effectiveness of firearms made speed on the field more important. It was clear that the more a captain could have a fast fire–armed maneuvering mass, the better the result in battle. Machiavelli examined this issue; he was as bad a military theorist as he was a formidable political theorist. He suggested the use of two men on horseback: a rider and a scoppiettiere—a “hand- gunner”—on the same horse. It was the first kind of mounted infantry in the modern era. Giovanni de’Medici, the brave Florentine captain known as Giovanni of the Black Band, adopted this system. Another contemporary Florentine captain, Pietro Strozzi, who reduced the men on horseback to only one, developed the same system. He fought against Florence and Spain, then he passed to the French flag at the end of the Italian Wars. When in France, he organized a unit based upon his previous experience. It was composed of firearmed riders, considered mounted infantrymen, referred to as dragoons.
AdvertisementsObligatoryTLNote: Ok before you go ahead and read, I would caution you that today’s chapter may contain slightly more than usual translation errors, I would be editing it later to make it more accurate. Also, after discussing it with Goodguyperson from Gravity translations, I have decided to revert back to “Gravity technique” instead of “Force technique”. I will be editing the previous chapters soon. I apologize for the confusion. I will be making a note next chapter detailing all the revisions though. Anyways, enjoy.
UPDATE: Just edited in some parts, much thanks to Goodguyperson for doing the editing and tlc of certain segments. In particular, there is no monthly tournament, it was bad TL on my part.
Wang Lin looking casual asked: “How many do you want?”
Wang Hao hesitated before saying: “I am only in need of 200 talismans!”
“So many? What do you want to use them for?” Wang Lin was startled, but even so he could easily give out 200 talismans, in the past few months, he had received 500 talismans as bribe.Wang Hao sighed deeply, and with a bitter face, said: “Tie Zhu, there are only two months before the year end competition, although I have the qualifications to participate, but I don’t possess the ability to get a good placement, but I am unwilling to let it go, that Wang Zhuo guy has reached the peak of the first layer of Concentrating Qi, I heard that he is trying to unlock the second layer now.”
“How is his rate of practice so fast?” Wang Lin hadn’t seen Wang Zhuo for quite a long time, and now hearing about it was quite surprised, secretly thought that talent is really important!
Wang Hao scoffed and said: “Brother Tie Zhu, You cut straight to the core, the fair does have a rule, in fact, in order to be eligible to participate in the fair, you must have one Hua Xing Hua Sheng pill, one can only take this pill after he has reached the Constructing Base phase, or else it would be useless.” [TLNote: Sheng means sound, noise, Xing means form, Hua means change into]
Wang Lin nodded, wondering he said: “How is it related to you wanting Talismans?”
“Of course there is a relationship, you don’t stay in touch with others much so you don’t know, one month before the annual tournament, the disciples will secretly launch a mini-fair, and they put out their treasures for mutual trade in order to prepare for the competition. I heard several elders talking who said that the fair had a lot of useful things like, flying swords, magic weapons, immortal pills, etc.” Wang Hao whispered with his eyes lit up.
Wang Lin hearing this got excited immediately, he wasn’t concerned with flying sword and magic weapons, but was more concerned about getting Concentrating Qi chants, taking advantage of this opportunity, perhaps he might be able to trade, pondering for a while, he said: “How are the True Disciples able to ensure that their transactions with each other are sincere?”
Wang Hao scoffed and said: “Brother Tie Zhu, You cut |
simplest form, addictive and compelling.
But there was an additional side to Devine that I discovered when he performed in the indie rock outfit Miracle of 86, who cut their teeth at punk and hardcore shows in the ’90s. Devine could easily transform himself from singer/songwriter into a shouting, high-energy, indie rock singer.
After Miraclebroke up, Devine continued to pursue a thriving solo career that has earned him an international following, releasing six studio albums to high acclaim—including Brother’s Blood (2010) and Between the Concrete and the Clouds (2011), both charting on Billboard’s Top 200 and the latter peaking at #1 on Amazon.com’s mp3 album chart. In addition, Devine’s released two Billboard-charting records as a member of Bad Books, a collaboration with the indie rock band Manchester Orchestra.
Now with the simultaneous release of Bulldozerand Bubblegum, his seventh and eighth studio albums, theBrooklyn-based singer/songwriter attempts two drastically different sounds on two separate recordings in a dual-album project independently funded through a historically successful Kickstarter campaign.
Bulldozer is laced with electric folk-rock and pop ballads produced by Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck, Guided by Voices).
Bubblegum, produced by Jesse Lacey of Brand New, is a proper rock band record, a sound evolved from Devine’s early days in Miracle of 86; a charging record loaded with feedback, overdriven guitars and unexpectedly memorable hooks that bring to mind the best of the Pixies.
“After Miracle broke up,” said Devine, “I’d write two songs per record that would have been Miracle songs. And when you’re opening for rock bands like I was for so many years, [my band] got really good at pedal-to-the-floor rock…. I had the notion to make two different records, two different ways at the same time.”
While writing 22 new songs and touring with Bad Books in fall 2012, Devine wrestled with uneasiness over the ethics of using a Kickstarter model to fund an established artist. He was, however, deeply disillusioned by his experiences inside the traditional label system; in the late months of 2012, as he continued to write, Devine’s discomfort with the Kickstarter idea receded. He proceeded with the belief that he would be doing something different and true, placing his trust in his audience to guide him.
“I’ve made six records. In America they’ve been released on five different labels. It’s a pretty unstable industry… What’s made it a sustainable and a justifiable career for me has been the audience and their close, passionate connection to the music.”
The Kickstarter campaign launched in January 2013, and immediately his audience answered back: within eight hours of the 45-day campaign’s launch, his target financing of 50K to produce, record, and tour both records was met, allowing Bulldozer and Bubblegumto be made and released with complete independence. But it didn’t stop there. Devine’s audience surpassed his expectations, and by the end of the 45-day Kickstarter campaign, he had raised $114,805, more than double his initial target.
“When that audience tells you to keep doing it and here’s the money, it almost renders a very crass thing – the exchange of money over the creative process – into a staggeringly humbling and encouraging experience. When this happened, I felt so motivated I dove into making the records.”
From there Devine set out to make what he had called LP7 (Bulldozer) and LP8 (Bubblegum) on his own terms.
Bulldozer
The ten songs that comprise Bulldozer, Devine’s acoustic album, were recorded in L.A. from March to April 2013 and produced by frequent collaborator Rob Schnapf. With Devine on guitar, Schnapf gathered a stellar group of musicians to back him—Russell Pollard and Elijah Thomson (Everest) on drums and bass, respectively; Isobel Campbell (Belle & Sebastian) on backup vocals; and Schnapf himself on guitar, mellotron, and percussion.
The commanding big sound of “Now: Navigate!” with its chiming guitars, tongue-in-cheek wordplay, is a stampede of power pop, as is the quintessential rock/pop sound of “Little Bulldozer.” Songs like “She Can See Me” bring out Devine’s punk rock roots.
“From Here” was written in the days after Hurricane Sandy when Devine put things on hold to volunteer around Staten Island, where he partially grew up, and Brooklyn, where he now lives. Primarily, he came to the aid of two close friends who had lost their homes in the hurricane. Devine aided in food and material drives and played in benefit concerts.
“But it’s one of those things no matter how much you do it never seems enough.” On “For Eugene,” centered around the death of Eugene Contrubis, one of the many who drowned on Staten Island, Isobel Campbell, known most popularly from Belle & Sebastian, lends her voice to add a moving layer to a song that swells to high emotional peaks.
Bubblegum
During the Fall of 2012, as Devine wrote and recorded demos of the twenty-two songs, he divided his catalog into two camps: the acoustic based songs he would record with Schnapf in L.A., and the songs he would record with Jesse Lacey in New York, some of which were written on bass guitar.
Bubblegum, Devine’s “pedal-to-the-floor” rock album, is the product of his special collaboration with Jesse Lacey of Brand New as producer, shaping and writing alongside Mike Fadem on drums and Mike Strandberg on guitar, the two members of his touring group the Goddamn Band. The album was finished in April 2013, recorded at Dreamland Recording Studios in Hurley, NY and at Atomic Heart Studios in New York City.
The twelve songs on Bubblegum create a hard-driving, angular, and mature indie rock sound. Set to Pixie-like guitar riffs and socially conscious, politically bombastic lyrics, as evident on “Fiscal Cliff,” this is a side of Devine that screams and shouts itself over the feedback. “Nobel Prize” is a head-bouncing intro that captures the record’s relentless energy. “Private First Class,” based on the imprisonment Bradley Manning for leaking classified documents in Iraq, is a surf/punk- sounding anthem of the highest-measure. But even high-octane rock records need to slow down, and Devine does so on tracks like “I Can’t Believe You” and “Red Bird” without losing consistency or steam.
The record’s most poppy tracks hit back to back with “Bloodhound,” “Bubblegum,” and “Sick of Words,” a catchy song that sounds as if Devine assembled Black Francis, Kim Deal, and Jackson Browne to back him—testament to the Goddamn Band’s musicianship provided by Fadem and Strandberg, with a debt to Lacey who also steps in on bass and percussion, and backup vocals.
*
Things have changed in the fourteen years since I heard that first Kevin Devine demo. Bulldozer and Bubblegum mark a new way to make music. With this simultaneous dual-album release in the fashion of Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and Bright Eyes, Devine knocks down an old studio model with his audience’s participation.
These twenty-two songs in total weave back and forth through our American landscape with bravado, heart, energy, and austerity. The delicacy of Bulldozer delights at every turn, every strum, every word, while Bubblegum turns the volume high, taking you in and out of time, a rock record nonpareil. Listen to them loud.
—Alex Gilvarry, author of From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy CombatantTony Abbott has left open the option of taking back nearly $1.5 billion in federal funding for the East West Link as he lashed out at the Victorian government, accusing it of "recklessly" destroying 7000 jobs, adding to traffic congestion and damaging Australia's reputation for safe, reliable infrastructure investment.
But it is also possible that the East-West funds could sit on the asset side of the Victorian government accounts indefinitely or that they could be used for other projects even though Canberra remains officially opposed to funding urban public transport, as Victoria would like to do.
"We will talk to the Victorian government about other projects, but the truth is there is no other major shovel-ready project in Victoria," Mr Abbott said.
The conciliatory tone of that comment may reflect nervousness by federal Liberals in Melbourne's eastern suburbs over the unpopular project.Let´s face it. Facebook is so very yesterday. Sure, it is still huge but as far as real marketing value for the Self Published Indie writer, I´ve heard a lot of ´Does it work? – Is it worth it?´ inquiries but not a lot of positive testimonies. Actually, none.
Then there are the ´Facebook Writer´s Groups.´ If what you are looking for is a lot of inane book ads for erotica and porn, then for sure, sign up for one of those groups. How effective they are in generating sales is anyone´s best guess.
So what are you going to do to get a strong foothold on a social media platform?
In my humble opinion, the best platform for growing quickly is Twitter.
It obviously helps if you have some other, previous experience in social media. I had a small success with Youtube (more than 4 million reproductions of my English as a Second Language videos) It also can´t hurt if you run a blog, maintain your Amazon and Goodreads author pages, maybe a Pinterest account etc.
But the big potential for exponential growth with Twitter.
Now here´s the catch – You have to know how to use it.
I´ve written about this in the past. KNOW YOUR NICHE.
This can apply to anyone regardless of the product or service they are flogging. Who is your potential customer? What are they doing at this very moment? What are their interests? Where do they gather?
The whole purpose IMHO is to create HUGE numbers of followers.
But who qualifies as a follower? Anyone can click on that follow button. Does that make them of use to you as a writer? NO! NO WAY!
Let´s take a detour for a moment.
There is a theory out there that states:
A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.
Read all about this theory here.
http://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/
Now what is cool, if you do read the whole post, is that this theory is based on the idea that a true fan will spend ´One day´s wages´ per year to support you. Damn, that´s a lot of cash. As an INDIE author, all I am looking for from my fans / readers is a measly $2.99. So a lot more doable. But the gist is to find 1000 loyal fans that will buy everything you produce.
So let´s assume that you get that 1000 true loyal fans and followers.
How is that going to affect your book sales?
Imagine a new release that gets a couple of hundred sales right out of the gate. That is going to clearly spike your ranking into a range that will be noticed by many people that would never have heard of you before. Great. And you still have 800 true fans who have yet to hear about or buy your product. This reserve of devoted fans is going to keep buying over the coming months and keep your product in the public eye. So the 1000 fans is a MUST for success IMHO. This is my goal.
So getting back to Twitter & Tweepi – How do you cultivate those 1000? Rush out and BUY Twitter followers. NOT. This is a complete waste of money. If having a large following gives you a sense of confidence, by all means, throw your money in the toilet. But this isn´t going to somehow magically turn into dollars on your kindle sales report.
Whenever I see this Icon in my ‘Followers’ list, I delete the account immediately. There are always vultures in every human endeavour.
The most powerful tool I have found for creating a large NICHE following is TWEEPI.
http://tweepi.com/
I´ve talked about this before. Get to know this platform.
You can use it to weed out the people that aren´t following you back. Very helpful there.
But the most powerful function is it´s ´Follow Followers´ section. Here you can target your peer’s followers. So if you write Horror novels, find Stephen King and J. A. Konrath’s official twitter accounts and start following their followers.
Here´s a video Tutorial on how Tweepi works.
Within the video you learn how to install the ´Bulk Follow´ button for IE and Google Chrome. But just because you have the button, doesn´t mean you should always use it.
Now here´s a warning. Surely Mr. King has some followers whose sole purpose in life is to promote their plumbing supply company. They aren´t on Twitter to find new writers and discover new literary gems. So I avoid those people.
When I get onto a page of a competitor´s / peer´s followers, I first look at how often these people tweet. For some pages, the initial pages are full of recent followers and these people are most active so I will bulk follow the first few pages. After that, I start selectively following only those people who fit my NICHE profile. Again, I avoid groups and companies and go for individuals who have their own following and who have tweeted within the last few days.
I also look at the follow back ratio. People with 6 followers are using twitter like it´s Facebook. They really don´t know what it’s about. These people are not likely to let an unknown person into their little circle. Skip them.
So the big trick is to identify your NICHE.
I also keep a ´USER´ list in a text file on my desktop. These are the users from whom I have harvested followers in the past. I go back occassionally to harvest their new users.
In my case, I have two accounts – one for promoting my fiction and another for new account for my ESL tutorials.
I harvest directly from accounts like @AvidReadersCafe & @TheBookTweeters for general book lovers and since my books are about dogs I go to @garthstein (The author of ‘The Art of Racing in the Rain’ … a book about a dog) to find folks who will read a book about a dog. I harvest from a whole other range of users for my ESL account.
My accounts are –
@DBwriterteacher
@Inglesalp3
Now here is the kicker. At this moment I have 12,097 followers.
Let’s say that about 25% of them are other writers – no avoiding that since they all congregate to the book tweeter, avid reader users as well. Could some of them be my TRUE Followers? Unlikely. Take them out and we have 9063 Followers.
10% are probably companies and semi-dead accounts that will show up in my ‘Unfollowers’ folder within the next few months.
Leaves me 8057.
50% are people like me – sellers, not buyers. Leaves 4026.
Another 50% of those followers are possibly people I have miscalculated are have absolutely nothing to do with my NICHE.
2013 left.
Another 25% might not even speak English.
1507 remaining.
25% Follow everybody regardless. Down to 1132 remain.
So let’s stop here. You see where I am going with this.
The most important lesson that I am saving for last is that there is always the possibility of converting any of your followers at any moment from the cast-off crowd, into a TRUE FOLLOWER. Keep them happy. Write something interesting or inventive or useful on your blog.
Tweet some funny, clever or useful stuff on your twitter feed.
My goal is to get 50,000 TRUE FOLLOWERS within my NICHE. I don’t worry about how many people UNFOLLOW. As a matter of fact, I invite those people that aren’t interested in my THING to leave. Leave NOW. I am looking for a long term relationship. I actually get users that FOLLOW and then two or three days later they unfollow. How is this a smart tactic to get me to buy their product?
Finally, don’t be afraid to NOT FOLLOW back everyone that follows you.
Hope that’s been of some help or gets you thinking about your Twitter account. Good luck with that 1000.
David Gordon Burke
Find my books here.
AdvertisementsThe International Space Station will soon be equipped with its very own same-day delivery service, for returning critical scientific samples back to Earth. The service will be provided by the Terrestrial Return Vehicle (TRV), a small, wingless capsule that can be loaded up with samples and ejected from the airlock, guaranteeing delivery back to Earth in under 24 hours. A number of these TRVs will be shipped up to the ISS as part of a normal cargo run (via the SpaceX Dragon capsule, perhaps), and then the astronauts aboard the space station will be able to send samples back down to Earth whenever they want — a bit like a gravity-powered courier service (and coincidentally, probably the most reliable courier service in the world).
As you probably know, getting to the International Space Station is a rather arduous and expensive task: Generally, it involves loading up a fairly big capsule with a few tons of cargo, and then burning millions of gallons of fuel (and hundreds of millions of dollars) to lift it a few hundred miles into space. Technically it should be a lot easier to get stuff back to Earth from the ISS — you can always trust gravity to take care of everything — but for some reason, the ISS’s only return capability is provided by the very same cargo capsules. In other words, to send something back from the ISS, we first have to spend a few hundred million dollars getting a return vehicle up there.
The Terrestrial Return Vehicle, made by Intuitive Machines, will change all that. The TRV is a small, wingless capsule that looks a lot like the Space Shuttle or Boeing X-37B space plane, but without the stubby little wings. There’s no word on the TRV’s actual dimensions, but I think it’s probably no more than a meter long. The concept art suggests it’s about the size of a small child. (But no, amusingly enough, the first version of the TRV won’t be able to carry living things.) The TRV will be loaded up with scientific samples, pushed into an airlock, and then shunted out into space by the Space Station’s Japanese-made robot arm. It will then return to Earth much like any other spacecraft, descending through the atmosphere, eventually deploying a drogue parachute to slow it down from supersonic speeds, and then a larger parachute to bring it safely down to a landing site in Utah.
Read: SpaceX carries the first ever zero-g 3D printer to the Space Station
The return to Earth will take about six hours. Because the ISS orbits the Earth about 15 times per day, the total delivery time should always be under 24 hours. This is significant because the International Space Station is home to many scientific experiments — and the samples produced by those experiments would much prefer it if they could be sent straight back to Earth, rather than waiting weeks for the next cargo ship. As Popular Science points out, the ISS is actually a very important location for research because of its zero-gravity environment — some things, like bioprinting organs or developing new pharmaceuticals, are much more effective when cells can freely grow in three dimensions, rather than on Earth where gravity crushes everything.
Intuitive Machines’ TRVs are being developed in coordination with NASA and CASIS — the non-profit Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which was recently endowed with the responsibility of making sure that we make good use of the US laboratory aboard the ISS. The first batch of TRVs is scheduled to be sent up to the ISS in 2016. At first, the TRVs will just be used to return scientific samples — but apparently they’re working on a version that’s capable of returning live rodents, too.
(NASA is currently preparing to send mice up to the ISS, but the current plan is to butcher them up there, and send their frozen organs back to Earth — couriering live rodents in a TRV would be a little more humane, I guess.)
Now read: 60,000 miles up: Space elevator could be built by 2035, says new studyAgainst Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. By Paul Bloom. Ecco; 304 pages; $26.99. Bodley Head; 290 pages; £18.99.
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IN an age of partisan divides it has become popular to assert that the wounds of the world would heal if only people made the effort to empathise more with each other. If only white police officers imagined how it feels to be a black man in America; if only black Americans understood the fears of the man in uniform; if only Europeans opposed to immigration walked a mile in the shoes of a Syrian refugee; if only tree-hugging liberals knew the suffering of the working class.
Barack Obama warned of an empathy “deficit” in 2006, and did so again in his valedictory speech in January: “If our democracy is to work in this increasingly diverse nation,” he said, “each one of us must try to heed the advice of one of the great characters in American fiction, Atticus Finch, who said, ‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.’”
It is a piece of generous, high-minded wisdom with which few would dare to disagree. But Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale University, does disagree. His new book, “Against Empathy”, makes the provocative argument that the world does not need more empathy; it needs less of it. People are bingeing on a sentiment that does not, on balance, make the world a better place. Empathy is “sugary soda, tempting and delicious and bad for us”. In its stead, Mr Bloom prescribes a nutritious diet of reason, compassion and self-control.
To be clear, Mr Bloom is not against kindness, love or general good will toward others. Nor does he have a problem with compassion, or with “cognitive” empathy—the ability to understand what someone else is feeling. His complaint is with empathy defined as feeling what someone else feels. Though philosophers at least as far back as Adam Smith have held it up as a virtue, Mr Bloom says it is a dubious moral guide. Empathy is biased: people tend to feel for those who look like themselves. It is limited in scope, often focusing attention on the one at the expense of the many, or on short-term rather than long-term consequences. It can incite hatred and violence—as when Donald Trump used the example of Kate Steinle, a woman murdered by an undocumented immigrant, to drum up anti-immigrant sentiment, or whenIslamic State fighters point to instances of Islamophobia to encourage terrorist attacks. It is innumerate, blind to statistics and to the costs of saccharine indulgence.
Empathy can be strategically useful to get people to do the right thing, Mr Bloom acknowledges, and it is central to relationships (though even here it must sometimes be overridden, as any parent who takes a toddler for vaccinations knows). But when it comes to policy, empathy is too slippery a tool. “It is because of empathy that citizens of a country can be transfixed by a girl stuck in a well and largely indifferent to climate change,” he writes. Better to rely on reason and cost-benefit analysis. As rational arguments for environmental protection or civil rights show, morality is possible without sentimental appeals to individual suffering. “We should aspire to a world in which a politician appealing to someone’s empathy would be seen in the same way as one appealing to people’s racist bias,” Mr Bloom writes. Racism, like anger or empathy, is a gut feeling; it might be motivating, but that kind of thinking ultimately does more harm than good.
That is a radical vision—and like many Utopias, one with potentially dystopian consequences. Unless humans evolve into something like the Vulcans from “Star Trek”, guided purely by logic, it is also unimaginable. Reason should inform governance, but people tend to be converted to a cause—gay marriage, for instance—by emotion. Yet Mr Bloom’s point is a good one: empathy is easily exploited, marshalled on either side of the aisle to create not a bridge but an impasse of feelings. In a time of post-truth politics, his book offers a much-needed call for facts.Developed by Three One Zero and Published by 505 Games, ADR1FT is set to launch alongside the Oculus Rift on March 28th 2016 for Microsoft Windows before a later release on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. ADR1FT follows the story of sole Astronaut Alex Oshima, as he floats perilously amongst the destroyed wreckage of a Space Station, with no memory and a badly damaged EVA suit, Oshima must come to terms with his current condition while determining the cause of the catastrophic event that killed every other Astronaut on board the Space Station. Players will have to fight to stay alive by navigating and exploring the damaged wreckage for vital resources while overcoming various challenges in an at times unforgiving environment to fix the damaged emergency escape vehicle and return back to Earth safely.
Three One Zero is led by former Ex-Microsoft Creative Director Adam Orth, we recently caught up with the man behind ADR1FT to find out more about what is sure to be one of the standout Oculus Rift titles this year.
PressA2Join: ADR1FT came about after you left Microsoft, in turn, you founded Three One Zero, do you feel that whole experience helped to create the game or did you already have the idea for ADR1FT in mind?
Adam Orth: The game was inspired by and created from of my experience on Twitter and the internet. It wouldn’t exist without going through that. I had been very lightly exploring a space disaster or stranded on an island (I’m fascinated with stranded/only survivor stories) but it wasn’t until I layered my personal experience over and into the idea about a catastrophic moment destroying your world that ADR1FT really took shape.
ADR1FT has similar elements to the film Gravity (which I loved), that complete sense of desperation and loneliness while floating perilously in outer space, not to mention the truly horrible fear of dying a very cold death. What have you done throughout ADR1FT to drive home those feelings and emotions to players?
Adam Orth: Being stranded and alone in space really is the core of that desperation and loneliness. Having to survive against insane odds, relying on yourself to stay alive and get home safely. It’s primal and instinctual. When you add a damaged EVA suit that’s slowly leaking oxygen, the stakes become very real and very terrifying. Trusting yourself, staying calm, cool and collected are the only things you can do to make it. I think everyone has a pretty universal understanding of space and those possibilities, so it works very well in the game.
Obviously, Alex is in outer space, so oxygen has to be a major factor in attempting to survive, but what other things should the Astronaut be on the lookout for that could further endanger his life environment-wise?
Adam Orth: In ADR1FT, the only enemy you face is the environment, space itself. Oxygen is the most prevalent danger, but avoiding debris and large moving objects that can damage you by forcing precious oxygen out of your leaking suit or being electrified by exposed power nodes and wires. A destroyed space station is a very dangerous place to try and survive while exploring and repairing mainframes to damaged systems. You have to really assess your surroundings and make decisions based on all of these things that are working against you.
To make it home to Earth safely, the sole Astronaut must overcome a series of daunting puzzles/tasks, can you tell us a little about the types of challenges he will face and what kind of impact will they have on the overall game?
Adam Orth: Without giving too much away, the Emergency Escape Vehicle (EEV) is offline and there are some critical station systems that need repair in order for the EEV to get online and get you home. There are some obvious and not-so-obvious game mechanics and subtleties built around that experience loop that fell pretty cool and compelling.
ADR1FT was delayed in order to launch the title alongside the Oculus Rift, how excited are you for people to experience the game with the use of Virtual Reality technology and can you tell me a little about your experiences from playing ADR1FT with VR, what players can expect and look forward to?
Adam Orth: Well, we didn’t delay the game for Oculus, we chose to hold it back to be part of their historic launch. The opportunity for a tiny team of our size to launch our first game on an incredible new technology platform and be front and center was not something we ever considered not doing. In terms of what VR brings to ADR1FT? Pretty much every single thing is amplified in terms of experience, scale and gameplay. Even the story and narrative benefits from VR. The way you are telling the story is instantly changed based on how you are existing in the world. The most normal game mechanics we take for granted today become new and fresh all over again in VR. It’s an incredible feeling to do the simplest thing. Everything feels magical again.
Visually ADR1FT looks stunning, what was it like to create such an amazing atmosphere for such an incredibly lonely place and are you pleased with how the game looks?
Adam Orth: Well, we had a very clear idea of how we wanted ADR1FT to look and why we wanted it to look that way. We had a vision and plan. Our art director Jason Barajas is a visionary. He took what I wanted and built it out with our team to create something that’s not only highly original but really unique. You don’t see a lot of space games take the clean, bright, hopeful approach. We wanted to stay away from anything old and dingy to support the universe, narrative and environmental storytelling. We wanted everything to feel safe and like home, despite being destroyed, dangerous and sometimes hopeless.
I noticed you have Weezer listed as one of the game’s composers, how will they be contributing towards the game’s sound and what are they like to work with?
Adam Orth: That’s actually a half-truth on wikipedia. The real story is I’m great friends with Rivers Cuomo of Weezer. We grew up together and we’ve been circling around maybe a way to work together on something around the game or Weezer. Rivers is a really great piano player and there are a few really important piano pieces in ADR1FT that support the narrative. I had asked him to record the pieces for the game, but our schedules didn’t work out, so he suggested Brian Bell, Weezer’s guitar player. Brian is also a great piano player and since we’ve known each other for 20 years it made sense. So Brian played 3 really great classical piano pieces in the game. He did a fantastic job. I’m very happy.
Will the Playstation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game release on the same day as PC and will you be aiming for 1080p and 60FPS on both consoles?
Adam Orth: No, our PS4 and Xbox One versions will release shortly after Oculus/PC launch. We’re working on them now and we are aiming for the absolute best resolution and framerate we can for the experience on each console platform.
Do you have a final message for people interested in ADR1FT?
Adam Orth: I just really hope people enjoy the experience. We made a very different type of game and it’s something we are extremely proud of. There’s a lot of stuff in ADR1FT in terms of themes and subtext and like a lot of games, it’s not spoon-fed to you. You have to work for it. You have to go look for it and discover things with a risk vs. reward mentality. Everything in ADR1FT is broken: your character, your EVA suit, the station, the narrative and story. It’s all on purpose. Life is not a perfectly-tied bow. It’s messy and that’s what we’re trying to deliver in the experience.
Huge thanks to Adam Orth of Three One Zero for taking the time out to chat with us about ADR1FT.
ADR1FT has a scheduled release date of March 28th and will be an Oculus Rift launch title.On 31 October 2017, we discussed the announcement that the CME Group was responding to client interest and launching a Bitcoin Futures contract before the end of this year. CME stated that the contract would be cash settled based on the CME CF Bitcoin Reference rate, a once-a-day reference rate of the US dollar Bitcoin price at 4.00pm London time. In the run-up to the launch of the futures contract, the Financial Times has written a piece on the likely impact of futures trading on the Bitcoin price.
The title of the piece makes the FT’s view clear, “Prepare to bet against bitcoin as it becomes civilised”. We disagree with using the word “civilised” in this context (see below), but here is the FT’s take.
In recent years, bitcoin has been the wild west of the financial world. Now, however, it is being civilised — a touch. In the coming weeks, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange plans to start listing bitcoin futures, with a centralised clearing mechanism. Cboe Global Markets may follow suit. That will enable investors to bet on the coin’s future value without actually holding it — just as investors can use the Chicago exchange to bet on hog prices, say, without ever handling a pig.
To its credit, the FT reflects the concerns from some CME participants that there is insufficient regulatory oversight and Bitcoin’s stratospheric vol could lead to significant losses for some traders.
Is this a good idea? Some of the CME’s members do not think so. This week Interactive Brokers, an important clearing firm in the exchange, took the extraordinary step of using a newspaper advertisement to ask for more regulatory oversight. It fears that bitcoin is potentially so volatile that these futures will create huge losses for traders, which might then undermine the health of the CME and hurt other brokers, given its part-mutualised structure. The CME — unsurprisingly — dismisses this as poppycock: it argues that any risks will be contained by rules that allow traders to charge more so as to generate fat margins (of about 30 per cent) and thus absorb losses, and by circuit breakers that would stop a trade in the event of wild price swings.
Our suspicion is that CME Group has seen the volume of Bitcoin trading and is determined to get its “cut”, whether or not some of its members take some big hits or not. It can deal with those issues if or when they occur. Anyway, the FT moves on to the more interesting subject of the impact on Bitcoin’s price. We should note that when the futures contract was announced the price surged more than $100 to a then all-time high of $645.
But while the regulatory debate bubbles on, there is a more immediate question facing investors: bitcoin prices. Until now, it has been an article of faith among bitcoin evangelists that if — or when — the currency became more “civilised”, this will boost the price. After all, the argument goes, assimilating bitcoin into the mainstream investment world should boost its appeal and demand, making it more valuable.
As the FT alludes to in the articles title, it expects the Bitcoin price to fall.
It is highly likely there will be an opposite effect. Until now, investors have not had an easy way to bet against bitcoin — the only “short” was to sell coins. But the CME futures contract will let investors place those negative bets. You do not need to be a conspiracy theorist to imagine that some bitcoin cynics will be doing just that.
To support its case, the FT cites the example of Japan launching equity derivatives in 1989, just before the bubble burst.
Think, for example, about Japan. Before the mid-1980s, its stock market seemed to exist on a planet of its own, subject to its own valuation rules. But when Japanese equity derivative contracts were launched, and then integrated within the wider global market system as a result of financial reform, that sense of “otherness” broke down. The change in how Japan was seen through a comparative investment lens was not the only reason for the 1990 Nikkei crash, but it contributed.
We have a slight problem with using this as an analogy for Bitcoin. Firstly, an ultra-hawkish BOJ-governor was nominated in mid-1989 who announced his intention to crackdown on house price inflation and the shadow banking system which was facilitating much of the leverage. Secondly, all bubbles burst and Japan’s was extreme. For example, depending on whether you use the highest per square metre property deal in the Ginza district, or one in the Chiyoda district, the land underneath the Imperial Palace was valued between $852 billion and $5.1 trillion at the time. Futures trading, we would suggest, played a tiny role.
The FT cites the launch of trading in the ABX Index prior to the sub-prime crisis, as another example.
So too with US mortgages. Until 2005 or so, outsiders could not easily assess or price the risks of America’s subprime mortgages: mortgage-backed bond prices were opaque, and the only way to short the market was to sell bonds. But when mortgage derivatives, such as the ABX index, were launched, it suddenly became easy to make negative bets. Then, the ABX index was published in newspapers, such as the Financial Times, in 2007, creating a visible barometer of sentiment. That helped a sense of panic to feed on itself after 2008.
Once again, we would suggest the FT is confusing the impact of derivatives with an inevitable reversion of market price of an asset in a bubble as expectations regarding the outlook changed. In the case of sub-prime, housing prices in the US had never fallen, then they did, the AAA-ratings of the bonds were manifestly incorrect and the dramatically overpriced sub-prime bonds were pledged as collateral in all manner of other risky, leveraged trades.
From our perspective, the impact of the futures launch is difficult to gauge as it depends on the interaction of two opposing forces.
Firstly, as cryptocurrencies gradually become accepted as an asset class, more institutional money is likely to enter the sector and holding long futures positions is one way to do it. Secondly, as the article notes, Bitcoin futures will be |
my time came calling I didn't die. bump
User Info: CipherZeroNull CipherZeroNull (Topic Creator) 3 years ago #5 Without the slightest chance or reason left to them, humans are capable of hope. I'm no different. But for one thing. When my time came calling I didn't die. Bump
User Info: Slyk90 Slyk90 3 years ago #6 IGNORED! ~ Wheepitup bump, as curious how a tester misses something like this
User Info: CipherZeroNull CipherZeroNull (Topic Creator) 3 years ago #7 Slyk90 posted...
bump, as curious how a tester misses something like this
That comment somehow depresses me. Now I believe it isn't fixed. Takes some time until I get to my PS4, otherwise I would update now and confirm it. Without the slightest chance or reason left to them, humans are capable of hope. I'm no different. But for one thing. When my time came calling I didn't die. That comment somehow depresses me. Now I believe it isn't fixed. Takes some time until I get to my PS4, otherwise I would update now and confirm it.
User Info: CipherZeroNull CipherZeroNull (Topic Creator) 3 years ago #8 Without the slightest chance or reason left to them, humans are capable of hope. I'm no different. But for one thing. When my time came calling I didn't die. Bump
User Info: Tkmajing Tkmajing 3 years ago #9 3DS FC= 5086-1941-1568 Someone here should test it. I cant get to play tonight so cant do it myself.Ever wish you could jump into a video game and see what that world is like? Well, we’ll do something even better—we’ll get into a video game controller and see what’s inside! We’re tearing down the original Xbox controller and the newer Xbox One controller, to see how the device has evolved.
The Original Xbox Controller
Get your #tbt and #flashbackfriday hashtags ready, because we’re taking it back to 2001, when the very first Xbox debuted. For reference, that’s the same year Wikipedia launched (thank goodness!).
Starting with first impressions of the Original Xbox controller, it’s a lot bulkier than the latest generation. It was nicknamed “Fatty” and then later “Duke” when it came out—we can see why. And get this, it has a cord. Back to the days when things were plugged in!
Getting inside the controller was very easy—the housing was secured by Phillips self-threading screws, and it took little effort to pull apart.
The top cover is an injection molded ABS shell. How nice of Microsoft to identify the material for us (under the recycling mark)!
Since the ABXY button tops are partly clear and partly opaque, they were produced by insert mold or two-shot mold. In multi-material molding, plastics need to be compatible for adhesion—these are very likely PC and ABS.
The D-pad (Directional Pad) button is a self contained subassembly. The top cover of the D-pad snaps into a bracket plate (via cantilever hooks), and the two parts sandwich an elastomer keymat. The cone-shaped domes provide spring back force, while the black carbon conductive pills trigger button pushes.
When any one of the conductive pills is depressed and makes contact with the PCB, it shorts the exposed traces, thus registering a button push.
We proceeded to remove the PCBA from the bottom shell and noticed that there are screw icons silk-screened next to all the screw holes—a great design for assembly consideration!
We find it interesting that there is a carbon sticker covering between the PCBA and the keymat. The keymat for the white, black, and ABXY buttons doesn’t actually have conductive pills on the back. Thus, when these buttons are depressed, they push down on the carbon sticker, which then shorts the underlying traces.
The joystick is the same off-the-shelf component that we found in the Nintendo controller.
Looking at the the base of the bottom enclosure, we have two ERM (Eccentric Rotating Mass) vibration motors. These provide haptic feedback to the player and connect to the PCBA through PH-style connectors. The off-set masses are different sizes, so the player can differentiate between feedback coming from the right and from the left.
For the trigger, we have a compression spring as the spring-back mechanism and a hard stop. A potentiometer is used to register the trigger actuation. Just like the D-pad, the trigger is also a self-contained assembly.
And that’s the Original—easy to disassemble and clearly laid out.
The Xbox One Controller
Now, let’s skip ahead roughly a decade from the original Xbox controller to the Xbox One controller. Contrary to its name, it’s actually generation three, not one…deceptive! While this controller is more streamlined, it’s much more complex in terms of assembly and components.
We have top and bottom shells, as well as an internal skeleton. Compared to the Original, there are more more parts that make up the mechanical assembly. We have not only screws, but also snap-fits for assembly features. Great effort went into hiding the screws to make the controller more sleek. In fact, one of the screws was hidden under the sticker of the battery compartment; can’t fool us, though!
Instead of the traditional Phillips head screws, we have torx head screws.
For those three main components, the top and bottom shells are PC/ABS, while the internal skeleton is ABS. The addition of the PC makes the shells more impact-resistant. The tensile strength of PC/ABS is 20% higher than that of pure ABS.
The left and right bumpers are part of the same component. As a result, only one mold cavity is needed to create this component, instead of two. Spring-back is provided by the cantilever connecting the two button tops. These bumpers trigger tact switches that are through-hole soldered to the PCB. The switches have their own bracket to provide extra support.
Unlike in the Original Xbox controller, the triggers use a torsion spring for springback.
For trigger actuation, there is a magnet under the trigger that interacts with the hall effect sensor on the PCB. When the magnet is brought into the proximity of the trigger, the sensor detects the change in magnetic field and outputs different voltages.
The triggers in the Xbox One controller are also much more sophisticated. They have embedded ERM vibration motors inside for even higher fidelity haptic feedback.
Going back to the joystick, the mechanism is more or less the same as in the Original (and in other game controllers). It clearly works well—no revision needed.
The button mechanics are also similar to the Original. Under the button tops, an elastomer keymat with conductive pills on the back facilitates the switch triggering. All the push buttons share the same keymat (gone are the white and black buttons of the Original). One of the button tops and a portion of the same keymat hangs off the side—since there are two PCBAs stacked on top of each other, that keymat interfaces with the exposed traces of both PCBs.
The Menu and View button are two-shot molded, while the ABXY button tops are now three-shot molded. Fancy!
The XBox button top is pretty neat itself. Instead of being two-shot molded, it is actually a two-part assembly. The base component is a light diffuser, with the top surfaces painted for a metallic appearance.
Beneath the button top is an LED, placed so that the light illuminates the button top. In order to register a button press, the conductive pill is actually a carbon ring that goes around the LED.
The D-pad controls are also different between the Original and the One. Instead of an assembly incorporating keymats, the D-pad button top triggers metal dome switches that short the carbon traces beneath. The button top is injection molded plastic connected to a stamped sheet metal spring.
The haptic feedback also remains in the handles with similar vibration motors, housed in the middle enclosure. Like in the Original, the offset masses are actually different sizes to also differentiate the feedback.
Main Takeaways
The most significant differences between the Original and the One controllers have to do with their internal features. The Original used several self-contained subassemblies, which are gone in the One. Instead, the components are integrated into the rest of the remote. The self-contained subassembly approach makes it easier to repair and rework, but they did take up more space. To make the controller more sleek, sacrifices must be made.
While there are fewer buttons on the latest generation, the latest one also has greater variation of switches. For the triggers, torsion springs are used, which feel softer and are more compact. The D-pad uses a different button press mechanisms, resulting in a different tactile feel.
Overall, while many mechanisms and components evolved, the overall architecture remained the same. It’s definitely an evolved design, not a complete re-design.
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They’re the Tredegar band who are aiming to emulate the Welsh rock legends from down the A4048 in Blackwood with their barnstorming Euro 2016 single - which bears all the hallmarks of a Manic Street Preachers anthem.
With its distinctive rip-roaring riff and tub-thumping chorus, you could be mistaken for thinking you were listening to a classic from the Manics’ back catalogue.
But for Argument City, the band borne out of the ashes of much loved South Wales combo Eric Unseen, they’ll happily admit to the similarities inherent in their Euro 2016 belter Spirit Of ‘58, which includes the spikiest rendition of Men Of Harlech you’ll have ever heard. And there's even a namecheck for Hal Robson Kanu.
Listen to Spirit Of '58
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“We’ve been in the studio recording our debut album,” said drummer and Welsh football fanatic Scott Williams.
“We were working on this track but when we listened back to it, we were gonna throw it away because it sounded too much like the Manics.
It just worked
“However, we then had the football track idea and it just worked. This was before we knew the Manics were actually going to do a song.”
The Manics are yet to unveil their official Wales Euro 2016 single Together Stronger, to be released on May 20, although we do know that all profits from the single will go to the Princes Gate Trust and Tenovus Cancer Care.
Similarly, Argument City’s offering Spirit Of ‘58 will be released with all proceeds going to Ty Hafan.
Two major passions are football and music
All the members of Argument City are massive Wales football fans and all three members - Scott and his bandmates Dan Hagerty - lead singer/guitarist and Rhys Edwards - bass have attended every Wales home game in the Euro 2016 campaign as well as a number of away matches.
“Our two major passions are football and music, so it’s a natural fit,” said Scott.
“It would be remiss of us if we hadn’t recorded a Euro 2016 song.”
In the coming week, Scott, who is a teacher at Georgetown Primary School in Tredegar, will be enlisting kids from the school to appear in the video the band are putting together.
“I’m still putting the idea together,” he said.
Joe Ledley beard
“But it will be lots of fun. I’m thinking about getting some of the kids to dress in Welsh kits and recreate the highlights of the campaign but with us three from the band as the opposition.
“Or I might go with the children playing Germany or France in the Euro 2016 Final, but making sure one of them is wearing a Joe Ledley beard.”
The band haven’t confirmed a release date yet, but it will be available digitally at the end of May.
Find out more at the band’s Facebook page - www.facebook.com/ArgumentCity
Spirit Of ‘58 lyrics
Vive La France
The dragons are now in flight
When the whistle blows
The boys will know we’re there
Cest La Vie
Annwyl I mi
Let’s shake of the grit
From our once big pit like
Hal Robson - Hal Robson Kanu
(Chorus)
For 60 years we’ve had to wait
To relive the spirit of ‘58
We’ll be seeing Red
They’ll be seeing Red
You’ll be seeing Red
‘93 that penalty
Is nothing more than a distant memory
In June Bordeaux
We’ll start to show
That we’re here to win
And the noise we’ll bring we’ll sing
Stronger - Together StrongerEverton moved into the Premier League top four as they comfortably beat Norwich to leave the Canaries winless in six league matches.
Gareth Barry's stunning 20-yard strike, his 50th Premier League goal, opened the scoring for the dominant hosts.
Kevin Mirallas's free-kick from 20 yards doubled the lead after the break as Everton eased to victory.
Media playback is not supported on this device Everton display pleasing - Martinez
Robert Snodgrass headed against the post late on for the visitors before Ricky van Wolfswinkel shot wide.
Everton unveiled Republic of Ireland winger Aiden McGeady on the pitch before the game, having completed his signing from Spartak Moscow on a four-and-a-half-year deal.
The 27-year-old was wanted by Roberto Martinez at Wigan last season but will know he has a fight on his hands to earn a regular starting place as Everton continued their sparkling form this season.
Martinez's career as Everton manager could hardly have started better, with the Toffees going into the game five points and one place better off than at the same stage last season.
Much of their success has come from their continued good form at Goodison Park. Boxing Day's defeat by Sunderland was their only home loss in 2013, with only four defeats in their past 32 home games.
Fortress Goodison Everton have earned 42 points from the past 51 available at Goodison Park. Their only defeat came on Boxing Day against Sunderland.
Against that backdrop, their confident start was no surprise as they dominated possession early on. Romelu Lukaku dragged a shot wide before the Belgian striker headed inches wide at the far post after Mirallas's deep cross from the left.
Norwich's resolve was finally broken when Barry drove the ball into the top corner from 20 yards, after Lukaku's lay-off, for his third Everton goal since joining on loan from Manchester City.
With the Canaries struggling for goals this season, having scored only 17 times in 20 games, Gary Hooper was partnered with record signing Van Wolfswinkel for the first time.
The Dutchman has scored just once for the club since signing from Sporting Lisbon in the summer for in the region of £8.5m, in the 2-2 draw with Everton on the opening day, and almost brought the visitors level with a curling strike from 20 yards that was clawed out by Tim Howard.
Media playback is not supported on this device Hughton rues missed Norwich chances
Norwich chances were few and far between though, although Hooper was denied twice by Howard when through, as an impressive passing display from the hosts left Chris Hughton's men hanging on just to stay in the game.
Everton continued to dominate after the break but, as they failed to capitalise on their possession, the visitors' hope grew, with Van Wolfswinkel volleying a rare chance over the bar.
That hope was extinguished soon after as Mirallas curled home his third goal of the season from 20 yards, leaving Norwich, who rallied late on, just two points above the relegation zone.
Everton manager Roberto Martinez:
"It was an entertaining game and important to score that second goal.
"Overall we created a lot of chances, maybe that clinical touch in the final third was missing but I couldn't be happier the clean sheet. Some of the phases of our game were fantastic.
"The way we handled the second half was pleasing. The understanding between the players is clear, we are getting really strong. We need players back from injury and make sure competition for places is as strong."
Norwich manager Chris Hughton:
"They were good. We knew that before we came here. There isn't a side that has come here and had more possession this season.
"What you need to do is stick in there. We had the best chance of the half through Gary Hooper, they score a spectacular goal.
"In the second half I thought we gave a good account of ourselves but we were up against a really good unit."– Five snowboarders were killed Saturday afternoon after apparently triggering a backcountry avalanche on Colorado’s Loveland Pass, authorities said.
Search and rescue crews recovered the bodies several hours after the slide, which was 600 yards wide and eight feet deep, said Clear Creek County Sheriff Don Krueger.
A sixth snowboarder caught in the avalanche was rescued. That person’s condition wasn’t immediately known.
Searchers from Clear Creek County, Summit County, an Alpine search and rescue team and Loveland ski resort located the bodies, Krueger said.
The Colorado Department of Transportation closed U.S. Route 6, which crosses the Continental Divide near the scene of the avalanche, to facilitate the search. The pass is heavily traveled by skiers visiting nearby Arapahoe Basin ski resort.
The bodies were taken to the Clear Creek coroner’s office. The victims’ identities weren’t immediately known.
Krueger said authorities were “pretty sure” the snowboarders triggered the avalanche, which he said traveled about 1,000 feet some 100 yards off Route 6.
The avalanche occurred on a busy winter weekend as many skiers and snowboarders took advantage of late season snowfall in the Rocky Mountains. Several area ski resorts opened for the weekend after a snowstorm earlier in the week.
Loveland Pass, at an elevation of 11,990 feet, is popular among backcountry skiers and snowboarders.
Treacherous winter weather is not unusual on the pass, which is about 60 miles west of Denver. Skiers and snowboarders in search of fresh snow often hitchhike from lower elevations to the rocky summit above tree line. The area also is popular among photographers and tourists seeking some of the most expansive views in Colorado.
Colorado Avalanche Information Center forecaster Spencer Logan said there have been weak layers in Colorado’s snowpack since early January.
“Our last series of storms made them more active again,” he said. “Over the last week and a half, that area got over 18 inches of snow, so if you melted that that would be 2 inches of water, so that is a heavy load.”
Lisa Clarke Devore, who was headed back to Denver from the resort, told The Associated Press she saw a fire truck and ambulance on the pass, as well two search dogs headed into the area of the slide. She said she saw several ambulances, including one towing snowmobiles, driving toward the pass.
On Thursday, a 38-year-old snowboarder died in an avalanche south of Colorado’s Vail Pass. Eagle County sheriff’s officials said the man and another snowboarder likely triggered the slide after a friend on a snowmobile dropped them off at the top of Avalanche Bowl.
U.S. avalanche deaths climbed steeply after 1990, averaging 24 a year, as new gear became available for backcountry travel. Until then, avalanches rarely claimed more than a handful of lives each season in records going back to 1950.
LINK: Colorado Avalanche Information Center
(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)A 27-year-old woman who admitted to having sex with a dog burst into tears when she was told she will await her sentencing behind bars.
Jenna Louise Driscoll's acts of bestiality with her dog were described as'repulsive' and 'completely against the order of nature'.
Judge Terry Martin made the remarks during sentencing submissions on Friday in the Brisbane District Court.
She will be sentenced on Monday after pleading guilty to bestiality, drug trafficking, stabbing another woman with a fork and, on two separate occasions, biting a child.
Jenna Louise Driscoll, 27, arrives at the Brisbane District Court in Queensland on Friday
Defence barrister James Godbolt said his client had been affected by the public shaming of the bestiality charge and had stopped physically attending the University of Southern Queensland.
'It might be a sad reflection on society that the bestiality attracts more publicity whereas the serious offence of trafficking cannabis does not. It rather undermines the factor of general deterrence,' Judge Martin said.
The court was told Driscoll ran away from home when she was 16, started a relationship with a man 12 years her senior and started smoking cannabis when she was 18.
Video of the bestiality was found by police following a drug investigation in October 2014.
Driscoll was formally charged in 2014 after police found videos of her having sex with a dog
She arrived in court alongside her lawyer, staring at the ground ahead of her sentencing
During a pre-sentence submission in court, defence lawyer James Godbolt said Driscoll had been publicly shamed and had sex with her dog at the request of her then partner who filmed the incident.
Driscoll was pictured arriving home accompanied by an unidentified man and a pet dog.
The dog, believed to be a pitbull terrier, climbed the stairs to Driscoll's cream coloured residence, where neighbours say she has lived for some time.
Driscoll entered her house and remained for a very short amount of time, before leaving with the man in the sedan.
The stabbing occurred in late December that year while the biting charges arose in 2015.
She was 24 when arrested for trafficking and bestiality, and was also on a good behaviour bond for a minor drug offence and obstructing police.
Prosecutor Dzenita Balic told Judge Martin that there were 'three acts of sexual intercourse' with the dog.
'It seems it was in connection to the attempted arousal of her partner,' Ms Balic said.
The prosecution said Driscoll had 15 regular customers and six suppliers and also a phone purely for the purpose of selling drugs.
The 27-year-old Queensland woman had been charged after police discovered three videos of her having inappropriate sexual contact with the dog
Following her court appearance in 2014, Driscoll was pictured arriving home accompanied by a man and her dog
Mr Godbolt asked his client being given a head sentence of two to two-and-a-half years, with it suspended.
'The trafficking is at the bottom end... to support her own use of the substance,' he told the judge.
'She is not living the high life.'
He said Driscoll works as a waitress and had submitted to a recent drug test to prove she was no longer addicted to cannabis.No. 8 Stanford men’s soccer (11-3-4, 8-1-1 Pac-12) finished its season on top Friday afternoon, defeating Bay Area rival California (5-10-2, 1-8-1) with a final score of 2-1. The Cardinal clinched their conference title when Washington lost to San Diego, and they were able to celebrate in style with a well-earned overtime win against the Golden Bears.
Stanford has dominated the Pac-12 conference for the last three years, going 21-3-6 in league play since 2014. Against Cal in particular, the Cardinal have found nothing but success, going 6-0-1 in their last seven matches.
In the final regular season matchup, Stanford attacked early and often. Stanford led Cal not only in goals, but also in precision. The Cardinal nailed 12 of their 16 shots on frame, compared to the Bears, who only managed to to get two shots on frame throughout the match.
Sophomore midfielder Amir Bashti was the first to make Cal pay for its mistakes. In the eighth minute, a Cal defender over-committed to a loose ball and left Bashti wide open on the left side. Bashti traveled down the flank of the field, hitting the opposite corner of the goal to give Stanford the lead. Bashti has credited his success to his teammates, explaining that having “trust and confidence” in each other has allowed more freedom on the field.
While a 56th-minute goal from Cal senior defender Trevor Long kept Cal’s hopes alive into overtime, it seemed like the ball was always in Stanford’s control.
“In the first half we created some good chances [and] deserved to be a goal up, and it certainly looked like we could have had one or two more,” said head coach Jeremy Gunn. “We have to take our hat off to the Cal goalkeeper, Klinsmann, for making a number of tremendous saves.”
To no one’s surprise, it was junior striker Foster Langsdorf who saved the day for Stanford. In the 98th minute, Langsdorf tallied his fifth game-winning goal this season, sailing a header past Klinsmann to give Stanford the perfect end to the regular season. Langsdorf has a knack for headers: He sent Stanford to its first College Cup since 2002 when he headed the overtime goal knocking out the No. 1-seed Wake Forest last season.
Stanford now heads to postseason play and looks to keep the offensive momentum going. However – as the saying goes – defense wins championships, and the defensive skill in Stanford’s 18-yard box has been the key to Stanford’s success this season. All year, Stanford hasn’t given up more than two goals in a game. Much of this credit is due to senior goalkeeper Andrew Epstein, who is currently third on Stanford’s all-time shutout record.
In addition, junior Tanner Beason has taken his new role as starting left back in stride. After watching Stanford win a national championship from the bench last year, he has been instrumental to the team’s success this season. Beason has eight points this season with three goals and two assists.
When asked about the Cal game, Beason turned focus to the future.
“It was a great way to close out the regular season with a win and celebration of our Pac-12 title, and now we’ll move on and shift our focus to the tournament as we find out our opponents on Monday,” he said.
As Stanford prepares to find its seed in the tournament, the team’s depth and experience will help the Cardinal defend their title. The NCAA selection show will take place on Monday to find out Stanford’s fate in the first round of the postseason.
Contact Julia Massaro at jmassaro ‘at’ stanford.edu.President Donald Trump is prepared to sign legislation that would grant legal protections to qualified, young undocumented immigrants, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters the morning after she and fellow congressional leaders struck a deal with Trump on budget and debt ceiling matters, Pelosi revealed that a compromise on immigration reform may be closer than anticipated, too. The minority leader, who earlier in the day successfully convinced the president to tweet assurances to young immigrants, said that the president was supportive of the DREAM Act, a bill that the majority of Republican lawmakers have long opposed on grounds that it is a form of amnesty for minors who came to the country illegally.
“We made it very clear in the course of the conversation that the priority was to pass the DREAM Act,” Pelosi said, “that we wanted to do it. Obviously it has to be bipartisan. The president said he supports that. He would sign it.”
Trump has previously been cagey about what type of legislative vehicle he would back after his administration rescinded protections for those so-called DREAMers when it rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program started under President Obama. If Pelosi’s retelling of her conversation with Trump is correct, it gives a tremendous amount of momentum towards the DREAM Act as the main legislative response.
Asked if Pelosi’s account was correct, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders emailed The Daily Beast: “The President is focused on responsible immigration reform and wants to work with both sides to achieve it.” Four Republican senators—Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Cory Gardner (R-CO)—have already come out in support of the DREAM Act, meaning the Senate would be just eight Republican votes away from clearing the 60-vote threshold required for passage.
Despite some GOP lawmakers lending their support to the DREAM Act in the wake of Trump’s DACA decision, the majority of the party is likely to demand additional reforms, including enhanced border security measures. The outlines of that deal, which does not including funding for a physical border wall, have begun to emerge in recent days.
Beyond the legislative implications, Pelosi’s talk with Trump also underscores what appears to be a major shift in the negotiating channels between Congress and the White House. The president has, in recent days, showed a new willingness to cut deals with leading Democrats while leaving his own party’s leaders on the sideline.
White House aides say this is deliberate—that the president has grown frustrated with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The extent to which he is operating off those frustrations remains remarkable.
On Wednesday evening, he expressed his desire to work with “Chuck and Nancy” on immigration reform. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) also received a call from Trump and revealed during a floor speech that he too used the opportunity to discuss the DREAM Act.
And on Thursday morning, Trump did the rarest of presidential acts: He turned his Twitter feed over to Pelosi, a Democratic aide told The Daily Beast, heeding her request that he tweet out reassurances to those 800,000 or so DACA recipients that they would not face deportation in the six-month period during which the program is wound down.
“I was telling my colleagues, this is what I asked the president to do, and boom boom boom, the tweet appeared,” Pelosi said.
Lawmakers aren’t quite convinced, though, that Trump’s olive branches to Democrats are legitimate or will be long-lasting.
“Glad to hear that,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told The Daily Beast when told of Trump’s apparent support for the DREAM Act. But he added with a wink and a laugh, “Let’s see what he says tomorrow,” suggesting that the president could very easily change his mind. Democrats were similarly skeptical.
“If it lasts for more than a day or two, I think we should take it seriously. But we’re not even through a complete news cycle and people are doing back-flips,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) told The Daily Beast.
Sanders confirmed that Trump spoke with Schumer and Pelosi—as well as Ryan and McConnell—by phone on Thursday. She also stressed that “the president is committed to working across the aisle and doing what is needed to best serve the American people.”
But she would not confirm that Pelosi asked Trump to tweet about not deporting DACA recipients.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) challenged Trump to show his cards and come out publicly in favor of the DREAM Act and help lobby support for it on Capitol Hill.
“I’m glad that after sticking it to the DREAMers he’s shown some low-level degree of compassion. But it would be helpful if he was up here helping us pass a bill,” Murphy said.
Whether or not Trump turned his social media megaphone over to Pelosi, his seemingly newfound alliance with the minority leader has left Republicans on Capitol Hill reeling. Aides were incensed at the idea that Pelosi now has control—albeit limited—over the president’s messaging.
“If there’s ever a moment to reconsider this strategy of personality politics of keeping Trump happy, now is the time to reassess because whoever controls his Twitter controls Trump,” a conservative House aide told The Daily Beast.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption In previously unseen footage, Mr Henning describes why he wanted to deliver aid to Syria
Video footage of British hostage Alan Henning - filmed before he was captured in Syria - has shown him describing his trips to the country as "worthwhile".
The 47-year-old was a volunteer on an aid convoy in December 2013 and was seized just after crossing into Syria.
A friend of Mr Henning from the convoy, who was with him when he was captured, has appealed to militant group Islamic State (IS) to release him.
Majid Freeman, of Leicester, urged the militants to "let him come home".
In the video, Mr Henning said: "It's all worthwhile when you see what is needed, as you get where it needs to go. That makes it all worthwhile.
"No sacrifice we do is nothing compared to what they are going through every day."
In a separate video posted on YouTube, a group representing British Muslim aid workers issued "a call of mercy" appealing for Mr Henning's release.
Image copyright Majid Freeman Image caption Mr Henning bought a generator to take to Syria for a hospital
The hostage, from Eccles in Greater Manchester, had been on two previous aid convoys to the region.
Mr Freeman, 26, said it was his "worst nightmare" to see his friend become a hostage when he had gone to Syria solely to help the Syrian people.
He said he was praying for Mr Henning's release and called on IS to show him "mercy and compassion" and "understand he's a humanitarian aid worker, he's not a fighter, he's not come there for political reasons".
"Please, please don't kill him. Please spare him. Just let him come back home," he said.
Passport inspected
Mr Henning, a father-of-two, had previously worked as a taxi driver. Mr Freeman said he was a "funny guy" known as "Gadget" or "Gadge" among the convoy members.
He was seized by militants shortly after crossing into Syria from the Turkish border.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Majid Freeman: "Please, please don't kill him. Please spare him. Just let him come back home"
The gunmen arrived at a compound where the convoy workers had stopped, and inspected their passports.
According to Mr Freeman, the gunmen said Mr Henning was a spy and took him away, because his passport had a chip inside - the standard biometric chip found in British passports.
The convoy members tried in the following days to explain that the chip is a standard feature of British passports, and that Mr Henning was an aid volunteer.
Their appeals were rejected.
Image copyright Majid Freeman Image caption Mr Freeman and Mr Henning formed a friendly bond during their time in the region
Mr Freeman said he made an extra effort to get to know Mr Henning, who was the only non-Muslim on the convoy.
Mr Freeman said Mr Henning had told him that he felt "at home" in the other aid workers' company.
"I remember at some point something broke down in our ambulance," Mr Freeman said. "The radio wasn't working properly. Immediately he volunteered himself and he fixed the radio.
"Gadget was out on a mission. He not only wanted to help the Syrian people, he wanted to help everyone in whatever way he could help."
Mr Freeman also said Mr Henning had slept in their vehicle when the convoy passed through Venice, rather than stay in a hotel, because he wanted to spend his money on the people of Syria.
Donated generator
Mr Freeman said Mr Henning once raised money for a hospital generator after seeing a news report on how babies had died because their hospital's electricity supply had been cut off.
"He actually started raising money and he bought a generator himself, and he took that generator to Syria.
"He knew he can't single-handedly save the whole of Syria and end this oppression. However, he thought even if he could help a few lives, even if he could save a few children, so the next time this happens in the hospital he wants them to have a generator.
Image copyright Majid Freeman Image caption Mr Henning fixed their ambulance when things went wrong
"That's the kind of person Gadget is."
Other members of the convoy said that while they liked listening to nasheeds - Islamic songs - on the convoys, Mr Henning enjoyed listening to Phil Collins, whose music he would play loudly in his ambulance.
Air strikes
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said rescue options for Mr Henning were limited as his whereabouts were unknown.
A video showing the killing of British aid worker David Haines was recently published by IS. His death followed that of two US hostages who were also shown in videos.
IS is a radical Islamist group that has seized large swathes of territory in eastern Syria, and northern and western Iraq.
The US has launched a number of air strikes in recent weeks in an attempt to drive back its advance and support Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting IS on the ground.
The UK has not been involved in the air strikes but has flown surveillance missions and supplied heavy machine guns and ammunition to the Iraqi army.You must log in to post a comment
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Gaming know it all, dresses like a thug at conventions, loves to spam Spiritbreaker in Dota 2, and only owns video games because of free keys and game codes.
You can check out more updates regarding the Philippines’ Mobile Esports Championship Series by visiting their official Social Media Fanpage.
All of the included mobile game titles have already become esports games in their own right, with Vain Glory alone already having their own World Championship event held last Dec 2016 in Hollywood, California.
The tournament series, which will be run by an organization named Mobile Games Event Management Corporation will kick off its registrations soon as the Mobile Esports Championship Series or MECS hopes to kick off this 2017. The league will include popular mobile game titles like VainGlory, Clash Royale and Hearthstone.
The continuing popularity of mobile games in the Asia Pacific region has ultimately led to the creation of a competitive mobile gaming league that boasts a total prize pool of PHP 10 Million (~USD 200,000).
Aims to become the biggest mobile game competitive event in the country yet and will feature VainGlory, Hearthstone and Clash Royale.
The Mobile Esports Championship Series gets launched in the Philippines; will feature a total prize pool of PHP 10 Million
The Mobile Esports Championship Series gets launched in the Philippines; will feature a total prize pool of PHP 10 Million
Previous
So Mighty no.9 still haven’t sent out all of the goodies it promised in...Ensemble methods are meta-algorithms that combine several machine learning techniques into one predictive model in order to decrease variance (bagging), bias (boosting), or improve predictions (stacking). Ensemble methods can be divided into two groups: sequential ensemble methods where the base learners are generated sequentially (e.g. AdaBoost).
The basic motivation of sequential methods is to exploit the dependence between the base learners. The overall performance can be boosted by weighing previously mislabeled examples with higher weight.
The basic motivation of sequential methods is to The overall performance can be boosted by weighing |
Leah elsewhere for the moment, Kane took her to the sink and washed the sticky medicine from her dress and skin, kissing her and stroking her hair.
In his letters during their time apart, he was bossy and cajoling, condescending and affectionate. “My dear sweet Maggie,” he wrote. “Night has come, and the hour which ushers in another day is chiming from the cracked bells of Washington. Yet I sit down to give you my regular record of remembrance, to show my dear little Maggie that she is not forgotten…Do, dear darling, be lifted up and ennobled by my love. Live a life of purity, and met your reward in the respect of yourself, the praise of the world, and the blessings of Heaven.”
For Leah, Kane was a menace trying to break up their family and steal their livelihood. She also didn’t trust him. A family fortune might make up for the loss of séance income, but that was only if he married Maggie, and Leah insisted he would never do any such thing.
Meanwhile, Maggie fell hard. “It is late, my beloved,” she wrote to Kane in one letter, “and I have carefully stolen from my bed, that I might write to you undisturbed even by the breathings of others. It is after midnight, and the sweet moon is the only witness to my devotion. For four days I have done naught but weep. How has our separation affected you? I am very gloomy. Without you all is darkness, and every place seems like a grave. You ask if I mix in company? No, no! I join no merry scenes. Lish, I have not laughed since we parted… On the wings of angels I send you ten thousand kisses.”
When at last they were reunited, they married secretly, in a Quaker ceremony, which didn’t require a minister. They announced the marriage to her family, but not to his. They didn’t dare live together, but from then on he called her “Dear Wife.”
Kane’s health, never good, had been weakened by another bout with rheumatic fever, and further damaged by his difficult Arctic expeditions. Within a couple of years of their secret marriage, Kane, carrying Maggie’s portrait, sailed for Cuba, where his doctor hoped the climate would help him would recover. The treatment failed. On a boat between Cuba and St. Thomas, at the age of thirty-seven, Kane had a stroke and died. Maggie, who had now known Kane for nearly her entire adult life, was a widow.
She would never remarry. Upon Kane’s death, Maggie sank into a deep depression. She sat silent and alone in dark rooms, drinking, and wishing she could give herself the same consolation she’d given to her desperate clients.
Against Leah’s objections, Maggie converted to Catholicism, which she knew would have pleased Kane, and tried to pray the way he had. She read and reread his letters. “Remember then as a sort of dream,” Kane had written in one, “that Doctor Kane of the Arctic Seas loved Maggie Fox of the Spirit Rappings.”
“You are driving me into hell!” Maggie yelled at Leah now when she insisted it was time to do another séance. “Now that you are rich why don’t you save your soul?”
Maggie, never fully committed to the life (as Nancy Rubin Stuart’s 2005 book The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox attests), had fully come around to Kane’s way of thinking. She now hated her profession. Leah told Maggie that not only did they need to keep rapping, but also that they should consider starting a new religion. Instead, they just kept on with what they had been doing, séance after séance, for years, until Maggie had finally had enough.
* * *
NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MUSIC, NEW YORK CITY
On the evening of October 21, 1888, Maggie Fox, now in her mid-fifties and still wearing mourning clothes for Kane, stepped out onto the large stage of the opera house on East Fourteenth Street to face four thousand people. She had been sleepless for days, pacing her apartment in a manic state — playing the piano, talking excitedly to visiting friends about the blow she was about to deliver — and, of course, drinking.
The audience whispered to each other, wondering what the legendary Maggie Fox had to say. They called out taunts and cries of support. Maggie didn’t react to either her fans or detractors. By this point, she had been famous for forty years. She surveyed the room, put on her glasses, curtseyed, and with her words sent a shock wave through the auditorium.
“My sister Katie and I were very young children when this horrible deception began,” she said (her speech was published the same day in the New York World). “We were very mischievous children and sought merely to terrify our dear mother, who was a very good woman and very easily frightened.”
It took the crowd a minute to realize what was happening: Maggie Fox, star of the most famous medium family in the world, was saying that her career — and therefore the religion of Spiritualism, by then some eight million strong — was built on a childhood prank. She and Kate had made up the ghost “Charles Rosna,” Maggie said, as a joke. The girls had noticed how scared the rapping made their mother, and so they egged each other on to knock ever louder on their bedframe.
After those first few days of rapping in Hydesville, Maggie explained, the sisters had begun to add props, tying lines around objects and furniture so that they could cause things to fall, making ever-louder noises in the night. They took apples from the cellar and tied strings around them. Then they would throw the apples from their beds and yank them back under the covers, making a bumping sound along the dirt floor through the room. When their mother ran into their bedroom, they would look at her startled and wide-eyed.
As time went on, the girls also cultivated a special skill: They found they could loudly crack their toe knuckles and anklebones. They practiced throughout the day. When they did this against their bed frame at night, the wood would even produce a vibration.
“Like most perplexing things when made clear, it is astonishing how easily it is done,” Maggie said from onstage. “The rappings are simply the result of a perfect control of the muscles of the leg below the knee, which govern the tendons of the foot and allow action of the toe and ankle bones that is not commonly known. Such perfect control is only possible when a child is taken at an early age and carefully and continually taught to practice the muscles, which grow stiff in later years. A child at twelve is almost too old. With control of the muscles of the foot, the toes may be brought down to the floor without any movement that is perceptible to the eye. The whole foot, in fact, can be made to give rappings by the use only of the muscles below the knee.”
Of the frenzied attention they received as children, Maggie said: “There were so many people coming to the house that we were not able to make use of the apple trick except when we were in bed and the room was dark. Even then we could hardly do it, so the only way was to rap on the bedstead.”
In a Chicago Tribune article called “Mrs. Fox Kane’s Big Toe,” a reporter describing the event said, “One moment it was ludicrous; the next moment it was weird.” According to the article, the Spiritualists in the audience “almost frothed at the mouth with rage,” and “muttered furious threats against their foes.”
With Kate looking on from a box and applauding, Maggie even offered a demonstration, taking off her shoes and tights to show, in bare feet, how she could strike her joint against wood to make a loud rapping sound.
Maggie was happy in that moment, knowing that her talk would infuriate Leah when she heard about it, and that wherever he was, Elisha surely approved.
* * *
AFTER THE CONFESSION
Unfortunately, Maggie and Kate had no long-term plan. They had not cultivated any other skills, and knew only one way to make a living. Maggie was paid $1,500 for that performance, and her confession was published in the New York World. Together she and Kate published a pamphlet called The Death-Blow to Spiritualism. (Leah, under her married name, Underhill, would tell her side of the story in 1885 in a book called The Missing Link in Modern Spiritualism.) Those proceeds only lasted so long, especially because the sisters seemed fully committed to drinking themselves to death.
A year later, Maggie tried to walk back her confession. “At the time I was in great need of money and persons…took advantage of the situation,” she said. “The excitement, too, upset my mental equilibrium. When I made those dreadful statements I was not responsible for my words.”
Reactions to this recantation were mixed. Some still believed the confession and thought the attempt to retract it was laughable. Others believed in her abilities and concluded that she had faked the confession. But still, no one wanted her around anymore. Even the Spiritualists at the Manhattan Liberal Club shunned her. She attempted suicide at least once.
All three sisters died within just a few years of Maggie’s confession: Leah in 1890, Kate in 1892 and Maggie in 1893.
The Fox family home’s foundation today is maintained as a Spiritualist holy site, and the Newark-Arcadia Historical Society has a good collection of material related to the Fox Sisters. (Former town historian Bob Hoeltzel’s work was a major source for this article.)
Maggie and Kate were buried together in Brooklyn, New York. Today they lie together in death, just like when, as girls, they fell asleep at midnight and slept side by side in the first haunted house in America.It has been a frustrating week for those of us looking for concrete answers regarding the rumors circulating about Xbox One since before Microsoft revealed it. Between the reveal itself not touching on any of them and the conflicting responses various individuals from Microsoft giving mixed messages and contradictory possibilities there has been a dearth of non-information, especially on the subject of used games.
Microsoft has made an official statement, now, expressing frustration at how "inaccurate and incomplete" the reports game journalists have been making regarding the topic are.
The ability to trade in and resell games is important to gamers and to Xbox. Xbox One is designed to support the trade in and resale of games. Reports about our policies for trade in and resale are inaccurate and incomplete. We will disclose more information in the near future.
Ignoring the fact this doesn't actually clear anything up, I'm gonna have to agree with Destructoid's response to this formal statement. "Reports are inaccurate and incomplete? Whose fault is that, Microsoft?"
As a company, Microsoft has had months to prepare for this reveal, during which time all sorts of rumors arose. There is literally no possible way they could not have expected those questions, those rumors to come up once they started making formal reveals, formal statements, and started releasing formal information on the upcoming console's capabilities.
Kinda how we feel too, Don.
To turn around and claim to be angry at us, the journalists who are trying to make sense of all these mixed messages... If I was not already upset with the entire mindset Microsoft has adopted regarding the Xbox One's capabilities, focus, and potential, it would be enough to make me seriously question the responsibility of the company's console division.
If you are not prepared to give answers to certain questions then it is not our responsibility to make sure your employees know not to say what they think they know. If we had been told nothing at all about used games or internet requirements it would have left us wondering and likely worried, but at least it would have been consistent. It is our job, our duty, to relay what information we are given. Do not blame us for doing so because the message we were given is "inaccurate and incomplete".[This is the 1st post in a 4-part series describing Skylight. This post describes Skylight’s gameplay. Look for posts about the ships, campaign, and multiplayer in the coming weeks!]
Skylight is an odd hybrid: a turn-based game that features real-time action. The intention is to offer the best of both worlds, offering grand cinematic battles while giving the player time to carefully consider the underlying tactics. So how is this accomplished?
At the start of each turn, you’ll see both your fleet and the enemy fleet frozen in space. Each ship has a small circle overlaid, which I call a “medallion” in the code. You can hover over the medallion to get a brief description of the ship.
You select a ship by clicking on the medallion (i.e. looking at it and pressing the touchpad or gamepad button). At that moment, the “waypoints” in the level become visible. This is a grid of points in space evenly distributed throughout the battle volume.
After selecting a ship, you can give it an “order” by selecting any waypoint (to move) or any enemy ship (to move and attack). When this is done, the game draws a line from your ship to its new destination, and the medallion moves to the end of this line. You can then select the medallion again and issue a new order, creating a queue of orders (e.g. move here, then attack this enemy, then move there, and so on).
Some ships have special abilities as well, like a missile attack or a defensive shield. You can order a special ability by selecting a ship, pressing its ability button, and then (if applicable) selecting a target. This adds an order to the queue just like any other, so you can tell a ship to move forward, then fire its missile at an enemy ship, then move further, then attack that ship, etc.
You can take as much time as you like to issue orders to your fleet. Ships with no active orders will just shoot at anything in range, so if you pursue a defensive strategy, it’s not even necessary to give orders to all of your ships.
When you’re finished with the orders, you can end your turn, and the battle proceeds in real time. Here’s what that looks like in action:
(Also see the teaser trailer for an example of this)
Each round lasts for about 20 seconds, and then the battle pauses again. All of your remaining orders will still be present, so if you just want your ships to keep fighting, you can just end your turn immediately. But it’s more likely that the tactical situation has changed, and you’ll want to change your fleet’s orders. You can cancel any ships orders individually, or you can clear all the orders at once if you want to start with a clean slate.
So why do these orders matter? Why would you want to move one ship rather than another? Why not just attack with everything and see how the battle plays out? Where do the tactics factor in? There are a few answers:
Each of the different ship types has a different specialty. Some are better at dealing damage, some better at taking it. Some are better at destroying fighter squadrons, while others are better at taking out giant capital ships.
All ships (excluding fighters) have front-facing shields. When a ship takes a hit from the front, it does half as much damage as when they take a hit from the side or back. Thus, you can do a lot more damage if you can get behind the enemy and attack them from multiple sides.
When a ship is under attack by a fighter squadron, it can’t follow its orders. It has to stop and fight off the fighters that are swarming around it. Thus, fighters can be used to disrupt the enemy plans and temporarily incapacitate larger ships.
Many ships have one-time-use special abilities. For example, the Cruiser’s missile attack can damage all enemies within a small area. A squadron of Phantoms can go invisible (and untargetable) for a turn. The Ironclad can project a shield to take damage for all the ships around it. These abilities, deployed with care, can make the difference between glorious victory and ignoble defeat.
It’s not helpful to make plans that are too complicated, but there’s something beautiful about seeing a complex web of intersecting lines in 3D, all representing a devious plan that always stays one step ahead of the enemy. I sometimes talk about how you get to “orchestrate” your fleet, and I think that’s the best metaphor for the player’s role in Skylight.TRENTON — Advocates say they will consider suing the state if Gov. Chris Christie continues to stand in the way of implementing a law that legalizes marijuana for medical use.
But they're not enthusiastic about that possibility.
Roseanne Scotti, New Jersey director of the Drug Policy Alliance, hopes a lawsuit is a last resort. She notes that court cases can drag on for years and says her concern is patients having access now.
Christie hasn't yet responded to a memo released Thursday by the U.S. Justice Department that says marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with medical marijuana laws could face prosecution for violating federal drug and money-laundering laws.
Christie's spokesman, Michael Drewniak, says the governor is awaiting advice from Attorney General Paula Dow, who is still reviewing the letter.Cornell Brown and Torrian Gray were part of two Big East championships and the first class in Virginia Tech football history to earn four consecutive bowl invitations. They faced a true freshman named Peyton Manning in the 1994 Gator Bowl and two-time defending national champion Nebraska in the 1996 Orange Bowl.
But nothing, individually or collectively, matches New Year’s Eve 1995, when Gray and Brown led a ravenous defense that keyed a 28-10 Sugar Bowl upset of Texas and future Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams.
Gray, the Hokies’ defensive backs coach, and Brown, their outside linebackers coach, reflected on that night as the 2011 Tech team prepared for its Jan. 3 Sugar Bowl against Michigan in the same Superdome.
“We were just trying to find ourselves in the football world,” said Gray, a safety and second-round draft choice of the Minnesota Vikings in 1997. “Won the Independence Bowl (over Indiana) two years (previous) and went to the Gator Bowl year after that, and oh, we’re playing Texas.”
“We wanted to have our own recognition,” said Brown, a defensive end and sixth-round draft choice of the Baltimore Ravens in 1997. “I don’t think anybody gave us respect or thought we really belonged, because we were the type of team in transition. We were improving, getting better year in and year out. We didn’t have the national name as a Texas.”
The Hokies opened 0-2 in 1995, losing to Boston College and Cincinnati, before winning nine straight games. They had never played in a major bowl or finished among the nation’s top 10. Early on, despite Brown’s first-play sack of Longhorns quarterback James Brown, they looked like neophytes, falling behind 10-0.
“The biggest thing is just the overall attitude of the team,” Cornell Brown said. “We go down 10-zip against a powerful Texas team, I don’t think anybody blinked or got down. … We actually got better as the game went along, similar to the season we had.”
Indeed, Tech’s defense locked down – Williams finished with 62 yards rushing – and the offense awakened. Jim Druckenmiller’s 54-yard touchdown pass to Bryan Still on the opening drive of the fourth quarter gave the Hokies a 21-10 lead and unleashed the defense.
Twice Texas crossed midfield looking to make it a one-score game. Twice Gray intercepted Brown, with 10:09 and 7:33 remaining.
Both times the Hokies were playing what Gray said defensive coordinator Bud Foster called “5 bandit.” The alignment produced Gray’s first interceptions of the season.
“You’re in man-to-man except at the position I played, and I’m just freed up reading the quarterback,” Gray said. “James Brown, I don’t think he saw me either one. We hadn’t played it a lot all year, so maybe he didn’t see it on film or something. It was always my favorite coverage. We just didn’t call it a lot during the year.”
Then it was Cornell Brown’s turn. Tech’s sack leader during the regular season with 14, he jarred the ball loose from James Brown late in the fourth quarter, and defensive lineman Jim Baron returned the fumble 20 yards for the game’s final touchdown.
Cornell Brown added a third sack on Texas’ next possession as the Hokies concluded their season 10-2 and finished No. 10 in the Associated Press poll. The teams directly behind Tech in the poll: Notre Dame, Southern California, Penn State and Texas, rare air for the school from southwestern Virginia.
No wonder the maroon-and-orange crowd flooded Bourbon Street afterward.
Laissez les bon temps roulez.
“Whenever it’s a game on that big a stage and you can go out and perform,” Brown said, “it’s always etched in your memory.”
I can be reached at 247-4636 or by e-mail at dteel@dailypress.com. Follow me at twitter.com/DavidTeelatDPOKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Immigration officials lied to an Oklahoma father of six who wanted to extend his permits to live and work in the U.S., telling him they’d grant the extensions if he came to their office but arresting and quickly deporting him instead, his lawyer said.
U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials say Luis Plaza Moreno, of Norman, was arrested Oct. 25 at an Oklahoma City immigration office after failing to report to ICE agents for more than three years. Moreno, 44, was deported Saturday to Mexico, said ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok.
Moreno’s family and attorney say he was previously told he no longer had to report to ICE. His son, Luis Plaza Jr., said the family didn’t know Moreno had been deported until he called after he arrived in Mexico.
“We couldn’t get ahold of him because they moved him,” Plaza said. “He called and said they dropped him off. They didn’t even give us a chance to sort this out and fight the case. I just don’t know why they made it so quick.”
Moreno came to the U.S. illegally in 2002. His family and attorney, Giovanni Perry, said he was granted a stay of deportation in 2011 after being arrested for driving without a license and that he checked regularly with ICE until 2014, when Perry said she and Moreno visited an ICE office to inquire about an extension of the stay.
″‘You’re not a priority. We’re not looking for you. Quit showing up. I don’t want to hear about you anymore,’” Perry said an agent told them.
Perry said Moreno stayed away until last week, when he sought an extension of his work permit and of the stay and was told both would be granted if he came to the immigration office in person. When he arrived, he was arrested.
Perry said a request for another stay was filed after his arrest, but he was deported before it was considered.
She said the family has asked for assistance from the office of Sen. James Lankford, a Republican who is co-sponsor of a Senate bill that would provide a 15-year path to citizenship for some children who were brought by their parents to the country illegally when they were young.
“We are analyzing and researching the specifics of this case involving Luis Plaza Moreno,” Lankford spokesman Aly Beley said Wednesday in an email to The Associated Press.Eight people face charges after police say they were operating an open-air drug market in the Selbyville area.
The Delaware State Police Sussex County Drug Unit culminated a three-month-long drug investigation on Aug. 22 into illegal drug sales in the Pollybranch area of Selbyville, executing two search warrants at residences in Selbyville and Frankford, said Sgt. Richard Bratz of the Delaware State Police.
During the execution of the Selbyville warrant in the 30000 block of Washington Avenue, Bratz said, Jayquan Bland was standing in front of a home engaging in hand-to-hand drug transactions, and he threw a plastic bag containing 216 bags of heroin. While searching the home occupied by Janie Handy, Bratz said, police found $2,938 in suspected drug proceeds, seven bags of powder cocaine, eight suboxone strips, and 4.29 grams of marijuana. A 9-year-old child was present during the execution of the search warrant, and Division of Family Services was notified, he said.
Delane Jacobs was sitting in a Nissan Altima parked near the home when detectives contacted him and detected the smell of marijuana, Bratz said. Police searched the vehicle and found.44 grams of powder cocaine, $612 in suspected drug proceeds and two suboxone strips.
In Frankford, Bratz said, police issued a warrant in the 30000 block of Frankford School Road at a home maintained by Jeremiah Handy and Ashley Drummond. Inside, police seized 5,380 bags of heroin (37.66 grams), 7 grams of marijuana, a loaded Taurus 9mm semi-automatic handgun and $22,979 in suspected drug proceeds. Detectives also seized $25,000 in assets from Handy and Drummond’s bank account. A 12-year-old child was in the home and later turned over to the maternal grandmother. Division of Family Services was notified.
In total, Bratz said, detectives seized 5,596 bags of heroin (39.172 grams), $51,529 in suspected drug proceeds, 3.62 grams of powder cocaine, 11.29 grams of marijuana, 10 suboxone strips and a loaded 9mm handgun.
The Delaware State Police Sussex Drug Unit and the Governor’s Task Force worked with the Worcester County Maryland Criminal Enforcement Team, National Guard Counter Drug Programs of Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, Drug Enforcement Administration, Ocean City Police Department Narcotics Unit and the Selbyville Police Department during the raids.
The following people were charged:
• Jeremiah Handy, 32, of Selbyville, and Ashley Drummond, 30, of Frankford with possession with intent to deliver heroin, possession heroin, possession firearm by person prohibited, money laundering and endangering the welfare of a child. They were arraigned at Justice of the Peace Court 2 and committed to Sussex Correctional Institution – Handy in default of $126,000 cash bond and Drummond in default of $130,000 secured bond.
• Janie C. Handy, 28, of Selbyville with possession with intent to deliver cocaine, maintaining a drug property, possession suboxone, endangering welfare of child and possession of drug paraphernalia. She was arraigned at Justice of the Peace Court 2 and committed to SCI in default of $10,500 cash bond.
• Jayquan Bland, 17, of Laurel with possession with intent to deliver heroin, tampering physical evidence, possession drug paraphernalia, drug dealing and second-degree conspiracy. He was arraigned at Justice of the Peace Court 2 and committed to the Stevenson House Detention Center in default of $12,250 cash bond.
• Delane Jacobs, 30, of Selbyville with possession cocaine, possession suboxone, two counts of possession drug paraphernalia. He was arraigned before Justice of the Peace Court 2 and committed to SCI in default of $1,501 secured bond.
• Phillip Michael Smith, 29, of Frankford with drug dealing. He was arraigned at Justice of the Peace Court 3 and committed to SCI in default of $50,000 cash bond.
• David M. Mitchell Jr., 25, of Selbyville with drug dealing and second-degree conspiracy. He was arraigned at Justice of the Peace Court 2 and committed to SCI in default of $22,253 secured bond.
• Tycere Bryant, 17, of Selbyville with drug dealing. He was arraigned at Justice of the Peace Court 3 and committed to the Stevenson House Detention Center in default of $20,000 secured bond.
Police continue to search for the following:
• Frederick M. Lynch, 23, of Georgetown
• Deshawn C. Handy, 34, of Selbyville
• Edward L. Collick, 28, of Greenwood
• Cornell V. Gray, 33, of Greenwood
• Timothy E. Sample, 28, of Millville
• Jhajuanye Q. Johnson, 23, of Selbyville
Anyone with information on their whereabouts is asked to call Sgt. M. Dawson at 302-752-3815. Information may also be provided by calling Delaware Crime Stoppers at 1-800-TIP-3333 or on the internet at www.delaware.crimestoppersweb.com.lifted and reformatted from:Why Portland Sucks"Latte Town" was coined a few years back and is the most appropriate term for the City of Portland that I have ever heard.A Latte town consists of mostly white, educated baby boomers and young single people. The inhabitants of the town are usually newcomers who have priced out all the original inhabitants. These towns are usually expensive, pretentious, abound in natural fibers and are laid back on the surface.Latte towns like Portland pride themselves on their most cherished concepts of diversity and inclusiveness. Most Portlanders accept this myth as Gospel but upon close examination Portland's dirty little secret is revealed.Portland is an overwhelmingly white, non-ethnic city. It is as vanilla as it gets so it makes one wonder what all the celebrating of diversity is all about.Drive through any neighborhood surrounding the downtown area and the impression that you get is that Portland is nothing more than a series of elitist ghettos compromised of rich white homosexuals, rich white yuppies, rich white hippies, rich white trust funders, and rich white kids from the suburbs pretending to be street people.Where's the diversity? Well it doesn't exist but the average Portlander likes the concept and in their eyes the different shades of rich whites all constitute diversity.I will attempt to breakdown and explain these subtle distinctions between the various factions of lily white, latte people that make Portland what it is.The Artist-IntellectualThe visitor or newcomer to Portland is bound to be struck by the sheer numbers that belong to this group. They seem to be everywhere and are in fact everywhere. They are the reason that all the coffee shops have tables and chairs. The artist-intellectual fancies himself as a poet, a writer, a musician, a filmmaker, etc. You get the drift. They spend most of their days idling around the coffee establishments that one finds every 10 feet.They are usually equipped with a notebook that they use for their poems, journals or their artwork. No one ever gets to see the contents of these notebooks. More often than not they have a beaten and weathered paper back copy of some book authored by Kafka or William S. Boroughs. They love to discuss their favorite subject, themselves.Given the opportunity they will prattle on for hours about their poems, art work or the film they are making. You never get to actually see any of their work but you do get to hear about it. Their lives are like one never ending semester in grad school.Initially I believed these losers but then got to thinking. What would an aspiring actor, artist, musician, filmmaker being doing in Portland Oregon, a latte town? Why wouldn't they be in NYC or LA? Because they're phonies, that's why. Here's how it works with these clowns. They flunk out of college in New Jersey so their parents send them to Reed College in Portland in hopes that they will get their act together. They drop out of Reed but stay in Portland while still on Daddy's tab or some trust find. One Saturday Josh or Seth drifts down to one of the hundreds of hippie craft markets downtown.Some hippie is selling didgeridoos that he made in between bong reps. Josh buy one and takes it home where he proceeds to get baked after which he blows a few sour notes into the didgeridoo.The next day he's a musician. Not really but that's what he's telling everyone at the coffee house and pretending is good enough for a Portland artist-intellectual, in fact it's everything. In three months he will switch his designation from musician to filmmaker and then onto to something else 3 months later. As long as it sounds cool he will keep this charade up and no one in his circles will call him on it because they are doing the same thing.The ActivistThis group is usually comprised of people that used to be part of the artist-intellectual group in Portland. They have gotten a little older and may have finally, after 12 years, obtained a liberal arts degree from Portland State or Reed College. They may still run in artist-intellectual circles but have latched onto some "cause" at this time of their life.An activist always lives off some sort of trust fund or inheritance.When you ask an activist what he does for a living he will actually say he is an "activist" with a straight face. I used to look in the want ads and at the state employment office but never once did I see an advertised job entitled "activist".The activist usually lives in some semi communal house with other activist and artist-intellectuals, the kind of place where people sleep on mattresses on the floor and where the walls are covered with hippie tapestries. Oh yeah there are always like 15 cats roaming around the house and it stinks of cat piss, body odor and patchouli.The activist is still a bum at heart but feels the need to pretend that he is productive and feels extremely self conscious about living off some one else's money but not enough to actually get a job. So the activist associates himself with the following types of groups: art councils, school-to-work collaboratives, environmental groups, preservation groups, community-supported agriculture, anti-development groups, and other ad hoc activist groups.Affiliation with these groups will change every 6 months or so. It all sounds cool and actually creates the impression that they work.The CroneThe Crone is a middle-aged woman that lives alone with her two cats. She is extremely bitter and unpleasant to be around. Crones usually populate the SE and NW sides of Portland. Often you can see that the Crone was quite attractive in her day.You can easily envision her twirling around dressed like Stevie Nicks at some Grateful Dead show back in 1978. Nature and time have not been good to her. She's always had a bad attitude but at least in her younger days she had perky breast and booty to match. Nice T&A can go a long way for making up for a crappy attitude but now she's only left with the bad attitude and the Stevie Nicks get up.The Crone is usually involved in several crackpot Womyn's organizations that promote some sort of radical and unrealistic form of feminism. They usually have names like the United Front of Sisterhood or Radical WomynFor The Extermination Of The Male Species.Crones usually have jobs in local government or at State Universities, places where their inability to get along with anyone has no bearing on keeping their jobs.I worked with a Crone at City Hall. She filed a sexual harassment charge against me because she was eavesdropping on a phone conversation I was having and I said the word "chick". She filed another sexual grievance against a guy because he displayed a family picture on his desk of his wife and four kids at the beach. His wife was wearing a bathing suit, one piece, and this sexually offended the Crone who viewed this as objectifying women.The Crone wishes she were a lesbian because she hates men so much. She's tried to convert but it never took. Now her only objective in life is to feed her cats, read Tarot cards and make every one else's life a living hell.The New Age SpiritualistThis could very easily be the official religious doctrine of Portland.All Portlanders fall into one of two groups when it comes to God. They are either atheists or they are new age spiritualists. You can hear them espousing their creed everywhere, "I'm spiritual but not religious", as if this automatically put them on the moral high ground.This belief system can best be described as spirituality without obligation.The new age spiritualist lives in a moral temperate zone where he picks and chooses tenants from all faiths that suit his lifestyle of the moment.Anything self sacrificing or too stringent is discarded and deemed "dogmatic" or "too religious". This way he can have the best of both worlds.In reality he gets little more than a set of watered down moral concepts that do nothing more than validate the sensibilities that may be in fashion at the moment. For example, the New Age Spiritualist eschews judgmetalism.Particularly judgementalism that conflicts with their desires but he will embrace judgementalism when it comes to condemning cigarette smoking or individuals that don't have the right perception on the three R's which are racial sensitivity, recycling and xyz-group rights.The new age spiritualist's home will be adorned with religious objects of oppressed people. Amazonian figures, Native American totems, Egyptian deities, animistic shells, or Shinto statuettes abound. The rules is that it's OK to display religious articles as long as you have no real association or knowledge of the said religion.A Crucifix would be seen as a little too extreme.The DudeThis is without a doubt the most ubiquitous character roaming the streets of Portland or any other Latte town for that matter. The Dude is usually a young white male that has great enthusiasm for games that are usually associated with extreme sports and the X-Games.He is called a Dude because this is the most commonly used word in his vocabulary. You've heard them before. They are the kind of guys that refer to everyone as 'dude' and use 'dude' as a noun adjective and a verb.When they say 'dude' they put a lot of emphasis on the "u". They say 'duuude' instead of 'dude'.Their aspiration is for life to resemble an extended hobby. Work is playful and play is something they pursue with earnest. Most don't work but if they must you can find them working at places that sell skateboards, snowboards and other thing that are of supreme importance to the Dude.Dudes are usually extremely stupid and have flunked out of all the worst community colleges so they rarely associate with the activist or artist-intellectual unless of course there is some sort of sharing of drugs thing going on.The Dude is held in high esteem in Portland because he is seen as someone who is bucking the system. He will quit a job in a heartbeat if the swells on the Columbia are optimal for shredding.He lives for the moment, the perfect wave and the perfect buzz.Priorities and responsibilities are no more than an after thought for these Portland cowboys.HippiesThese characters are the status quo in Portland. They seem to run across three generations and are composed of people who came from |
you it's going to happen. We're going to spend the rest of our lives working on this."
While the island would be an independent commonwealth under Lockwood's plan -- the fee for citizenship would be $300,000, which doesn't include the cost of buying a house or condo -- Detroiters would be free to come and go as they please and be able to access the island's amenities.
"Rod and I have been friends a long time," said Sperlich, who was one of the architects of the Mustang while atand later one of architects of the minivan at Chrysler when naysayers thought such a vehicle would never sell.
"This could be a tipping point," he said. "I'm excited about it, but it's going to take a long road to make it happen. But you can go way back and ask what were the chances of this country happening in 1776? Sometimes, big ideas work out.
"Yes, you'll hear the 'they're stealing our jewels.' But hopefully, people will see the intent here is to provide a massive impetus to the city. This will lead to massive development in downtown Detroit and massive development to the area adjacent to the bridge.
"The big challenge is political. Politicians tend not to gather around big ideas," said Sperlich. "Is there going to be a bankruptcy? Will there be an emergency manager? In the next year or so, there may be an interest in selling non-strategic assets."
"The island is a potential jewel," said Durant. "This is a city that needs to be energized, and to do that takes human ingenuity. Instead of the island being a drain on the city and a cost item, it becomes part of the revival. How much did they originally pay for the island of Manhattan? There was another island no one thought had any value."
Lockwood said he has developed an affinity for the island in part because of the many runs, including Free Press marathons, that he has participated in there over the years.
He said he envisions that, should the project come to pass, half of the residents will be U.S. residents and the rest recruited through advertising campaigns targeting countries in northern climates whose residents are not deterred by cold winters.
"Getting the money to do this and recruiting people is the easy part.... As someone who's run numbers, I have no doubt the financials will work," Lockwood said.
"But people aren't going to spend a lot of time thinking about it unless we're getting political traction. How do we move the needle so the governor and the president and Congress say, 'We need to do this'? "
Detroit program management director William "Kriss" Andrews said he doesn't think the City Council will be any more receptive to a sale to private investors than it was to a proposal the state floated last year to lease the island and turn it into a state park.
Reaction by some council members was vociferous, although a poll of city residents by The Detroit News showed a substantial majority actually approved a state takeover.Much to Ann Coulter's chagrin, millions of Americans are tuning in this year to watch their team compete in the World Cup.
But while these patriotic soccer fans may think they're doing little more than supporting their team and having a rare communal moment of solidarity, one recurring guest of Fox News says the truth behind the U.S.'s World Cup enthusiasm is actually rather sinister.
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After "Outnumbered" co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle admitted she, too, was wrapped up in World Cup enthusiasm, Fox News' in-house psychoanalyst Keith Ablow cut in to argue that the Obama administration was using the World Cup in order to distract from its many failures and scandals, copying a propaganda trick with roots stretching all the way back to the Roman Empire.
"At a time when there’s so many national issues and international issues of such prominence, I am a little suspicious of yet another bread and circus routine," Ablow intoned.
Imagining the secret meetings among White House string-pullers, Ablow pretended to be an administration official laying out her scheme: "Let’s roll out the marijuana, pull back the laws and get people more crazy about yet another entertainment event."
But Ablow isn't so easily fooled. "This is to distract people. This is like Rome," he said. "I can see why Obama would love the World Cup.”
Ablow's argument may sound, at first, more than a little paranoid and bizarre. But before you dismiss the good doctor so quickly, keep in mind that this damning photo was widely shared on Twitter during the U.S.'s game against Germany on Thursday:
[embedtweet id="482217754351898624"]
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You can watch Ablow blow this whole thing wide open below, via Media Matters:A state agency with a significant footprint near The Diamond is on the hunt for a half million square feet of real estate, potentially putting its current home in play as a site for a new baseball stadium.
A request for proposals went out Friday for the state Department of General Services, on behalf of the Virginia ABC, to secure larger office and warehouse space for the booze purveyor in the greater Richmond area.
According to the RFP documents, ABC is seeking 375,000 square feet of distribution space and 80,000 to 95,000 square feet of office space.
The new facilities could replace ABC’s existing nerve center, which encompasses 292,000 square feet of office and warehouse space at 2901 Hermitage Road across from The Diamond. That 20-acre property was reported to be a likely site to house a new stadium for the Richmond Flying Squirrels.
“We’re at maximum capacity,” ABC spokeswoman Carol Mawyer said of the Hermitage complex. “We are using every inch of the space that we currently have.”
The state has tapped Divaris Real Estate’s Richmond division to field the proposals, which must be submitted by Aug. 11.
The RFP states that preferred sites would be in City of Richmond or Chesterfield, Henrico, Hanover, Powhatan, Goochland or New Kent counties.
Once all the proposals have been received, Mawyer said the agency and the Department of General Services will submit the best proposal to the General Assembly on Nov. 1 for possible funding by state legislators.
Dena Potter, spokeswoman for DGS, which among other tasks handles the state’s real estate needs, said prospective proposal applicants can tour ABC’s Hermitage facility June 20.
State leaders set aside $500,000 in the 2017 budget to start the initial leg of research to either expand the ABC existing facility, relocate its office and distribution operations to existing buildings, or construct a new facility either onsite or elsewhere.
The state-owned Hermitage Road complex includes 60,000 square feet of offices, with the balance dedicated to warehouse and distribution operations, according to city records.
ABC is looking for a “turn-key” option, which would allow for the agency to move its people, products and equipment into the new space quickly, Potter said. She added the option to renovate and expand ABC’s Hermitage Road operation is on the table, but would have to work around its employees and not impair day-to-day operations.
“We cannot cease operations because of the renovation, if that is the option selected,” Potter said.
She said the office and distribution operations do not have to be in conjoined buildings, like its current location, and that ABC’s distribution operation and offices can be located in separate areas.
“It’s all about finding the right proposal that’s going to help keep ABC efficient and operational,” Potter said.
As for potential sites that could accommodate such a project, John Jay Schwartz of Richmond-based brokerage Have Site Will Travel, which handles large industrial deals, said there are several options across the region conducive to the state’s request.
He cites spots off the Interstate 95 corridor near Ashland and in south Chesterfield County, Goochland County’s West Creek development, and the White Oak Business Park in eastern Henrico County near Richmond International Airport.
“The best thing is for the operation to be a consolidated location where the office is with the warehouse,” Schwartz said. “I think that’s what you’ll see happen.”
Given that ABC outgrew the Hermitage facility, Schwartz suggested moving the agency off the site to open it for another use.
“That site lends itself to something better … there are a number of more efficient uses for that space,” he said.
Schwartz isn’t alone in making such an assertion.
Local news outlets reported last year that the ABC’s 20-acre Hermitage property was a potential site for a long-awaited replacement for The Diamond.
That was followed by the announcement of a joint agreement between the Richmond Flying Squirrels, VCU and former mayor Dwight Jones’ office to “guide the final stages of planning for a new ballpark in Richmond to be used by VCU and the Flying Squirrels.”
Mayor Levar Stoney, prior to being elected, reportedly participated in the negotiations for that agreement, which stated the group was eyeing a $60 million stadium project at an unspecified site near The Diamond. Stoney has said he would support the project only if surrounding counties ponied up their fair share.
Emails to the mayor’s office about the status of any stadium plan were not returned by press time.
A new stadium on the ABC site would free up The Diamond’s to join surrounding parcels for a total of 60 city-owned acres bounded by North Boulevard and Hermitage Road. The city already has teased developers with what it would like to see on the site.
If ABC decides to leave Hermitage Road and a new stadium doesn’t materialize on the site, Schwartz said, the property could lend itself to mixed-use developments, large office space or residential development.
“There is lot of great potential for growth on that property,” he said. “At this point it really is up to the legislature and the city.”
Clarification: A previous version of this report stated that any proposed sites must fall within the City of Richmond or Chesterfield, Henrico, Hanover, Powhatan, Goochland or New Kent counties. Those are the preferred localities, but not required.Burien City Manager Kamuron Gurol fired at Monday night’s council session
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By Jack Mayne
After an executive session at the end of a nearly four hour study session, the Burien City Council voted 4-3 Monday night (Sept. 26) to have the city attorney prepare a “separation agreement” for City Manager Kamuron Gurol, effective next week.
No reason was given and no discussion of the firing was made in public.
Still another ‘executive session’
There was some indication of another potential personnel action at the very beginning of the monthly Council study session Monday night (Sept. 26).
Mayor Lucy Krakowiak asked to add an executive session to the agenda.
Councilmember Steve Armstrong said an executive session was unnecessary, then the Council voted 4-3 to hold one to “discuss the performance of a public official” at the end of the meeting.
Such sessions are permissible by law, and the last such series of special sessions concluded with Dan Trimble, Burien’s economic development manager for many years, leaving the city staff Sept. 19 after a series of executive City Council meetings behind closed doors, and the Council approval of a “separation agreement,” the details of which were not revealed to the city electorate.
The ax fell
After the executive session, Mayor Krakowiak moved “to initiate a separation agreement for the City Manager, Kamuron Gurol and request his resignation by Oct. 6, 2016. I ask the city attorney to prepare this agreement.”
The motion was seconded by Deputy Mayor Bob Edgar.
There was no discussion of the motion and the Council voted 4–3 to fire Gurol.
Those voting to terminate Gurol were Mayor Krakowiak, Deputy Mayor Edgar, and Councilmembers Lauren Berkowitz, and Nancy Tosta.
Opposing the ouster of Gurol were Councilmembers Steve Armstrong, Debi Wagner and Austin Bell. Wagner commented she was “very opposed” to the effective firing.
Without further comment, the Council adjourned
Earlier the B-Town Blog was made aware of management evaluations circulated to Councilmembers that had poor marks for Gurol’s performance by those who voted for his “separation” and higher marks by his supporters.
Hired in 2014
The B-Town Blog reported in March 2014 that Gurol had been hired by a unanimous 7-0 vote effective April 16, 2014.
He was at the time the assistant city manager and community development director for the City of Sammamish.
He previously has been a corridor planning manager for the Washington State Department of Transportation’s Urban Planning Office, director of the Kitsap County Department of Community Development, and manager of the Snohomish County Planning Division. Gurol began his work in growth management and environmental and natural resource planning with King County. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in geology from the University of Washington and a Master of Public Administration degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Gurol’s starting pay in 2014 was $155,000.
40 SHARES Facebook TwitterThe US men’s soccer team advanced to the World Cup Round of 16 and now must face Belgium. Where is the best place watch the World Cup in San Diego? We have a pretty special invitation…
Where To Watch The World Cup Game
Petco Park will be opening up the Park at the Park to all San Diego soccer fans on Tuesday and broadcasting the game on the big screen… for free!
That’s right, soccer fans. Don your brand new jersey and come downtown to gather around the almighty 17×29-foot LED screen and witness another chapter of World Cup history. This time, the US team really needs your support. Unlike the positive results after losing to Germany, Tuesday’s game against Belgium is a must-win for the American team.
USA vs Belgium Game Begins at 1pm
Park gates will open at 12:30pm. Later that night, the San Diego Padres have a game against the Cincinnati Reds, so soccer supporters will be asked to clear out after the viewing party.
Discounted parking for the soccer game screening will be available in both the Tailgate and Parcel C parking lots. And don’t worry, concessions stands and the beer garden will be open.
#USA!
Petco Park Insider is your guide to enjoying games in San Diego at the Padres baseball stadium. Please join the conversation on Twitter @PetcoParkSD or contact us at Petco Park Insider.
You may also enjoy:Thanks for posting this, Kim. This has been on my mind a lot lately.
So we made it clear that we won't stand for intolerance, and also, uh, gave Roosh a ton of free publicity that vastly overstates his influence.
I love mocking people like Roosh. No. Correction: I really fucking love mocking people like Roosh. But even I have to draw the line at some point and admit that while mockery and righteous dissent are great, they can't be your whole game plan (sorry... that pun was not intended.) At a certain point, you need to know that drawing attention to this individual is going to do more harm than good, even if you are just totally making them look like shit.
Think about Gamergaters and their mindless indignation over the work (and person) of Anita Sarkeesian. Now, I'm not one of those people who attributes her success to her trolls (edit: harassers) pushing her into the spotlight. I find that attitude to be unhelpfully cynical and it belittles her own hard work. However, from the gamergater's point of view (or as best as I can approximate it), what does this constant observation of her accomplish? Their argument against her, as they frame it, is that she is a "professional victim" who uses scandal to further her agenda.
If I were a gamergater, wouldn't the most prudent course of action be to ignore her?
Obviously they can't do that because they were fueled by outrage (outrage being both the means and end of what their movement was). However, I would need to turn around and ask myself: at what point does letting Roosh go do more good than any other form of activism against him?Brandon Sanderson has quickly become a standard name in the literary world of science fiction and fantasy.
The last five years alone have included two No. 1 spots on the New York Times best-seller list, currently for his latest release of Oathbringer and previously in 2014 for Words of Radiance. Sanderson earned a Hugo award in 2013 and landed two books included on Goodreads’ top 10 best fantasy books of the 21st century, surrounded by titles from J. K. Rowling and George R. R. Martin. Just to name a few.
Lately, Sanderson and Rowling seem to be taking turns at the top of Amazon’s most popular author list based on book sales.
But Sanderson’s growing legacy isn’t limited to his literary works. Once a year, he spends four months teaching a creative writing class at Brigham Young University as an adjunct faculty member. Like most creative writing classes, 80-90 percent of the course is focused on the craft, helping students improve their writing abilities. But the other 10-20 percent is what sets Sanderson apart from the rest — he talks business.
Sanderson helps his students understand what it takes to “make it” in the world of professional writing. Outside of covering the art of writing, the course includes writing queries (brief summaries of your book to send to agents), finding an agent, submitting to a publishing company, and managing taxes.
“I teach the class as if all of these students were to go on to be professional writers, just in case they do,” Sanderson said.
And they do.
Sanderson’s class is a pipeline for young aspiring authors. He averages about two students for every class he teaches that end up becoming very successful professionals in the field. Here’s a small sampling:
Charlie Holmberg (’10) is the author of the Paper Magician series. Holmberg took Sanderson’s class for credit and then audited the class for a second round of mentored writing.
“The only reason I submitted my first query was because he made it a requirement for class,” Holmberg said. “That was a huge deal for me. I took a lot of creative writing classes at BYU, but Brandon was the only one who talked about the business of it.”
Disney currently owns the film rights to Holmberg’s trilogy and assigned the project to “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” producer Allison Shearmur, who also worked as an executive producer on “The Hunger Games” and Disney’s live-action “Cinderella.”
Brian McClellan (’08), author of the Powder Mage trilogy, has sold more than 100,000 copies of the first book in the trilogy and just published his tenth book in his acclaimed Powder Mage Universe. The latest book, “Sins of Empire,” had a top 10 rank on Goodreads’ “Can’t Wait SciFi/Fiction” books. McClellan also took the class multiple times.
“When I first took the class, [Brandon] had just gone through that experience of getting a book sold for the first time,” McClellan said. “Watching that experience and then experiencing that for myself meant a lot to me. I saw where I wanted to be in X number of years and then I reached that point.”
Other students who have found solid footing in the industry include Janci Patterson (’08), Caitlin Sangster (’10), Dustin Steinacker (’13), and Steven Bohls (’13).
Current BYU student Sarah Keenan just finished her second go-round in Sanderson’s class this spring. She became a fan of Sanderson’s writing as a senior in high school and was excited for the chance to learn from one of her favorite authors.
“You get excited about writing when you read his books; he makes it looks easy.”
Keenan admits that in her own writing attempts she’s struggled to finish a book, but Sanderson’s class became empowering when he spoke about “discovery writers” and “outliners.” Discovery writers don’t know how their stories are going to end and they discover the story as they go. Outliners can’t successfully write without knowing the framework of their tale and the outlining keeps the writer from losing interest.
“Just listening to that made a world of difference,” Keenan said. “I realized I was an outliner and it motivated me to keep writing. I finished my first book this year.”
Sanderson admits he doesn’t know how much credit he truly can take when it comes to the success of his protégés. He too was part of a creative writing pipeline at BYU.
As a pupil of David Farland (Runelords), who also taught and inspired the creative minds of Brandon Mull (Fablehaven), James Dashner (The Maze Runner), Stephenie Meyer (Twilight) and Dan Wells (The Partials), Sanderson learned what it takes to be an author.
“It’s not like I sit down in front of the class and act as a fount of wisdom,” Sanderson said. “When I took the class from Dave Farland the biggest part was seeing a professional writer and thinking ‘Okay, this person does it as their real job.’ That’s why I keep teaching. It helps students to talk to someone who actually does it as a job.”
As Sanderson’s popularity increased, so did the number of students enrolling in his class. To keep up with demand, the English department has divided the class into a lecture portion to accommodate more students and a workshop portion for a limited number of creative writing students that Sanderson can mentor.
Students interested in the workshop section of the course are required to send in an application and the first few chapters of a novel they’ve already been working on. Sanderson only considers the first 65 applicants and then narrows the list down to 15 students who can enroll in the workshop.
The deadline to submit your application for the Winter 2018 workshop class is still a month out, but the applicant quota was met weeks ago. Fortunately, the lecture-only portion is open to anyone who wants to enroll (the university often has to reschedule a lecture hall big enough to fit all the interested students).
“I hope students learn that they really can do this,” Sanderson said. “Everyone talks about creative fields as if you were a fool for trying. And there’s an element of truth in that because it’s an uncertain thing, but all artistic fields are a lot more viable than we as a society pretend that they are.”
He also encourages aspiring writers beyond BYU with videos of his class lectures and discussions with other fellow authors on his podcast “Writing Excuses.”"Nice guys finish last" is not from some pickup artist. Although it’s been co-opted as a justification for certain men’s bad behavior and a popular lament (or is it a humblebrag?) to describe others' lack of prospects, the term originally was about finishing last in the baseball standings.
The New York Times obituary for Leo Durocher remembers him as "perhaps major league baseball's best example of the win-at-all-costs manager, one who viewed the game not as a challenging pastime for talented athletes but as a sports relative of guerilla warfare...Durocher always placed heavy reliance on physical and psychological intimidation of the enemy, the army of foes that, to him, included the umpiring crews. To him, base hits, hook slides and sharp-breaking curveballs were important, but equally so were sharp spikes, beanballs and umpire-baiting." So, suffice to say, he was not a nice guy.
Durocher spent 24 years as manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, Chicago Cubs, and Houston Astros after a mediocre 17-season career as an infielder. It was while he was managing the Dodgers in 1946 that he uttered the eminently quotable phrase.
He was evidently proud of his contribution to our popular lexicon, even going so far as to name his 1975 autobiography Nice Guys Finish Last. In it, and in an excerpt published on the University of Chicago website, he recounts the tale:
The Nice Guys Finish Last line came about because of Eddie Stanky too. And wholly by accident. I’m not going to back away from it though. It has got me into Bartlett’s Quotations— page 1059, between John Betjeman and Wystan Hugh Auden—and will be remembered long after I have been forgotten. Just who the hell were Betjeman and Auden anyway? It came about during batting practice at the Polo Grounds, while I was managing the Dodgers. I was sitting in the dugout with Frank Graham of the old Journal-American, and several other newspapermen, having one of those freewheeling bull sessions. Frankie pointed to Eddie Stanky in the batting cage and said, very quietly, “Leo, what makes you like this fellow so much? Why are you so crazy about this fellow?” I started by quoting the famous Rickey statement: “He can’t hit, he can’t run, he can’t field, he can’t throw. He can’t do a goddamn thing, Frank—but beat you.” He might not have as much ability as some of the other players, I said, but every day you got 100 percent from him and he was trying to give you 125 percent. “Sure, they call him the Brat and the Mobile Muskrat and all of that,” I was saying, and just at that point, the Giants, led by Mel Ott, began to come out of their dugout to take their warm-up. Without missing a beat, I said, “Take a look at that Number Four there. A nicer guy never drew breath than that man there.” I called off his players’ names as they came marching up the steps behind him, “Walker Cooper, Mize, Marshall, Kerr, Gordon, Thomson. Take a look at them. All nice guys. They’ll finish last. Nice guys. Finish last.”
It’s almost all true. Durocher may have given himself just a little too much credit in coming up with the sort of saying that would have staying power. In a 1993 biography of the fiery manager entitled The Lip, Gerald Eskenazi explains how newspaper headline writers were responsible for the pithiness of the phrase, but the sentiment was definitely all Durocher.
What he really said of Giants' manager Mel Ott, Eskenazi posits based on contemporary claims, was, "Do you know a nicer guy in the world than Mel Ott? He's a nice guy. In last place. Where am I? In first place. I'm in first place. The nice guys are over there in last place, not in this dugout."
But if we're going to nit-pick there's one more particular to address. According to The Yale Book of Quotations, which cites a New York Journal-American article from July 7, 1946, what Durocher actually said was, "The nice guys are all over there, in seventh place." At the time, seventh place would have technically been second-to-last in the eight-team National League. The nice-but-hapless Giants ended up finishing the season in honest-to-goodness last place and when the article was reprinted that fall in Baseball Digest the crucial switch from "seventh" to "last" was made.These are words I never thought I'd be writing.
After more than two decades of being a dedicated Windows power user, someone who over that time has installed and supported countless systems running versions of Windows spanning from 3.0 to 8.1, I've now all but given up on the platform.
It might sound odd, but writing these words actually makes me sad. I devoted my 10,000 hours to mastering the platform, plus thousands more, and got the point where there wasn't a file, registry entry, or command line trick that I wasn't familiar with.
I knew how to make Windows work.
But now, other than for test systems and virtual machines, I carry out my day-to-day work on a variety of OS X, iOS and Android systems. I barely give my Windows PC systems a second glance. My primary work system is a MacBook Pro, and in the ten months I've had it it's flawlessly done everything I've asked of it, from run Microsoft Word to render 4K video. I've lost count of the number of notebooks I've owned over the years, but this MacBook Pro is, by far, the most reliable system I've owned, and I put part of that down to the fact that it doesn’t run Windows.
Sure, I've downloaded and installed Windows 8.1 onto a number of systems for testing, and I've put an awful lot of hours into getting to know this latest release of Windows, but I see nothing in this new version that excites me sufficiently to tempt me back into the Microsoft ecosystem. If anything, the effect has been the exact opposite, confirming my belief that parting ways with Windows was the right thing to do.
So what's brought me to this point in my tech career?
Support fatigue
I've spent almost my entire adult working life involved with PCs, and the more PCs you are around, the more sick and dying PCs you encounter. And I've encountered a lot.
I've also cajoled and coaxed countless ailing systems back to life, but during that time I've come to realize how fragile the Windows operating system is, and how something small and insignificant as a bad driver, incorrect settings, or the stars being in the wrong position can bring a system to its knees, and result in hours of work searching for a solution. That's great if you're being paid by the hour to solve PC problems, but if you're dealing with your own systems, and you have better things to be doing with your time, then you want to get them up and running as fast as possible so you can get back to real work.
Troubleshooting is costly, time-consuming, and frustrating, and while I once used to relish the challenge, I now try to avoid it whenever possible.
Of all the desktop operating systems that I've used, the modern Windows operating system is by far the most fragile. It didn't used to be like that. I had Windows NT 3.5/40 systems, and some Windows 2000 machines that were rock solid. Partly this increase in fragility is down to the vast ecosystem of hardware and software it has to support, and partly it is down to the years of legacy that each version drags behind it. But part of the blame also lies at Microsoft's door for not putting enough effort into hardening the system, reducing the effect that faults – in particular software faults – have on the system, and providing better information when things go wrong.
Adding a :( to the Windows 8 BSoD screen isn't enough.
Windows systems keel over, and most of the time the only clue you have as to why is an ambiguous error message, which may or may not be a red herring. This sends you to Google – or Bing – in search of others before you who have suffered a similar problem, and whom you hope may have found a solution, which might be in the form of an updated driver, a registry tweak, command line incantation, or patch.
Sometimes you get lucky. Other times you have to try a number of things before you're successful. And sometimes you end up deciding that it's quicker to nuke the system and start from scratch.
And all the while I'm doing this, precious time is flowing through the hourglass.
The shift to post-PC devices
Another reason why Windows has been relegated to the sidelines at the PC Doc HQ is the proliferation of post-PC devices such as smartphones and tablets.
Now I've been using mobile devices for years, and remember Windows CE and the like running on devices with exotic sounding names such as iPAQ and Jornada (remember those?), but these devices were, without a doubt, companion devices. Basic operations such as installing software or moving data required a PC, and so these devices spent a lot of their lives tethered to a Windows PC.
Then Apple changed everything, first with the iPhone, and then with the iPad. Here were devices that were standalone, leveraging over-the-air software downloads and updates, and cloud storage.
I found that I could do more and more with less and less. Tasks that once required a full-blown desktop or notebook PC could be carried out faster and more efficiently on a smartphone or tablet. Unless I want to use full-blown applications such as Microsoft's Office or Adobe's Creative Cloud suite, then I can make do with post-PC devices. What's more, I can usually get things done faster since I'm not tied to my desk.
And the great thing about these devices (and I'll throw Android in here with iOS) is that they're there when I need them. I've had an iPhone and an iPad for years, and I can only remember a couple of times when they've let me down.
My experience of Windows on tablets closely resembles that of my ZDNet colleague James Kendrick. Bottom line, they let me down too much to want to bother with them. Why would I trade a reliable iPad or Android tablet for an unreliable Windows 8.1 tablet? Why trade a tablet that just works for one that regularly sends me on quests, roaming the Internet looking for the right elixir to fix the system?
Any hopes I had that x86 versions of Windows would be more stable on tablets have gone. In fact, in my experience, the user experience is worse. Sure, most of the time the problem comes down to a rogue drivers or a configuration thrown out of whack, but a problem is still a problem, and these are problems I don't experience with iOS or Android.
Bill Gates was right, there was a market for tablets. Unfortunately, most of those tablets would be powered by operating systems made by Apple and Google. But then, Apple and Google didn't try to shoehorn a desktop operating system onto tablets.
Windows RT is certainly a better choice for tablets, but that's because what you have is the illusion of Windows, rather than the real thing. If Windows RT had come out at around the same time as the iPad, and the software ecosystem matured at the same pace, then Windows RT would be a real contender, but as it stands right now there's little reason to choose it over iOS or Android.
Unless, that is, you want something that looks like Windows. Which I don't.
The increasing irrelevance of the operating system
Once upon a time, the operating system was the platform on which people ran applications, but as more and more local applications have been replaced by services running on remote web servers, increasingly the browser has replaced the operating system as the primary platform.
Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and countless other web-based services look the same whether I'm using Windows, OS X, or even Linux. On smartphones and tablets, I have the choice of accessing most of these services either through a web browser or a dedicated app.
It doesn't matter what operating system is running my browser, so I'm free to choose the platforms that give me the least headache.
Change for the sake of change
One of the biggest problems I have with Windows is the way that it inflicts change on the user for no logical reason.
For me, Windows 8 was the peak of "change for the sake of change," removing the Start Menu and pushing the Desktop into the background. Yes, I understand why Microsoft needed the Start Screen (because the Start Menu would be too cumbersome for tablet users), and yes, I understand that Microsoft wanted to give apps center stage, but for hundreds of millions of users running Windows on a desktop or notebook PCs, these changes did nothing but hurt productivity.
Compare this to OS X or even Linux distros. Here you feel a progression from one version to the next. Yes, sometimes there are changes that are disliked, but overall there's a smooth progression from one version to the next. Jarring changes are best kept to a minimum because they have an adverse effect on productivity, adding unnecessarily to the learning curve.
Microsoft backpedaled on some of these changes with Windows 8.1 (which must have been a pain for users who had gone to the effort of learning how to use Windows 8), but for me the damage was done. It's clear that Microsoft is going in a direction that's incompatible with the one I want my operating system to go in.
No appreciation of power users
Microsoft's decision to end the TechNet program, a service which gave power users, enthusiasts, and those whose job it is to test and support Microsoft products cheap and easy access to products, is a strong indicator that the company no longer values what people like this bring to the platform.
Windows is now the expensive option
Windows is now the only operating system I use where I have to pay to upgrade it.
While I don't begrudge paying a fair price for something I need, paying big upgrade bucks for something I can do without makes no sense. PCs easily outlast the lifespan of the Windows operating system, and the idea of paying almost a hundred bucks per system to keep it updated is hard to stomach when it doesn't bring me any tangible benefits.
Going the Mac route might seem like an even more expensive option, but having owned a number of systems, including the MacBook Pro that that become my go-to system, the additional cost of the hardware (plus the additional AppleCare warranty) is offset by the fact that these systems have given me months, and in some cases years, of additional hassle-free use. I've not had to mess around with drivers.
I've not had to go digging through the configuration settings. I've not had to surf the web looking for solutions to obscure error messages.
Shift to console gaming
I used to love PC gaming, but then I got my first console.
While the graphics don't match up, and the gamepad is no substitute for the keyboard and mouse, the years of hassle-free gaming that a console offers, free from driver and patch headaches, more than makes up for the deficiencies. Not only that, but when I consider how long I've had my Xbox 360, it's outlasted several gaming PCs, which has saved me a ton of cash.
Pick the game I want, insert the disc, and BOOM! I'm playing the game in seconds. No patches to download and install, no graphics card drivers to mess with.
The bottom line
The bottom line is that outside of a few edge cases, Windows isn't for me. If it works for you, then that's great. Stick with what works for you. I for one certainly won't sneer or look down on you or go all fanboy.
After all, I remember – with fondness, and more than a hint of sadness – a time when it worked for me.
Personal preferences are, well, personal.
Can I see a time when I might go back to Windows? Maybe, I'm not ruling anything out, but for the time being, I see Windows playing a smaller and smaller part in my day-to-day computing.From Chronicle Staff Writer Susan Slusser at the Coliseum
It appears as if Ben Zobrist will be back in the A’s lineup a week from |
in's recent Harvard Pychedelic Club is a wryly tumultuous history, but whereas the former covers a wider scope ("LSD and the American dream"), the latter focuses sharply on the group that began in Cambridge. In contrast to Latttin's account, Gary Bravo's Birth of a Psychedelic Culture brings us the ruminations of two of the surviving principals of the Harvard group, the scholarly Ralph Metzner and the psychologist formerly known as Richard Alpert, who transmogrified into the spiritual teacher Ram Dass. Their recorded conversation has the flavor of a lively reunion as the two recall an astonishing young adulthood, generously illustrated with snapshots and brief statements from colleagues.
As Metzner acknowledged in his own The Ecstatic Adventure, the Harvard group generated "a" psychedelic culture--not the first, not the only. For example, Huxley had published a couple of books in the Fifties on thoughts occasioned by psychedelics in that capacious mind. The investment banker Gordon Wasson had written at length in Life about his discovery of a psilocybin ritual in Oaxaca. Stan Grof had done extensive research with LSD therapy in Prague and in the U.S.; and Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond, in Canada.
The main question raised by reminders of the Harvard cohort is this: what are the benefits, if any, of various psychoactive molecules? Should the group's saga be dismissed as a swirl of inflated claims and false hopes, or can it also be read as a set of questions raised and, in some cases, not yet satisfactorily answered?
Let us deal first with the charismatic Leary. According to an unforgiving obituary in Harvard's university daily, he had likened himself to Prometheus, presumably for having set minds on fire. In the same spirit of grandiosity, Leary might also be compared with Martin Luther, in the sense of challenging the establishment of his day and suggesting direct access to another reality, in Luther's case through his translation of the Bible; in Leary's, through a molecule that he wanted to help make vernacular. One difference is that despite the best efforts of activists, Leary was unable to get enough political power on his side to weather the inevitable counter-revolution.
It is a cliché of the underground psychedelic culture that Leary was advised by Huxley to continue discreet research among patients, artists, intellectuals and the like; by Ginsberg, to turn on as many people as possible. (The poet's advice came during an acid initiation when Ginsberg sought to get JFK and Khrushchev on the phone in order to settle the nuclear stand-off.)
However, by the early Sixties, whatever Leary would do, the cat was clawing its way out of the bag, and by the later Sixties the West Coast contingent led by Ken Kesey was sponsoring "acid tests," at which lysergic acid diethylamide-25 was widely distributed. This drug is famously potent, and millions of doses were available through the grace of such underground chemists as Stanley Owsley. Word of mouth would have assured its spread, even without the McLuhanesque slogan of "tune in, turn on, drop out," even without Leary's claim in a Playboy interview that LSD was the "most powerful aphrodisiac ever discovered by man."
In any case, it is now 2010, and far from dwindling, the list of psychoactive molecules used in the U.S. has grown. Whereas the Harvard "club" relied mainly on psilocybin and LSD, many "psychonauts" have since become familiar with such drugs as ayahuasca from the Amazon basin, ibogaine from West Africa, salvia divinorum from Mexico. MDMA (Ecstasy, or as Metzner dubbed it, an "empathogen") was rediscovered in a California lab and became a staple first of psychotherapy and then of the underground rave culture. In what may serve as a portent, ayahuasca "tea" is now actually legal in the U.S., at least for adherents of a religion that started in Brazil, as is mescaline for members of the Native American Church.
Meanwhile, a magazine as hard-headed as The Economist, eager to stop the drug wars, claims that "prohibition has failed; legalization is the least bad solution." Legalization, the editorial continues, "would transform drugs from a law-and-order problem into a public-health problem, which is how they ought to be treated."
Misuse is certainly a problem, as are addictive drugs such as the widespread methamphetamine. But to what extent are certain molecules, properly used, a problem at all? The Harvard club clearly treated the psychedelics as an opportunity. With the wisdom of hindsight, various questions arise:
In what ways are psychoactive drugs useful for dealing with alcoholism and other addictions, terminal cancer, and what we now call post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?
In what situations do psychedelics involve danger, including the opportunity cost of trivialization? How do these compare with other dangers that we accept, such as driving or consuming alcohol, and how can the dangers in using psychedelics be avoided or minimized?
Under what conditions, if any, are psychedelics beneficial not only for medical purposes, but also for "expanding consciousness" and for occasioning "spiritual" experiences?
What are good models for a search that might be occasioned by psychedelics? (Leary and Metzner devised a manual for psychedelic sessions based loosely on a Tibetan classic and wrote a paper praising Hermann Hesse as a pioneer, especially in the novels Steppenwolf and Journey to the East.)
If guides are necessary or helpful, how should they be chosen? who trains them, and what do they do and avoid doing? Should psychedelics be used to reinforce commitments already made, as to a specific religious belief?
Should powerful drugs be legalized, decriminalized, or what? Who controls access?
Over the long term, how can the effect of psychedelics be channeled to positive ends? To what extent does this require a continuing practice that's not dependent on drugs?
If people undertake a "spiritual" journey, how can they best deal with the vicissitudes of a relationship with a guru or "spiritual friend" or counselor?
For those who believe that a major cultural or "spiritual" change is necessary, can any of these molecules help? (Huxley believed a psychoactive drug had a place in his utopia, Island.) If so, under what conditions?
I gather that psychedelic enthusiasts long ago got past the fantasy of dumping LSD in reservoirs and hoping for world peace. In its place, researchers are starting legally to study the effects of the drugs, both as medicines and, as Roland Griffiths at Johns Hopkins writes, occasions for "mystical-type experiences."
For example, with help from the Council on Spiritual Practices, the Hopkins research team reported that 33% of the volunteers "rated the psilocybin experience as being the single most spiritually significant experience of his or her life, with an additional 38% rating it to be "among the top five most spiritually significant experiences."
With support from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), legal research on several psychoactive drugs is now being or has recently been conducted in such countries as Canada, Germany, Israel, Russia, Switzerland, and at several universities in the U.S. (For more details, go to www.maps.org), click on "R&D medicines," then on "Psychedelic research around the world.") MAPS itself is now focusing on medical uses of marijuana and on MDMA, especially as it may help with post traumatic stress disorder, widespread among rape and accident victims and among vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
So far, most of this global research falls within the medical model. But the brooding omnipresence hovering above the field remains the experiment at Marsh Chapel, the last effort of the Harvard group before they decamped from the Boston area. A graduate student named Walter Pahnke conducted a study on a Good Friday, based on an elaborate set of criteria, finding that 30-40% of volunteers had a "complete" mystical experience with the help of psilocybin.
In Cleansing the Doors of Perception, Huston Smith, a participant at Marsh Chapel, went so far as to write "until the Good Friday Experiment, I had no direct personal encounter with God of the sort that bhakti yogis, Pentecostals, and born-again Christians describe." The son of missionaries in China and a believer belonging to a mainline Protestant church, Smith wrote a best-selling book about the principal religions of the world. A "mystical-type" experience might be experienced as "Christian," as "Hindu," or whatever; it can also be received without the hypothesis of any god.
Five decades after the "Harvard psychedelic club," that university is again somewhat involved with psychedelics, not only as the alma mater of the persistent and ingenious Rick Doblin, founder of MAPS, but as the base for research, for example, on peyote as a sacrament in the Native American Church.
If a main benefit of the psychedelics is a glimpse beyond consensus reality--the personal discovery that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy"--then we deserve careful research on what they can in fact make possible. In science it's true that Kary Mullis credits LSD with helping to spark his Nobel Prize-winning discovery of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), but despite rumors about Francis Crick, most Nobels have been awarded for work which, to the best of our knowledge, was done on no drugs more psychedelic than coffee, beer, and tobacco.
Meanwhile, a column in Fortune magazine makes a case for the use of psychedelics to generate creative thought among business people. Michael Schrage imagines a retreat center for "creative business visualization," at which visiting executive teams would be given "small, precise dosages" of psychoactive materials to "push themselves beyond the boundaries of conventional business perception" and thus gain a competitive edge in the global marketplace.
In considering whether psychedelics, optimally used, can reveal other ways of thinking and experiencing the world, the Hopkins research and the Fortune column go far beyond a medical model which asks mainly whether a drug can do more good than harm in curing a disease. In contrast, the basic question raised by the Harvard group is this: under what circumstances can the psychedelics liberate humans from restrictions normal in the everyday thinking that is necessary for such challenges as designing bridges, driving cars, and completing tax returns? In what ways, to what extent, under what conditions, can some of these molecules help to enrich our lives?The North Country National Scenic Trail, generally known as the North Country Trail or simply the N.C.T., is a footpath stretching approximately 4,600 miles (7,400 km) from Crown Point in eastern New York to Lake Sakakawea State Park in central North Dakota in the United States. Passing through the seven states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota, it is the longest of the eleven National Scenic Trails authorized by Congress. As of early 2019, 3,129 miles (5,036 km) of the trail is in place.[1]
The NCT is administered by the National Park Service, managed by federal, state, and local agencies, and built and maintained primarily by the volunteers of the North Country Trail Association (NCTA) and its partners. The 28 chapters of the NCTA, its 3,200+ members and each affiliate organization have assumed responsibility for trail construction and maintenance of a specific section of the NCT.
History [ edit ]
The NCT was created on March 5, 1980 by an amendment to the National Trails System Act.[2] When the Trail was established in 1980, portions of it were designed to follow the already existing Finger Lakes (New York), Baker (Pennsylvania), and Buckeye (Ohio) Trails. Their sponsoring organizations became affiliates of the North Country Trail Association and agreed to maintain those portions of their trails to be used by the North Country National Scenic Trail. The Northwestern Ohio Rails-to-Trails Association joined later to help create a link between the Buckeye Trail in Ohio and newly constructed trail in Michigan; the Superior Hiking Trail Association and the Kekekabic Trail Club joined when it was proposed that the North Country National Scenic Trail route through Minnesota be changed to include an already-completed section of the Superior Hiking Trail along Lake Superior, and the Kekekabic and Border Route Trails along the Canada–US border in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region. Legislation has been introduced to both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate which would authorize the "Arrowhead Re-route" as well as an extension to the trail's eastern terminus, connecting it with the Appalachian Trail in Vermont.[3]. The North Country National Scenic Trail Route Adjustment Act passed the US House of Representatives on June 5, 2018 and awaits action by the Senate.
Route [ edit ]
The trail begins in northeast New York and proceeds to the western end of the state. It cuts across northwestern Pennsylvania, then follows a southwesterly course through the hilly region of southern Ohio until it nears Cincinnati when it runs north through western Ohio to the hills of SE Michigan. It continues from southeast Michigan through the western Lower Peninsula, crosses the Straits of Mackinac, and takes a northern route the length of the Upper Peninsula. After crossing northern Wisconsin, one leg follows the Lake Superior shore to the northeast corner of Minnesota before turning west, where it meets the other leg in central northern Minnesota. The trail enters southeast North Dakota, and continues to its other terminus in the center of the state.
The NCT connects more than 160 public land units, including parks, forests, scenic attractions, wildlife refuges, game areas, and historic sites. The list includes:
Other federal facilities along the NCT include:
The NCT also threads its way through 57 state parks and state historic areas, 47 state forests, 22 state game areas, seven state water conservation districts and at least ten county forests and parks. Several hundred miles of trail eventually will also cross private land thanks to owners who have granted easements across their property.
The center point of the trail is located near the NCTA headquarters in Lowell, Michigan.
Though the eastern terminus of the North Country Trail is only a few miles from Vermont's Long Trail and the Appalachian Trail, there is not yet a connecting trail to either of those trail systems. Efforts are under way to connect to the Appalachian Trail.[4]
Trail progress by state [ edit ]
Minnesota [ edit ]
Ohio [ edit ]
Use [ edit ]
Existing and new sections of the NCT are generally limited to foot travel, including hiking, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. Other non-motorized uses, such as bicycling and horseback riding are generally limited to areas specifically designed to withstand such use.
About 10,000 people are involved with the NCT in one way or another, either through membership in the North Country Trail Association or membership in one of eight organizations affiliated with the NCTA: the Finger Lakes Trail Conference, the Buckeye Trail Association, the Superior Hiking Trail Association, the Kekekabic Trail Club, the Northwestern Ohio Rails-to-Trails Association, the Butler Outdoor Club, the Rachael Carson Trails Conservancy and the Friends of the Jordan River National Fish Hatchery.
Gallery [ edit ]
A trail post that includes the trail's official logo
Blue blazes, where allowed, mark the path of the North Country Trail
Sign in Wisconsin
See also [ edit ]The release of Mitt Romney’s tax returns, which indicate that he paid an average tax rate of 14 percent after deductions, has once again prompted a great deal of confusion over marginal and average tax rates. For a moment, let’s set aside the issue that most of Mr. Romney’s income is in the form of capital gains and dividends, which are taxed at 15 percent rather than at the highest marginal rate of 35 percent, and look at the difference between marginal and average (or effective) tax rates.
Our income tax system is progressive, meaning we pay higher tax rates as our income gets higher. As the table below shows, there are six tax brackets for different bands of income. The “marginal” rate refers to the tax rate that is applied on that band of income.
Say, for instance, our income is $120,000. This would put us in the 25 percent bracket. If the U.S. had a flat rate tax system (and no deduction), we would pay 25 percent of $120,000 in tax, or $30,000.
Married Filing Jointly Marginal Tax Brackets Tax Rate Over But Not Over 10.0% $0 $17,000 15.0% $17,000 $69,000 25.0% $69,000 $139,350 28.0% $139,350 $212,300 33.0% $212,300 $379,150 35.0% $379,150 –
However, under our marginal tax system we pay 10 percent on the first $17,000, or $1,700. We then pay 15 percent on the next band of income up to $69,000, or $7,800. We then pay 25 percent on the marginal amount over $69,000, for another $12,750 in taxes. When we total the taxes paid on these three bands of income it comes to $22,250, for an average (or effective) tax rate of 18.5 percent.
Of course, in our simplified example we have not taken account of all the exemptions, credits, and deductions that are available to us. These deductions reduce our taxable income. So instead of paying taxes on $120,000, the deductions for our children, mortgage, and charitable contributions could easily reduce our taxable income well below $90,000. At this taxable income we would owe a total of $14,750, for an average rate of about 12 percent.
Millionaires go through the same process, meaning they pay 10 percent on the first band of income, 15 percent on the next band, and so forth. As the chart below shows, based on the most recent IRS data for 2009, the average tax rate (after deductions) paid by all Americans is 11 percent. It is also clear that millionaires pay an average of 25 percent, while virtually every taxpayer earning under $100,000 pays an average rate of no more than 8 percent of their income in taxes. [Click here for more detail on the chart’s data.)
There are roughly 123 million taxpayers who earn under $100,000, or about 88 percent of the 140 million Americans who filed a tax return in 2009. In other words, 88 percent of all taxpayers pay 8 percent or less of their income in income taxes.
Which gets us back to Mitt Romney’s effective tax rate of 14 percent, after deductions. As the chart shows, this rate is still higher than the average rate paid by taxpayers earning up to $200,000. There are about 136 million taxpayers who have adjusted gross incomes less than $200,000, or 97 percent of all taxpayers. So even with an average tax rate of 14 percent, Romney paid a higher average rate than 97 percent of his fellow Americans.The government may soon make Aadhaar or passport for domestic air travel. The move, in line with the government’s proposed no-fly list, is to implement a ‘fool proof’ method to identify passengers, reported the Times of India on Saturday. Following the scuffle on an Air India flight involving Shiv Sena MP Ravidra Gaikwad and an employee, the government is introducing measures to ensure safety on airlines and prevent unruly passengers from boarding. The identification process will reportedly be similar to international flying rules, where passengers are required to provide details of their passport or Aadhaar before making a flight booking.
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“To implement this, we need a foolproof way of identifying passengers. This could be done by asking people to give either Aadhaar or passport number at the time of booking flights. One of these two will be chosen,” a source in the civil aviation ministry told TOI, adding that the government is likely to circulate the draft civil aviation requirement (CAR) to the public next week and invite suggestions. “So by this June or July, we will have the entire thing in place,” the official said.
The government is mulling over intoducing a four-level gradation system in its no-fly list which will categorise flyers based on their past offenses. Each level will correspond to a flying ban for a stipulated period of time. The government is finalising this gradation system and the ban period each offence should invite, according to the TOI report. This is likely to be based on an existing system followed by airline companies regarding unruly behaviour.
Read: Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad free to fly as airlines lift ban
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Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha took to Twitter on Saturday to announce that the DDCA is strengthening rules so that a national no-fly list can be implemented. “Air travellers should note that safety and security for passengers and crew is our paramount priority. Unruly / disruptive behaviour will result in severe consequences. This includes police action for a specific incident as well as being placed on a no-fly list,” he said. He specified that the list is to prevent future unruly behaviour, and not to punish past behaviour.You will see an "Install" button in the Overwatch tab of the Battle.net desktop app
You will see an "Overwatch Beta" license in Account Management
You will receive an email titled "Play the Overwatch Beta This Weekend!"
You will be able to post in the following forums beginning Friday around 9:00 a.m. PST:
Stress Test Feedback
Stress Test Tech Support
Stress Test Bug Report
You will see an "Install" button in the Overwatch tab of the Battle.net desktop app
You will see an "Overwatch Beta" license in Account Management
You will receive an email titled "Welcome to the Overwatch Closed Beta!"
You will be able to post in the following forums immediately:
Beta Feedback
Beta Tech Support
Beta Bug Report
Hey all,We've seen some confusion from players who've recently had their account flagged for the Overwatch beta not knowing which type of invite they received: Beta Test Weekend or Closed Beta.We sincerely apologize for this confusion and hope to provide some clarity.Your feedback on this whole process has been greatly appreciated, and we’re already taking steps to make improvements for the future. (For example, we recognize that having Account Management display separate licenses for Closed Beta and Beta Test Weekends would have made it easier for players to see which type of invite they received.)In the meantime, thank you to everyone who's able to help us stress test our hardware this weekend. We also hope you’ll take some time to share your thoughts and experiences here in our official forums.For more information about this Beta Test Weekend, click here For more information about Closed Beta, click here * Notification emails can sometimes take several hours to arrive.Transgender women won’t have to live alongside other men while serving time at Rikers Island anymore, the city’s Department of Correction announced Tuesday.
Starting this week, these prisoners — who were born male but identify as female — will have the voluntary opportunity to move into a transgender housing unit that’s separate and safe from the rest of the prison population.
“Because inmates are not all alike, the department is creating specialized housing for many specific inmate groups,” DOC Commissioner Joe Ponte said.
“Just as adolescents, young adults, and mentally ill inmates have specialized needs, so do men who identify as women.”
Transgender inmates will also be provided with medical and mental-health care as needed.
The voluntary unit will start out with 30 beds — enough to house the roughly 30 to 35 transgender women behind bars at any given time.
Mariah Lopez, the executive director of the Strategic Trans Alliance for Radical Reform, called it the country’s “first exclusively transgender inmate facility.”One of the most oft-repeated criticisms of Star Trek Into Darkness is that “it’s a remake of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” I don’t actually agree with that assessment. Now, no spoilers for the three or four of you who haven’t yet seen the film, but while one scene in particular is pretty much a rewrite of its counterpart in the earlier movie, that’s really as far as the comparison truly goes.
Despite this “misstep,” the film was successful enough that a third installment in J.J. Abrams’ re-imagined Star Trek universe will soon be forthcoming, likely in time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original series’ premiere in 1966.
Strictly as an exercise in goofy fun, I posited the idea that rather than taking bits or pieces from previous series or films to fill out the storyline for a new movie, that we should compile a list of episodes which all but beg for a wholesale remake. Fans for years have speculated what extravagant do-overs of the most memorable episodes from the original series in particular might look like on the big screen. So, I figured, “What the heck?” Why not engage in a little fanboy wish-listing?
The idea here was to select episodes from any of the Star Trek television series. For this, I compiled a preliminary list, and then polled readers of my Facebook page to suggest their own worthy candidates, with the understanding that their selections would face varying degrees of retooling in order for the story’s basic premise to work with the current incarnation of Kirk and the gang.
Unless otherwise noted, the episodes we settled on for this thought exercise are all from the original Star Trek series. However, we did find a few from the other series which have great potential for adaptation. Is this list definitive? Of course not, and I’m hoping readers will add their own suggestions in the comments section.
Presented here in alphabetical order, the results of our little online experiment:
“Balance of Terror,” suggested by Joseph Berenato on my Facebook page – Virtually nothing is known about the Romulans in the “alternate reality” created by the Abrams Star Trek films. Just as the original episode introduced us to the enigmatic alien race, so too could a reworked and expanded version of the story. With room to breathe a bit, there would be more time for character interplay, including the fleshing out of back story for the Romulans and their culture. The scope of the film also could be opened up, with scenes set away from the Enterprise and the Romulan ship, such as at one of the destroyed outposts or a new planet-based location. Would Kirk and the Romulan Commander battle each other face to face, or would the ship-based aspects of the original tale still rule the day?
“Chain of Command” (Star Trek: The Next Generation) – One of the series’ most powerful episodes seems like an ideal candidate for a mixture of compelling character study and high-octane action, both on the ground and in space. Kirk instead of Picard, of course, at the mercy of an unrelenting captor, be it a Cardassian or someone like Kor, or a new character created for the film. Meanwhile, Spock and the rest of the crew are forced to deal with a new captain, who’s got his own agenda as tensions with the Cardassians (or whoever) continue to escalate. Transitioning the story to film likely would require upping the action on both fronts, with Kirk either making his own escape or benefiting from a daring rescue raid while the Enterprise faces off against adversaries in space. How many lights do you see?
“The City on the Edge of Forever,” suggested by Joseph Berenato on my Facebook page – Widely regarded as one of Star Trek’s finest hours—if not the finest hour—what would it take to update and expand this story to feature film length and scope? To be honest, I don’t have the first clue, and maybe it should never be attempted, but if a decision is ever made to revisit this classic tale, then there really is only one person suited to the task: the episode’s original writer, the incomparable Harlan Ellison. Perhaps the answer lies not with the televised episode, but within Ellison’s original screenplay, the development of which is worth a book all its own...so much so that Ellison himself already wrote it! Somewhere within the different versions of the story may well lay the seeds for a new take on Captain Kirk’s ultimate tragic romance.
“The Doomsday Machine” – Are you kidding? One of the most iconic episodes from any of the Star Trek series is just screaming for a big-budget revamping. This is an absolute no-brainer for me. Just think of what an expanded storyline could do to give us more background on Commodore Matt Decker and his crew, before and during their fateful encounter with the mammoth alien machine. We could even get some insight into the beings who built the thing (just so long as they don’t turn out to be evolved hamsters, or something). And of course it’s just the kind of story that lends itself to the eye-popping space scenes that drive summer blockbusters. Besides, who doesn’t want to see Karl Urban’s Doctor McCoy give Crazy Matt the business? The great Norman Spinrad’s still around, so I say let him have first crack at updating and enhancing his original tale.
“Errand of Mercy” – If Star Trek Into Darkness showed us anything, it’s that a Federation confrontation with the Klingons is likely, if not inevitable. Somebody’s already drooling at the prospect of the massive, all-out Star Wars-style battle sequences which are sure to litter a tale like this. With that in mind, let’s be sure to have a nice balance of action in space and some of that great character work Star Trek can do when it’s firing on all cylinders. Give Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk a worthy adversary in the form of Commander Kor, who can be a thorn in his side for many years to come. This also is the kind of story which could be fleshed out so as to include plenty of good material for the rest of the cast while Kirk and Spock are dealing with Kor. As for the Organians? Well, Star Trek never really followed up on what the original episode established, so it’s pretty much a blank page so far as what these omnipotent super beings might do, given the chance.
“In A Mirror, Darkly” (Star Trek: Enterprise) – In truth, I figure any movie featuring the Mirror Universe also would take cues from original Star Trek episodes “Mirror Mirror” and “The Tholian Web.” If the filmmakers wanted to use this conceit as a means of showcasing the “old school” U.S.S. Defiant and the original series aesthetic in order to represent the original timeline, I’d be game. Maybe part of an expanded story using elements from the various episodes could be used to show how Mirror Spock deals with his Captain Kirk. I wonder what Zachary Quinto would look like in a beard? Or, maybe they tweak the idea enough so that Leonard Nimoy could be Mirror Spock. Also, is Trek fandom ready for “Empress Nyota?” I think we could handle it.
“Kitumba” (Star Trek: Phase II) – This was one of thirteen stories developed for the planned 1970s TV follow-up to the original Star Trek series, before those ideas were shelved and Star Trek: The Motion Picture went into full-blown production. “Kitumba” would have presented an in-depth look at the Klingon Empire, far beyond what had been established on the original show and—as it turns out—much different than what subsequently was established in the later films and television series. Much like “Errand of Mercy,” this story might well thrive in the films’ “new timeline” and accompanying clean slate, with familiar alien races like the Klingons able to be recreated and fleshed out in all manner of new and fascinating ways.
“Mudd’s Women”/”I, Mudd” or “The Trouble With Tribbles,” suggested by Melissa Nickerson and John Ordover on my Facebook page – During the discussion we had about this topic over on Facebook, friend and former Pocket Books Star Trek fiction editor John Ordover made the point that after the fairly intense storylines which have dominated the last few films, it might well be time to lighten things up a bit. Just as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was a definite change of pace following the first three movies, so too could a fresh take on a lovable rogue adversary like Harry Mudd or Cyrano Jones. Tackling a more whimsical tale would depend in large part on the actor chosen for the pivotal role of the scoundrel du jour. For my money, I can see Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly) as Mudd, but what about Jones? Hmmm?
“Unification” (Star Trek: The Next Generation) – There’s interesting potential for a story like this to thrive in the new films’ setting. With their home world destroyed, would the Vulcans—now an endangered species—appeal to their ancestral siblings, the Romulans, in a bid to preserve something of their devastated civilization? Naturally, the idea would have its supporters and detractors, and would the Romulan Empire see this is as an opportunity for reconciliation, or final destruction of their age-old rivals? What role would “Spock Prime” play in a retooled version of this story? Should the Romulans pose a threat to New Vulcan, you just know Kirk and the Enterprise would be at the front of any defensive action.
“Year of Hell” (Star Trek: Voyager), suggested by Chuck Lemoine on my Facebook page – A madman with a weapon that can make time itself kick your ass? Count me in! I get all tingly imagining the different timelines that’d be used to tease us as Kirk and the gang, along with an increasingly hammered Enterprise, battle the super weapon through time. I can see Spock and Chekov trapped on the time ship, dealing with whoever ends up being the film’s villain, and what would be driving that person? We’ve certainly had enough “vengeance stories” to last us a while, but the original episode’s premise of Annorax descending into utter desperation as he (or she!) struggles to restore a timeline gone horribly wrong works for me.
Okay, that’s our ten. As I said, this isn’t mean to be the “The List,” so if we didn’t mention an episode you think makes for good movie remake fodder, feel free to offer it and your reasons in the comments.
“Ten for Ward” Backlist: http://www.startrek.com/news_articles/blogger/Dayton+Ward+
_________________________________
Dayton Ward is the author or co-author of numerous novels and short stories, including a whole bunch of stuff set in the Star Trek universe, and often working with friend and co-writer Kevin Dilmore. He’s also written (or co-written) for Star Trek Communicator, Star Trek Magazine, Syfy.com, and Tor.com, and is a monthly contributor to the Novel Spaces writers blog. As he is still a big ol’ geek at heart, Dayton is known to wax nostalgic about all manner of Star Trek topics over on his own blog, The Fog of Ward: http://daytonward.wordpress.com.A great wee video teaser for the show from Rick Siegenthaler
Extinction Radio Episode 62, 28th Dec 2016 Peter Wadhams, Paul Beckwith, Tim Garret
Part One
00.00 – Music from Baba Brinkman and limerick from Benjamin The Donkey, Host intro
03.14 – Jennifer Hynes interviews Peter Wadhams
1.16.13 – John Compost Cossham – Personal reflections on 2016
1.27.27 – Mimi German – Waiting on a Plane
1.31.30 – Hambone Liittletail – Shouting Change
1.32.00 – Derrick Jensen- Silence
Part Two
0.00 – Mike Ferrigan interviews Paul Beckwith- The Donald and More Part Two!
52.45 – Benjamin The Donkey
53.42 – Torstein Viddal – Taboo Math
57 16 – Davy Prendergast- Our Future’s on Fire
1.00.57 – Lisa White – Moving into 2017
1.12.53 – Benjamin The Donkey
1.14.15 – Michael Adzema – Keynote to The Great Reveal
1.23 33 – Something Completely Different oops (overlap noted)
1.23.33 – Deb Ozarko and Jennifer Hynes In Coversation
2.00.07 – Carolyn Baker – Invocation for the Dark Times
2.11.20 – Mike Ferrigan interviews Tim Garett
3.28.23 – Benjamin The Donkey
3.28.42 – Outro
Extinction Radio was the idea of Founder, Mike Ferrigan.
He felt there was a need for a show which was not simply an interview but an eclectic mix of information, insight, music. laughter and support and as such, many Contributors are involved in each episode.
He produced and hosted the first 24 episodes.
Gene Gibson, Ivey Cone and Peter Melton then produced and hosted the following 28 episodes.
Mike is now back hosting and producing the show with Jennifer Hynes and Patrick Wilson.
All episodes are available to listen to in our Archive section, accessed above.
The show is broadcast on Activate Media every second Wednesday.
9PM Eastern Time, 6pm Pacific Time, Thursday at 2am BST.
The current Podcast is available here on our Homepage shortly after it airs.DA Premiere: Jeremy Olander – Pinkerton (Original Mix)
Artist-led labels have been something of a hot commodity for 2015, but few have come quite as highly anticipated as Jeremy Olander‘s Vivrant imprint. Already calling Suara, MicroCastle and Pryda Recording‘s cohorts, the versatile Stockholm dj/producer marks the launch of his dual label and returning radio concept this month with a mixture of both highly anticipated and fresh original’s from his studio vaults.
Already a long-serving fan favourite, the inclusion of ‘Pinkerton’ sees Olander make with something of a set staple for this landmark release. Building around a juxtaposition of murky muted club hallmarks and rich melodic progressions, the track stays true to Olander’s progressive backbone whilst honouring the subtle developments that have seen his music strike a chord with the underground sects. Whilst fans are sure to be delighted to see ‘Pinkerton’ given a formal release, the track adds to speculation that Vivrant is one of the more meaningful artist imprints to emerge among the many that have surfaced this year.
Release Date: November 30
Categories: MusicThis was a birthday gift for one of my family members. My sister did a beautiful yellow rose out of modelling clay but it needed a place to sit. So I thought I make a stand for this rose out of cardboard.
Things needed:
cardboard
scissors
cutter
hot glue gun(you could use |
I think it is inaccurate of you to infer from Dr Willie Stewart's comments that he was slating you for "supposed (sic) playing the hero". My interpretation of his comments was that your position as a successful international player automatically accorded you 'hero' status among the many kids for whom you have signed autographs since your career took off.
I wish you every success in the rest of your career.
Regards,
Brendan Fanning
Sunday Indo SportTV networks have long been embroiled in a legal battle with Dish over ad skipping built into the Hopper DVR, but the two sides are finally starting to lay down their arms -- and there may be a few perks for viewers as a result. Disney and Dish have reached a TV distribution deal that gives Dish the rights to stream Disney-owned channels online, both through services like WatchESPN as well as an internet-based TV service from Dish itself. In other words, you may not need a satellite dish to start watching. There is a catch, of course. Both companies have agreed to drop their lawsuits, but Dish will have to prevent Hopper owners from skipping ads on Disney-produced shows until three days after they air. The move should appease Disney advertisers that depend on three-day audience ratings. The agreement should still give Dish subscribers more ways to watch TV, but it could lead to other broadcasters demanding ad skipping limits -- and one of the Hopper's main features could be much less useful.We are now ten games into the Milwaukee Admirals 2014-15 season. The record is 8-2-0-0 (16 points) and has them second in the Midwest Division and fifth in the Western Conference. Most teams sitting ahead of the Admirals, with the exception of the Texas Stars (14 points), have played extra games in the schedule at this point. The top two in the conference are the Utica Comets (22 points) and Rockford IceHogs (21 points) – both of whom have played thirteen games.
There have been so many positives through the opening ten games. The Ads had a franchise best six-game winning streak to start a season. Marek Mazanec went five-for-five with wins to start the season. Brendan Leipsic is currently better than a point-per-game player in his rookie season with 11 points (all of which are assists). The young Admirals defense, combined with the great goaltending performances behind them, have only allowed 21 goals – only the Utica Comets have allowed less… one less.
Above all, what has excited me the most about our 2014-15 Admirals season through ten games has been the composure of a team that entered as the youngest in the AHL this season. Rarely has age or inexperience looked like a factor for the Admirals. If anything, it is the new brew here in Milwaukee that are the reason for the early success. Only Jimmy Oligny and Jonathan Diaby, of the ten rookies on the Admirals roster, have yet to record a point of offense. Even then, as defensemen, the two have a combined +2 plus/minus.
The sophomores, Colton Sissons and Miikka Salomäki, may not have had the quickest of starts as they may have liked. Sissons: 4 points (4 goals, 0 assists). Salomaki: 4 points (1 goal, 3 assists). That is something that doesn’t bother me all that much, though. The two have a combined 4 points (3 goals, 1 assist) in the last two-games alone. These two combined for 94 points (45 goals, 49 assists) of offense last season. It is only a matter of time before they start storming back to last season’s points-per-game form.
In goal, Magnus Hellberg appears to have found the magic he displayed in his 2012-13 rookie season when he was the rock that spearheaded the Admirals into the Calder Cup playoffs. He has only made three starts but has won them all – including the 4-0 shutout in the Admirals most recent game against the Grand Rapids Griffins. He now has an AHL best 0.64 goals against average and 0.973 save percentage. Considering the hot start for Mazanec. This return to form for Hellberg creates a phenomenal problem to have. Which goalie do you start? And does it really matter who starts at this point – all things considered? Spoiled for choice.
Who has impressed you the most through the Milwaukee Admirals opening ten games? Who has impressed you the least? Which Admiral rookie has been the best so far? What does this hot start to the season do for the Admirals in the later stages of the campaign? Who would you say was the Admiral of the Month for October?
Be sure to follow Admirals Roundtable on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and see our photos on Instagram.
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PrintDual High-Definition MicroDrivers
The SE425 uses a dedicated tweeter and woofer for an accurate and balanced sound. Detachable cable with formable wire enables easy replacement and secure, comfortable fit. Sound Isolating sleeves in multiple sizes provide up to 37 dB of isolation.
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Premium Fit Kit Includes
• Sound Isolating Sleeves
The role of the included sound isolating sleeves is twofold: blocking ambient noise and ensuring a comfortable, customized fit. Because every ear is different, the Fit Kit includes three sizes (S, M, L) of the flex and black foam sleeves as well as 1 pair of triple flange and 1 pair of universal fit yellow foam sleeves. Experiment with the size and style that creates the best fit for you. A good seal is key to optimizing sound isolation and bass response as well as maximizing comfort during extended wear.
• Carrying Case
A durable and compact carrying case is included to provide a convenient, tangle-free solution to store and travel with your earphones.
• 1/4" Adapter
An 1/8" (3.5 mm) to 1/4" converter for all Shure earphones that offers a solution for home stereos or other applications with ¼" jacks.Doodling to remind people of the happiness inside them.
I make most of my drawings in a very small scale - usually 4x6 inches. I love to use markers because I work best when my line is flowing and direct. I try to transmit a lot of love and joy in my work and even the occasional poem. I think people connect with my doodles because they also believe that life can and should have joy in it, even when the day to day stuff can grind you down.
Sometimes a cute bunny, a flying elephant or an uplifting message are just the right medicine to make you relax and feel that things will sort themselves out.
I've recently started adding some doodlized apparel - scarves and sneakers, and perhaps a few other things, so that you can take that fun spirit and keep it with you all day long.Politico reported that several dozen independent researchers on their own had begun copying Obamacare data and documents in a race to beat the Jan. 20 inauguration of Trump, an avid critic of President Barack Obama's signature health-care reform law.
But they "then got a boost from Jeanne Lambrew, the White House's top health reform official, who also sounded alarms the new administration might expunge reams of information from public websites and end access to data," Politco reported, citing researchers.
That hypothetical erasure would echo the "memory hole" in Orwell's classic dystopian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four." The book's protagonist Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Information, where he labors away at cutting out parts of archived newspaper stories that conflict with governing regime's latest propaganda line, and disposes of them into a hole leading to a furnace, where they are burnt.
The data being copied by the researchers includes information about Obamacare enrollment and premiums, according to Politco.
A White House spokesman on Thursday told CNBC, "We're not commenting on the Politico report."
Earlier this month, it was revealed that climate researchers were also copying official government data about climate change because of concerns about Trump, who has said the idea that humans are affecting the climate is a "hoax" and promised to cancel the Paris accord on climate change.The Obama Administration is said to be warning a number of friendly governments across the planet that the upcoming WikiLeaks release, suspected to be a collection of State Department cables, will “probably erode trust in the United States as a diplomatic partner.”
But perhaps the bigger story is why – officials say that the documents include US diplomatic cables regarding the corruption of a large number of foreign governments and world leaders. Russia and Afghanistan are the only two nations mentioned specifically in the reports.
But they are not, apparently the only two nations in the documents, as a Reuters report says potentially embarrassing reports will be coming from East Asia, Central Asia, Europe and potentially elsewhere.
WikiLeaks reports that the document dump is “seven times bigger” than the previous Iraq leak, potentially in the realm of three million files. The WikiLeaks comments suggested the release in the “coming months,” but the US was warning allies it could come as soon as this week.
Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz"The allegations that have been made are of a serious nature," Mr Andrews said. "It relates to the personal behaviour of the minister and it is alleged that his personal behaviour was of a threatening, intimidating nature. These are serious matters. I believe that every single Victorian should feel safe at work." Mr Somyurek could not be contacted on Saturday but issued a statement denying the claims. "Today I stood aside from official duties effective immediately until the completion of a review by the secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Chris Eccles," the statement said. "Upon hearing of recent allegations I sought an immediate investigation. These allegations are completely baseless and untrue. I welcome the review and the opportunity to clear my name." But the claims are nonetheless sensitive for the Premier, who has staked much of his leadership on trying to stamp out violence against women and bullying in the workplace.
They also come as the state government begins an inbound trade mission on Sunday, which Mr Somyurek was supposed to help lead. Mr Andrews has now assumed the minister's small business, trade and innovation portfolios, but the Premier could soon be forced into a destabalising cabinet reshuffle depending on the outcome of the investigation. During a hastily organised press conference on Saturday afternoon, Mr Andrews would not be drawn on what would happen to Mr Somyurek if the claims proved to be true, or how many alleged incidents had taken place. He said he was approached by Ms Paul on Thursday – the same day Mr Somyurek faced a grilling over his ministerial portfolios at a parliamentary budget estimates hearing. The Sunday Age understands that an argument between the Minister and a number of his staff took place the night before the hearings, which led to one of his employees being sacked. A formal complaint was lodged with the Department of Premier and Cabinet on Friday, sparking an internal review by Mr Eccles, which is expected to be completed within weeks. However, it wasn't until Saturday morning that Mr Andrews said he had the chance to talk Mr Somyurek, because he had been in regional Victoria the day before.
Some Labor insiders have suggested that part of the scandal could be tied up in a political power-play between Mr Somyurek and Ms Paul, whose factions fell out following a recent realignment within the Right of the Victorian ALP. "This is clearly a political attack on Adem, and the Premier's got no choice but to do something about it," said one senior source. However, others rejected the suggestion, saying it diminished the seriousness of the allegations. Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said the case "was a very murky event that appears to pose more questions than invited answers". "The Premier should have dealt with it up front and actually told Victorians the truth up front, and early on. I would have thought telling Victorians on a sleepy Saturday afternoon – two days after being told of an alleged incident – is something that provides more questions than it does answers," Mr Guy said.
Mr Somyurek has been a member of parliament since 2002, when he won the upper house seat then known as Eumemmering. Now representing the south-east region of the Legislative Council, the Turkish-born MP was appointed to Mr Andrews' frontbench in 2010, but is often targeted by the opposition. Earlier this year, he earned the nickname "Minister For Google" after failing to be across his brief and answering a question by suggesting the opposition look up the details on Google. Ms Paul was a former Labor candidate at the last state election and is the wife of shop assistants' union official Raff Ciccone. She did not respond to calls on Saturday.The hosting provider for the defunct file-sharing site Megaupload wants to delete the data now that investigators have collected most of what they need for the criminal case against the company's operators.
Carpathia Hosting said maintaining Megaupload's servers costs US$9,000 a day, a cost it should not bear since its not a party to the case, according to a document filed on Tuesday in a U.S. federal court and first written about by Wired.
Megaupload leased 1,103 servers located in both the U.S. and Canada from Carpathia. Those servers hold at least 25 and as much as 28 petabytes of data by Carpathia's estimates, an astounding amount of data.
One petabyte of data is equivalent to 13.3 years of high-definition video, or all of the content in the U.S. Library of Congress -- by its own claim the largest library in the world -- multiplied by 50, according to a footnote in the court filing.
Federal prosecutors have charged seven people and two companies with copyright infringement and money laundering in connection with Megaupload, which they maintain encouraged sharing of content without the permission of the copyright owners.
Megaupload's flamboyant founder, Kim Dotcom, is free on bail living near Auckland, but the U.S. wants to extradite him. Extradition proceedings are expected to begin in August.
It appears several parties want Megaupload's data preserved, but no entity has stepped up so far to pay for it. Carpathia is asking the court for permission to lease the servers to new clients.
Some of the servers located in Canada were actually seized by law enforcement, while in the U.S., agents copied data but left the hardware, according to the filing.
Megaupload wants the data saved for its defense and in the chance that it can be returned to its customers, many of whom claim they used the file-sharing site for legitimate purposes. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for digital rights and privacy, wants the data preserved for the same reason.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) also wants it. The MPAA said in a letter to Carpathia included with the court filing that it may have civil claims against Megaupload and "potentially also against those who have knowingly and materially contributed to the infringement occurring through Megaupload". U.S. government prosecutors have said they don't need the data anymore, another letter in the filing said.
Carpathia's lawyers argued in the filing that the parties with an interest in the data should pay for the storage.
The hardware alone storing Megaupload's data is worth $1.25 million, Carpathia said. The company also said it has to move the hardware by next month at a cost of $65,000 because of a lease expiring in a location where it has Megaupload's servers.
Carpathia has asked for a hearing after April 7, according to the court documents.
Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.comKALAMAZOO, MI — Members of the Kalamazoo City Commission approved an ordinance tweak Monday that addresses panhandling in Kalamazoo's public spaces.
City commissioners approved the amendment in a 6-1 vote, with Commissioner Jack Urban dissenting.
The ordinance amendment broadens the city's existing panhandling ordinance that was adopted in 2006 to include the "right to be left alone" to areas enclosed by fencing or gates such as sidewalk cafes and anyone sitting at tables or benches located in public places. The ordinance is not limited to downtown, though city officials said it came about after receiving complaints from people who had been aggressively solicited downtown, particularly on the Kalamazoo Mall and in Bronson Park.
Commissioner Don Cooney called the ordinance one that is a "limited, reasonable, well-balanced proposal that shows respect to all people involved." But Urban said he would not back the ordinance, saying it was unclear whether the amendment was addressing public or private spaces.
Public spaces belong to everybody, and private business owners have recourse if people are bothering their patrons, Urban said.
A handful of meeting attendees spoke to commissioners about the amendment, with about half of them supporting the amendment and half of them opposing it.
Downtown Kalamazoo Inc. President Steve Deisler said his organization supports the amendment, saying downtown visitors and employees made uncomfortable by panhandling have a perception of downtown that sticks with them. Deisler said his organization wants to collaborate with the city and service agencies who serve people who panhandle downtown to assist them.
Downtown resident and employee Patti Owens said she "greatly supports" the ordinance tweak, but that it's only a start.
"I think that the folks who are the subject of this need real change, not spare change," Owens said. "We as a community need to come together and acknowledge this part of our community.... I think the panhandling we do allow is not helping these people. It's allowing them to tread water."
Resident Beth Lewis, who said she was involved when the original ordinance was passed in 2006, said the amendment is "unnecessary."
Vine neighborhood resident Matt Smith encouraged commissioners to vote in opposition of the amendment, saying in part it is unenforceable and a waste of time. Smith said he has worked in downtown Kalamazoo for five years and walks downtown to work and his gym.
"I've never once had a bad experience with someone asking me for money," Smith said.
Emily Monacelli covers local government and beer for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Contact her at emonacel@mlive.com or follow her on Twitter.Negotiations "could undo the effective regulation that sheltered Australia from the global finacial crisisi": Leon Carter from the FSU. Credit:Andrew De La Rue ''Financial services are a key part of the negotiations for us, given the strength of our sector in areas including banking and wealth management, particularly in the major, growing markets of Asia,'' Mr Robb told Fairfax Media. The negotiations potentially pre-empt the Abbott government's Financial System Inquiry - chaired by former Commonwealth Bank chief executive David Murray - which will present an interim report on July 15. Fifty World Trade Organisation members, including Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the European Union (representing its 28 member countries), are engaged in the TiSA negotiations. Australia's major banks strongly support the talks, with ANZ arguing that there is ''a significant opportunity not only for lowering barriers to trade for current parties to the negotiations, but also to set important targets for further liberalisation in the future by nations currently not party to the negotiation''.
Illustration: Ron Tandberg Key provisions in the leaked draft text include a United States proposal for a ''standstill'' on financial regulation. Dr Patricia Ranald, research associate at the University of Sydney and convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, said the US wants to ''tie the hands'' of governments. ''Amendments from the US are seeking to end publicly provided services like public pension funds, which are referred to as'monopolies' and to limit public regulation of all financial services,'' she said. Opening doors: Trade Minister, Andrew Robb. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen ''They want to freeze financial regulation at existing levels, which would mean that governments could not respond to new developments like another global financial crisis.''
The draft TiSA text also includes US and European Union proposals for each party to the agreement to allow financial service providers of other parties the right to establish or expand within its territory, ''including through the acquisition of existing enterprises''. The application of ''most favoured nation'' and ''national treatment'' to the acquisition of financial services providers would preclude an Australian government blocking foreign takeovers of Australian banks, although it is possible that Australia could obtain a ''carve out'' for its four pillars policy preventing the big four banks from merging and for legislation that limits individual shareholdings in Australian financial sector companies to 15 per cent. The draft text also provides that foreign banks would be allowed to operate directly into Australia, without having to set up a local branch. Foreign financial institutions would also be allowed to bring into Australia ''temporary'' workers, including computer, telecommunications, actuarial and legal specialists. ''Temporary'' is not defined in the leaked text. The US has also proposed measures that would allow Australian customers' financial data to flow freely to other TiSA countries where Australian privacy laws would not apply.
ANZ argues data protection and privacy laws are becoming ''an area of significant divergence'' between countries, inhibiting the free provision of financial services. ANU associate professor Matthew Rimmer expressed alarm that ''TiSA does not seem to be motivated by any desire to improve the protection of privacy of consumers in an age of cloud computing and US National Security Agency surveillance.'' The EU and US are also proposing an international dispute settlement process for ''prudential issues and other financial matters''. If agreed this could mean that an external panel would judge Australia on its financial regulation, including prudential standards. Dr Ranald pointed out that the TiSA negotiations are taking place outside of the World Trade Organisation and are not subject to WTO transparency practice in which draft texts have been released for public discussion. ''This document moves in the opposite direction, stating on the front page that it must remain secret for five years,'' Dr Ranald said. Parliamentary consultation on TiSA has been minimal, with the talks only briefly mentioned in Senate estimates hearings.
Loading Financial Services Union national secretary Leon Carter said there was ''a real danger'' the secret TiSA negotiations ''could undo the effective regulation that sheltered Australia from the global financial crisis'' and result in ''a tidal wave of finance job losses in Australia''. The leaked draft TiSA financial services chapter can be found at www.wikileaks.orgPatriots second-year cornerback Alfonzo Dennard has not had the best offseason, first earning a deferred 30-day jail sentence for assaulting a police officer and then getting arrested July 11 in Lincoln, Neb., under suspicion of DUI.
But despite the two arrests, as well as the negative publicity generated recently by the Aaron Hernandez situation, the Patriots do not plan on cutting Dennard, a league source told the Globe Friday.
The team is, however, prepared for Dennard to be suspended by the NFL under the player conduct policy. As a reference point, Lions cornerback Aaron Berry was suspended for three games in 2012 after getting arrested twice in the offseason. An NFL spokesman said only that Dennard’s case is “under review.”
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The Patriots declined to comment, but the morning after his arrest, the team said in a statement that it was “extremely disappointed to learn of Alfonzo Dennard’s arrest. We take this matter very seriously and are working to get more information on the incident.”
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Dennard and his camp are disputing the facts of last week’s DUI arrest, claiming that Dennard blew into a breathalyzer twice and registered below the legal limit, and that he passed a field sobriety test. The police officer said Dennard didn’t blow hard enough into the tube, which prompted the arrest.
The Patriots felt confident enough in Dennard’s version of events and his character to give him the benefit of the doubt in this situation. Dennard, 23, was attentive and productive as a rookie and gave the coaching staff few problems.
Dennard is currently on probation after his April conviction of assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest, stemming from an altercation April 21, 2012, also in Lincoln. Dennard was allowed to wait until March 2014 to serve his 30-day jail sentence, but was also given two years probation. The police officer he punched was not wearing a uniform at the time.
Nebraska prosecutors are now moving to have Dennard’s probation revoked, and he is due in court on July 31, five days after the Patriots begin training camp. It is possible that Dennard is sent back to jail during that hearing, which could complicate matters for the Patriots. His first court hearing for the DUI arrest will be Aug. 12, but the case could drag out over several months.
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Dennard started seven games last year as a rookie, finishing the season with 35 tackles, three interceptions, a forced fumble, and a touchdown. Expected to start opposite Aqib Talib this year, Dennard is a talented player who fell to the seventh round of last year’s draft because of his arrest.
Dennard also has a favorable contract — salary cap numbers of $494,462, $584,462, and $674,462 over the next three seasons.
The Patriots have several options to replace Dennard if he is suspended, including Kyle Arrington, Ras-I Dowling, Marquice Cole, and third-round pick Logan Ryan. Converted safeties Devin McCourty and Tavon Wilson can also play cornerback. The Patriots also have two undrafted rookie cornerbacks in camp, Brandon Jones and Stephon Morris.
...
The Patriots released wide receiver Donald Jones, whom they signed as an unrestricted free agent March 15. Jones is entering his fourth NFL season after making 82 career receptions with Buffalo.
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Jones signed a three-year contract worth $3.41 million but it did not include any guaranteed money. The Patriots avoided paying Jones a $200,000 reporting bonus by cutting him before training camp.
The Patriots also signed undrafted rookie wideouts Perez Ashford and Quentin Sims.
Ben Volin can be reached at Ben.Volin@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @BenVolinI think this has happened enough in the past few months that we can safely call it a trend, manufacturers releasing new mods packaged with new or updated tanks and calling that combination a starter kit. Joyetech has done it with the eVic VT packaged with the eGo ONE Mega VT tank, Kangertech did it with the KBOX Mini and Subtank Mini, calling that combination the SUBOX Mini. And VaporFi has now done it with the VOX II Mod and your choice of one of three tanks, the Bolt RDA, Rebel Tank, or Volt Hybrid Tank, marketing that combination as the VOX II Starter Kit.
Don’t let that “starter kit” moniker fool you. None of these are “beginner” kits. Certainly not the VOX II Starter Kit. This is an advanced, variable wattage mod and all of the available tank options are slick and appropriate for the most advanced vapers. The use of the term “starter” is probably indicative of the fact that these kits include most, if not all, of what you need to start vaping right out of the box, except for the ejuice.
VaporFi is, to the best of my knowledge, the only company that gives vapers the option of choosing which tank is included in their starter kit. And of the three mentioned above, Joyetech’s eVic VT and Kangertech’s SUBOX Mini, VaporFi is the only one to offer their new mod as part of the kit or for individual purchase. You can’t, at least as of this writing, purchase an eVic VT or KBOX Mini without buying the entire kit.
Seven Report received the VOX II Mod and Volt Hybrid Tank edition of the starter kit, and this “First Look” will deal with both components. I’ll separate the mod and tank for full, in-depth reviews, since you can purchase them as the starter kit or as stand alone items. Those reviews will be published in the next week or so, after I’ve had a chance to use the VOX II and Volt extensively.
So let’s get our first look at the VaporFi VOX II Starter Kit.
VOX II Mod
The VOX II is a 50 watt, variable wattage (VW) box mod, with a range of 7 – 50 watts in 0.1 watt increments. The VOX II also has 5 programmable preset wattage settings, so once you’ve found your sweet spot for a particular ejuice or tank you can access it with the push of a button. The unit will fire coils from 0.2 ohm – 3.0 ohm.
An included, replaceable 18650 battery powers the VOX II. You can charge the battery while it’s in the device (no need for an external battery charger) with the included micro USB cable, though no wall adapter for the cable is included. And the VOX II has pass through capability, allowing you to continue vaping while the battery is charging.
A bright, sharp, easy to read OLED display shows selected wattage, voltage, resistance of the attached atomizer and battery level. In the preset mode the display shows which of your presets you’ve selected and the wattage of that preset.
The VOX II is a solid, good looking mod with loads of features, including all of the standard safety features like low voltage, reverse battery, high voltage, and temperature protection. It’s 510 threaded and that connection is spring loaded. It has lock feature which keeps you from inadvertently changing your wattage setting. The body is stainless steel and VaporFi offers a rubber silicone sleeve in five colors, red, black, blue, pink and clear.
At 94 mm it’s a little taller than some other 50 watt mods, like the Kanger KBOX Mini or the Eleaf iStick, but it still fits comfortably in the palm of your hand. This is a good looking, solid feeling mod.
Volt Hybrid Tank
VaporFi contracted with Kangertech to build the Volt, basing it on the popular Subtank Mini. But this is not simply a Subtank clone. VaporFi had some very particular thoughts on how to improve on the Subtank, including much larger ejuice flow ports on the Mini RBA base.
The Volt holds 4.5 ml of ejuice and has dual adjustable air flow control, with air flow ports on two sides of the tank. It comes with two OCC (organic cotton coil) atomizers, one rated at 1.2 ohm with a suggested range of 12-25 watts, and the other rated at 0.5 ohm with a wattage range of 15-30 watts. It also comes with that Mini RBA base with one coil installed and a spare, both rated at 0.5 ohm.
Also included with the Volt is a package of organic Japanese cotton, a screw driver, spare screws and O-rings and an extra Pyrex tank. The body of the Volt is stainless steel. It’s 22 mm in diameter.
While it does resemble the Subtank, the Volt isn’t identical to it. The knurling on the base is different, and VaporFi’s signature green is well represented via the O-rings. The Volt is a good looking, sturdy tank.
First Impressions
After unboxing the VOX II Starter Kit and reading the instruction manuals for both the mod and the Volt Hybrid Tank, I was eager to get vaping. And this kit did not disappoint. My vape experience vaping with it produced loads of flavorful vapor. The buttons are easy reach and manipulate. The OLED display provides plenty of information. And the OCC in the Volt tank allows the pure flavor of the ejuice to come through without interference.
Two minor issues were apparent during this first look, but neither are disastrous or deal breakers. The first is covered in the owners manual for the VOX II. The battery pin located in the battery cap, that little circular copper piece, needed to be adjusted slightly to make full contact with the battery. If you buy a VOX II Starter Kit and the mod doesn’t turn on, this is most likely the cause. The other minor issue is the placement of the micro USB port on the bottom of the VOX II. I would have preferred it on the side of the unit, but again, this certainly isn’t a deal breaker.
I’m looking forward to getting more familiar with the VOX II and the Volt. I’ll be using them together, exclusively for the next few days to a week, playing around the preset wattage functions and that Mini RBA. Then I’ll come back with a full, in-depth review on each individual component. If you follow Seven Report on Twitter or Face Book you’ll find out through those avenues when those reviews are live.
You can order the VaporFi VOX II Starter Kit here.How to differentiate ChoA and Way.
Requested by anon.
The twins Heo Min Jin and Heo Min Seon were born on July 12th, 1990 to Korean parents.
They are identical twins yes because there are non similar twins so~ plus they are Asian and for western people, it’s common that Asians look similar hence, differating the two girls is pretty difficult. Luckily you are one of fy-crayonpop’s loyal followers. We’ll take you through very little details to differate the twin sisters.
First of all to make things clear, Heo Min Jin -ChoA- is the elder one and Heo Min Seon -Way- is the younger.
Secondly, I’ll give you simple things if you don’t love focusing.
Way is rather a rapper than a vocalist. ChoA is a vocalist and dancer. So in a Crayon Pop song, if there’s rap, that’s Way.
In photos, the very blond haired or red headed is Way. But it doesn’t mean that brown/black haired one is always ChoA.
Usually, Way’s hair is longer than ChoA’s.
Way often has eye lenses.
Now to biologic details.
ChoA’s mouth is slightly bigger than Way’s (Lips)
ChoA’s face has more details than Way’s, especially when smiling. Because ChoA’s smile is rather charmeous than cute like Way as Way has chubbier cheeks than her sister.
Way’s face is more rounded than ChoA’s. ChoA has more sharpened and tall figure.
I’m sorry to mention this but ChoA’s breasts are a bit bigger than Way’s
Way’s eyes are somehow not identical, one is slightly different from the other
Way’s eyes are slightly smaller than ChoA’s
Test yourself:A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer has "confessed guilt" a week after being detained in a massive crackdown on legal activists, China's state-run media says © AFP/File Frederic J. Brown Beijing (AFP) - A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer has "confessed guilt" a week after being detained in a massive crackdown on legal activists, China's state-run media said.
Zhou Shifeng is one of more than 130 lawyers detained or called for questioning by Chinese state-security this month, according to tallies by rights groups.
The lawyer provided legal aid to families of children poisoned by milk powder from a powerful dairy firm, and this year defended an 81-year-old writer detained for criticising the ruling Communist party.
Zhou has reportedly not been able to meet with a family-appointed defence attorney. But the official Xinhua news agency said late Saturday that he "admitted guilt," and pleaded for a "second chance."
"Some things about my actions at the law firm were illegal... my mistakes were serious," the report cited Zhou as saying, apparently while in police custody.
Xinhua said that nine other lawyers connected to Zhou's law firm Fengrui had been detained on criminal charges, along with several associates.
The detained lawyers "gave interviews to foreign media, spreading opinions attacking the party and the government, slandering the legal system and other such negative views," it added.
Those detained include female lawyer Wang Yu, known for defending poverty-stricken victims of forced demolition, sexual assault, illegal detention and other abuses.
In an apparent effort to put pressure on Wang's family, her 16-year-old son has been questioned several times this week by police in the city of Tianjin, a family friend told AFP.
Police are stationed outside Wang's parent's apartment in the city, and "follow the family whenever they go out," said the friend who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal.
- 'Heaviest crackdown yet'-
China's courts have a near-100 percent conviction rate. State media said last year that police using torture to extract confessions was "not rare" in the country.
The ruling party says it hopes to promote "rule of law," and a growing number of lawyers over the past decade attempted to expose official abuses using the courts.
But President Xi Jinping has stressed the party's ultimate authority over the legal system, and limits on activism have tightened.
Chinese rights lawyers previously faced physical attacks, house arrest and prison sentences, but analysts see the latest crackdown as the heaviest yet.
More than 200 legal activists have been targeted by police since July 9, according to Britain-based Amnesty International.
Those detained include at least 130 lawyers, according to tallies by activists in China.
Zhou's family has appointed lawyer Yang Jinzhu to act as a defence attorney, but police have not allowed him to meet with his client, the Hong Kong-based advocacy group Rights Defense Network reported.
China's state media frequently reports "confessions," from criminal suspects who are still detained without access to lawyers, a practice decried as a violation of legal procedure.
Last week state media branded the Fengrui legal firm a "criminal organisation" whose lawyers had "staged open defiance inside the courtroom and on the Internet."
In a commentary published on Saturday, Xinhua said China "must lock up lawyers who break their vows."
"In the available police accounts of what the suspects did, there was one particularly disturbing |
, share, and followWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is due to make a recommendation to the White House on Saturday on whether to rescind or resize Utah’s Bears Ears monument, setting the tone for the administration’s broader study of which lands protected by past presidents should be reopened to development.
Bears Ears, the twin rock formations in Utah’s Four Corners region is pictured in Utah, U.S. December 19, 2016. Picture taken December 19, 2016. REUTERS/Annie Knox
The 1.35 million-acre monument, created by former president Barack Obama at the end of his term and named after its iconic twin buttes, is the first of 27 national monuments that will be evaluated by the Department of the Interior after President Donald Trump ordered the review in April.
The deadline for Zinke’s recommendation on Bears Ears is June 10, though an Interior Department official did not say when the recommendation would be made public.
Trump had argued that previous administrations “abused” their right to designate national monuments under the U.S. Antiquities Act of 1906, and put millions of acres of land, mainly in western states, off limits to drilling, mining, logging and ranching without adequate input from locals.
Conservation groups, meanwhile, have called Trump’s effort to alter existing national monuments illegal and irresponsible, and have vowed to challenge him in court.
“Whatever comes out of these recommendations will give us an insight into how this administration takes its responsibilities to protect public lands and uphold conservation mandates,” said Nada Culver, senior counsel of the Wilderness Society, an environmental advocacy group.
HEATED DEBATE
The review taps into a heated national debate over Washington’s role in America’s wildest spaces: environmentalists and tribal groups support federal oversight, but many state political leaders, conservatives, and industry groups say the lands should be generating money for business, creating jobs, or yielding revenue for education and other public services.
Bears Ears was created after years of lobbying by a coalition of five tribes, who say the area is sacred. Republicans, like Senator Orin Hatch of Utah, have argued, however, that Obama’s designation of the Bears Ears monument had weakened education funding in the state through its School and Institutional Trust Lands system - which delivers revenues from land development to schools.
While the land encompassed by the Bears Ears monument is not believed to contain huge amounts of coal, oil or gas, several other monuments on Zinke’s review list do - making the Bears Ears decision important symbolically to industry groups.
“Who is to say that, in the future, a president couldn’t just put a whole basin under monument designation,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, representing oil and gas companies.GOJIRA and the DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT will join forces for a North American tour in January/February.
The trek, which was announced during this weekend's edition of Full Metal Jackie's nationally syndicated radio show, will also include support from THE ATLAS MOTH.
The dates are as follows:
Jan. 14 - Mill City Nights – Minneapolis, MN
Jan. 15 - Garrick Centre – Winnipeg, MB
Jan. 16 - Odeon Events Centre – Saskatoon, SK
Jan. 17 - MacEwan Hall – Calgary, AB
Jan. 19 - Vogue Theatre – Vancouver, BC
Jan. 20 - Studio 7 – Seattle, WA
Jan. 21 - Hawthorne Theatre – Portland, OR
Jan. 23 - The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA
Jan. 24 - Ace of Spades – Sacramento, CA
Jan. 25 - Henry Fonda Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
Jan. 28 - Marquee Theatre – Tempe, AZ
Jan. 29 - Sunshine Theatre – Albuquerque, NM
Jan. 31 - Granada Theatre – Dallas, TX
Feb. 01 - White Rabbit – San Antonio, TX
Feb. 02 - Warehouse Live – Houston, TX
Feb. 04 - State Theater – St. Petersburg, FL
Feb. 05 - The Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
Feb. 07 - Rams Head Live – Baltimore, MD
Feb. 08 - Irving Plaza – New York, NY
Feb. 09 - Mr. Smalls – Millvale, PA
Feb. 12 - House of Blues – Chicago, IL
Feb. 13 - Phoenix Concert Theatre – Toronto, ON
Feb. 14 - Le National – Montreal, QC
Feb. 15 - The Palladium – Worcester, MA
Feb. 16 - Theater of Living Arts – Philadelphia, PA
GOJIRA's fifth album, "L'Enfant Sauvage", sold almost 11,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 34 on The Billboard 200 chart. The band's previous CD, "The Way Of All Flesh", opened with 4,200 units back in 2008 to land at No. 138.
"L'Enfant Sauvage" entered the official chart in France at position No. 7 (No. 17 on the digital chart).
"L'Enfant Sauvage" (which translates to "The Wild Child") features 11 tracks of mind-bending, thunderous metal. The CD was recorded at Spin Recording Studios in Long Island City, New York with co-producer Josh Wilbur (LAMB OF GOD).
"Epicloud", the latest album from Devin Townsend to be released under the DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT banner, was issued on September 18 in North America and September 24 in Europe via InsideOut Music. The CD features a guest appearance by former THE GATHERING frontwoman and previous Devin collaborator Anneke Van Giersbergen.
"Epicloud" is available in the following formats: standard CD jewel case; limited-edition digipack with bonus CD; double vinyl gatefold with an exclusive bonus track; and digital download on iTunes with two exclusive bonus tracks, "Cry Forever" (demo) and "Take My Ego" (demo).Story highlights National Geographic has announced the discovery of a lost city in the remote Honduran rainforest
The magazine says scientists believe the city belonged to a mysterious ancient civilization
A team documented the site after aerial light scanning showed man-made structures
(CNN) Archaeologists searching for a lost city in the jungles of Honduras have discovered the urban remains of what they believe is a vanished ancient civilization, National Geographic reports.
A writer and photographer for the magazine accompanied a team of scientists to Honduras' Mosquitia region on the trail of a legendary "White City" or "City of the Monkey God."
The expedition was launched after aerial light detection scanning -- known as LIDAR -- uncovered what appeared to be man-made structures below the rainforest, National Geographic said.
Seeking to confirm the discovery, a team of U.S. and Honduran archaeologists, a LIDAR engineer, an ethnobotanist, anthropologists and documentary filmmakers entered the remote region. They were protected by Honduran Special forces, the magazine said.
The National Geographic team was searching for the legendary "White City" or "City of the Monkey God."
Writer Douglas Preston said the team emerged February 25, after documenting the ruins of a "vanished culture."
Read MoreMLBTR is publishing Offseason Outlooks for all 30 teams. Click here for the other entries in this series.
The Red Sox jumped from the AL East basement in 2015 to first place in 2016, and they own one of the game’s most enviable collections of young talent. Despite all this progress, however, the season ended on the sour note of an ALDS sweep at the hands of the Indians. The Sox have to address some pitching questions, as well as try to replace the irreplaceable in franchise icon David Ortiz.
Guaranteed Contracts
Arbitration Eligible Players (service time in parentheses; projections via MLB Trade Rumors)
Free Agents
Boston Red Sox Depth Chart; Boston Red Sox Payroll Overview
Front office retooling has been the early story of Boston’s offseason. General manager Mike Hazen left the club to become the Diamondbacks’ new GM and executive vice-president, while Sox VP of amateur/international scouting Amiel Sawdaye also departed for Arizona to serve as Hazen’s assistant GM. Hazen isn’t being directly replaced, as assistant GMs Brian O’Halloran and (newly-promoted) Eddie Romero will essentially fill his role as the top lieutenants to president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.
Hazen and Sawdaye are very notable losses for the Sox, as the two executives played big roles in the team’s recent successes in scouting and player development. Ultimately, Dombrowski is still the one calling the shots in Boston, and the coming winter will indicate whether he feels the need to significantly alter or merely fine-tune what is already a strong roster.
The biggest absence, of course, is Ortiz, who will head into retirement after an incredible farewell season. At age 40 and playing despite severe lower-leg and foot injuries, Ortiz delivered one of his best seasons, hitting.315/.401/.620 with 38 homers and a league-best 48 doubles. Filling Ortiz’s role as a clubhouse and franchise leader was already an impossible task, yet replacing his production on the field will be almost as tall an order.
Early speculation has linked the Red Sox to free agent Edwin Encarnacion, one of the few bats on the open market capable of matching Ortiz’s slugging numbers. (Ortiz himself, somewhat controversially, has also suggested that the fellow Dominican is a good fit to replace him in Boston.) Encarnacion is also capable of playing first base, so he and Hanley Ramirez could share first and DH between them, locking down both positions with big power bats.
If the Sox aren’t willing to make such a big investment in years or dollars, then they could look beyond Encarnacion to the likes of Jose Bautista, Mark Trumbo, Kendrys Morales, Brandon Moss, Mike Napoli, Carlos Beltran or Matt Holliday. The latter two names on that list may not command more than a one-year deal, which Boston may prefer for flexibility’s sake given how the team is overflowing with position player options. Beltran and Morales are switch-hitters while Moss hits from the left side, in case Boston wants to prioritize replacing Ortiz with another left-handed bat.
The Red Sox have Ramirez playing every day at either first or DH and are further set in right field (Mookie Betts), center field (Jackie Bradley Jr.), second base (Dustin Pedroia) and shortstop (Xander Bogaerts). Rookie Andrew Benintendi has the inside track on the regular left field job after his impressive debut season. Veteran outfielder Chris Young is on hand to potentially platoon with Benintendi or at least spell him against some tough southpaws, though the Sox are hopeful that Benintendi can become yet another homegrown lineup staple.
Beyond these established positions, there’s quite a bit of uncertainty at third base and the other first base/DH spot, and those two problem areas could end up being tied together. WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford speculated that, if the Red Sox don’t acquire a first base/DH type at all, they could juggle Travis Shaw, Pablo Sandoval and Yoan Moncada between third, first and DH, with notable prospect Sam Travis also in the mix at first. Super-utilityman Brock Holt (who actually started Boston’s three postseason games at third) would presumably also be in the mix in this scenario.
The issue with this plan, of course, is that all of these players carry significant question marks. Shaw’s production faded considerably after a hot start, though he still provided good defense at the hot corner. Moncada, perhaps the game’s top prospect, struck out 12 times in 20 MLB plate appearances (admittedly a small sample size) and might not be quite ready for a significant role in the bigs. The highly-touted Travis missed much of 2016 after tearing his ACL. Sandoval is a total wild card, struggling badly in 2015 and missing almost all of 2016 due to shoulder surgery, though the club is reportedly happy with his recovery and improved conditioning. Given that the Red Sox chose Shaw over Sandoval in Spring Training last year, the Panda’s big contract won’t give him any advantage in the fight for playing time.
The simplest answer, then, could be to limit all these questions to third base and sign a player like Encarnacion to solidify the other first base/DH role. Looking at the problem from the other end, could the Red Sox sign a third baseman? This would be the less likely answer, as signing the likes of Justin Turner would block Moncada (whose athleticism would be wasted in a first base/DH role) or longer-term prospects like Rafael Devers. Luis Valbuena would be an intriguing addition, as he wouldn’t require more than a two- or three-year deal. He provides additional left-handed balance to Boston’s lineup, can play both third and first base, and Valbuena’s power seems like a nice fit for Fenway Park.
Catcher is another unsettled position for the Sox, though Sandy Leon’s out-of-nowhere production gave them an unexpected boost last year. Leon posted a whopping 1.074 OPS over his first 167 PA, but he came back to earth quite sharply over his last 116 PA (a.515 OPS). The Red Sox would be satisfied if Leon can hit halfway between those two extremes in 2017, though given his.392 BABIP last year, there’s more evidence indicating that Leon was simply on an extreme hot streak last summer than there is proof that he has really turned a corner at the plate.
Boston will go into the offseason with Leon as the starter and Christian Vazquez slated for the backup role, as the defensively-gifted Vazquez is still trying to find any sort of competency at the plate. The Red Sox have already declined their $3.75MM club option on Ryan Hanigan, buying the veteran backstop out for $800K. The team could try to re-sign Hanigan as minor league depth, though he may still be able to find a clearer path to big league playing time with another team, Hanigan’s injury-plagued season notwithstanding.
If the Sox wanted to make a big move behind the plate, they could explore signing Wilson Ramos, who will be out of action until roughly midseason due to right knee surgery. This injury hasn’t stopped Ramos’ agent from seeking four- or five-year contracts this winter, and the Sox are wealthy enough to perhaps risk of giving such a commitment to a player with a checkered health history. It’s hard to tell how Ramos’ market will develop in the wake of his ACL tear, though one would expect Boston to at least check in on what it would take to sign the catcher.
Former top prospect Blake Swihart was shifted to left field from behind the plate due to questions about his defense, though his development at the new position was cut short thanks to an ankle injury that eventually required surgery. Swihart appeared in just 48 total games between the majors and Triple-A in 2016, and he’s probably ticketed for more minor league seasoning to get him acclimated to left.
If Swihart doesn’t win a reserve job, then the Red Sox bench shapes up as Vazquez, Young and Holt, with rookie Marco Hernandez an interesting candidate due to his ability to play second, third and short. Boston could seek out a right-handed hitting utility infielder given that Hernandez, Holt, Shaw and Sandoval all hit from the left side, though the switch-hitting Moncada could be an internal answer. One would think, however, that the Sox wouldn’t have Moncada on the 25-man roster unless they could give him more playing time than a part-time role.
With so much position player depth at both the major league and minor league levels, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Sox offer some of this depth in trade talks to acquire pitching, which looks like Boston’s most pressing need. Dombrowski has historically not been shy about dealing prospects for established MLB talent, and in his year-plus in charge of the Red Sox, Dombrowski has already shipped such highly-regarded prospects as Manuel Margot, Javier Guerra and Anderson Espinoza out of town in separate trades with the Padres for Craig Kimbrel and Drew Pomeranz (though it’s probably safe to assume that the Sox aren’t likely to be doing much more business with San Diego in the near future.)
Offering Moncada or Benintendi would open the door for the Red Sox in trade talks about virtually any semi-available starter in the game. Especially in the wake of the Pomeranz controversy, however, Dombrowski isn’t dealing one of his blue chip prospects unless he got a true ace back in return. If Benintendi is ready for the bigs and Moncada is close, however, Boston could be more open to dealing from its 25-man roster.
I’d imagine the Sox would be interested in dealing Sandoval if they could, even if it means taking on another bad contract or eating some money in the process. Swihart seems like a bit of an odd man out if he’s not going to catch and he’s blocked by Benintendi in left field, and Swihart would generate some solid interest as a post-hype prospect. Travis would also get interest, though the Red Sox would be selling low on an intriguing hitter prospect in the wake of Travis’ abbreviated 2016. Shaw is probably only a candidate to be moved if the Sox made another trade or acquisition to address third base, unless they were sold on Sandoval making a comeback or Moncada’s ability to handle MLB pitching.
None of the bench guys would net the Red Sox the frontline rotation help they’d be looking for, so could they instead move one of their lineup cornerstones? They had talks with the White Sox over the summer about Chris Sale and Jose Quintana, with Boston unwilling to give up Bradley to land either pitcher. Bradley is an immensely valuable asset — a 26-year-old elite center field glove with an emerging bat who is just entering his arbitration years. That said, Bradley has struggled to hit left-handed pitching and his hitting as a whole declined over the last two months of the season. If the Sox have any reservations about Bradley’s development as a hitter or are simply willing to bite the bullet to land an elite arm, he could be dealt, leaving Betts or Benintendi taking over in center field and left field becoming the province of a Young/Holt/Swihart platoon mix (or, the Sox could turn around to try to sign another outfielder).
A player like Bradley is a high price to pay, though that could be the going rate for pitching trades this winter given how the free agent starting market is incredibly thin. The Sox might not be too active in the open market when it comes to pitching upgrades aside from checking in on a reunion with Rich Hill. The veteran lefty revived his career in the Boston system in 2015 and went on to post tremendous numbers (when healthy) with the A’s and Dodgers this year. Given the issues at the back of Boston’s rotation, letting Hill depart last winter looks like a missed opportunity.
Rick Porcello and David Price have the top two rotation spots locked up, with Porcello delivering a career-best performance in 2016 while Price somewhat struggled by his lofty standards in his first year in a Red Sox uniform. Steven Wright, Eduardo Rodriguez, Clay Buchholz and Pomeranz are all in the mix for the other three rotation jobs, though all are dealing with either injury and/or consistency concerns heading into the winter.
Signing someone like Hill or adding another top-tier arm in a trade would go a long way towards solidifying the pitching staff. If a new pitcher is added and Wright, Rodriguez, Pomeranz and Buchholz end up all being healthy and productive, then that’s certainly a “problem” the Red Sox would love to face. In the (perhaps unlikely) event that the Sox face a pitching surplus, those starters could be traded or used in the bullpen. Buchholz drew interest when his name was floated at the deadline, or even the promising Rodriguez could be shopped to land a more proven major league talent.
The Red Sox got a pretty solid overall performance from their bullpen last year, though some changes are in the offing. Kimbrel’s first season in Boston saw him post career highs in ERA (3.40) and walk rate (5.09), though while he wasn’t the utterly dominant closer he was with the Braves, Kimbrel was still very effective. Robbie Ross, Joe Kelly, Matt Barnes and Heath Hembree will all return, and 2015-16 offseason addition Carson Smith should be back at some point later in the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery last May.
Even with this depth on hand, the Red Sox will hunt for more bullpen help in the form of another left-hander to pair with Ross (Fernando Abad was very ineffective after coming to Boston) and a setup man to set the table for Kimbrel. Free agents Koji Uehara and Brad Ziegler will both get consideration for that eighth-inning role, as the two veterans were quite effective last year. Uehara still posted strong peripherals despite a 3.45 ERA inflated by a spike in homers allowed, and he’ll likely be available on a one-year deal as he enters his age-42 season, while the Red Sox will need a multi-year commitment to retain Ziegler.
It isn’t out the question that Boston makes a surprise play for one of the top free agent closers on the market this winter in an effort to create its own version of an uber-bullpen, though I’d consider it to be a bit unlikely given the team’s other needs. Given how good Kelly looked after officially switching to a relief role last year (an 1.02 ERA and 21 strikeouts in 17 2/3 IP out of the pen), the Sox are hopeful that they already have one burgeoning weapon already on the roster.
There’s certainly potential for the Red Sox to go big to address their lineup or rotation needs, though the team has so much talent on board that Dombrowski can be flexible with his offseason dealings. One notable move (like, say, dealing Bradley) could trigger a chain reaction in Boston’s plans for 2017 and in the future in terms of freeing up positions for prospects, or potentially chasing established players this winter in free agency or trades. Dombrowski could also just as easily choose to only tinker with his roster until he knows exactly what he has in certain youngsters or underachieving/injured veterans. Some moves are certainly on the horizon for a Red Sox club that clearly feels it can contend for a World Series next year.July 12, 2012
President Obama made what should be an uncontroversial statement the other day. He told a Spanish language television station that Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez does not pose a serious threat to the United States.
Unless flamboyant language is considered a threat, there’s little to argue with Obama’s statement. Venezuela has not engaged in or threatened to engage in any actual armed hostilities with the United States (the U.S. is suspected to have been a major force behind a 2002 military coup against Chavez), is a major U.S. trading partner, and has a tiny military budget (as Obama pointed out in 2009).
But South Floridan politicians, many of whom pander to the right-wing Cuban exile lobby, pounced on Obama’s statement.
“Simply put, this President is unfit for duty when it comes to understanding freedom and national security in the Western Hemisphere, and neither are his liberal allies who allow such behavior,” thundered the campaign of U.S. Representative Connie Mack, who is vying to be the next Republican Senator from Florida.
Groups dedicated to creating conflict between the Latin America left and the United States are likely cheering Mack’s alarmism. After all, they’ve paid his chief of staff and campaign manager, Jeffery Cohen, well for this service to their cause.
I went to the U.S. Capitol to look up Mr. Cohen’s financial disclosures. I found that in the period of time between 2009 and 2011, after he left his role as Connie Mack’s chief of staff and before he once again returned in the same role, Cohen worked as a private consultant, and he was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by a firm that manufactures grassroots campaigns, and another group that works on foreign elections, and tens of thousands of dollars by anti-Chavez groups.
Here’s a scanned sheet of his financial disclosures:
In this time period, he received $368,000 from Direct Impact, an elections and astroturf firm, $25,000 from GEB International, which is dedicated to “electing world leaders around the globe” (although it keeps its client list confidential), $35,000 from the anti-Chavez Committee to Free Venezuela Foundation, and $5,000 from the Committee for Action Against Chavez.
This isn’t to say there aren’t legitimate criticisms of Chavez’s human rights record — or that of any other Latin American country, like closely allied right-wing Colombia. But the alarmism with which the American right approaches Chavez and the rest of the Latin American left may sometimes be more about pandering to special interest lobbies than it is legitimate concern for American security or values.History's demands can seem inconvenient, unfair or unreasonable. But they can't be ignored. The Obama administration has a legal and moral duty to determine whether crimes were committed in the Bush-era detention and interrogation of "war on terror" prisoners -- and, if so, to prosecute those responsible.
President Obama has made clear that "he thinks that we should be looking forward, not backward," as spokesman Bill Burton said Monday. Obama has taken admirable steps toward assuring the nation and the world that the worst abuses -- waterboarding, indefinite detention, Abu Ghraib -- will not happen again.
Obama's latest move, lodging responsibility for interrogating "high-value" suspects in a new unit that will report to the White House, seeks to offer further guarantees against torture and abuse. I'm not quite sure what it accomplishes -- it takes control of these interrogations away from the CIA and ensures that they will be conducted under the strict rules of the Army Field Manual, but it seems to me that the president should be able to simply order the CIA to follow whatever rules he specifies. Maybe the new High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group will ensure additional safeguards and greater accountability, but at first glance its likely impact seems more bureaucratic than operational.
More to the point is a report that Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to reopen nearly a dozen cases of alleged prisoner abuse by CIA employees and contractors with an eye toward possible prosecutions. Such action would reverse the decision by the Justice Department under the Bush administration to drop these cases. According to The Post, Holder has decided on career federal prosecutor John Durham to lead the inquiry.
This would put the attorney general in a tough position. That's okay; Holder is a tough guy, and when he took the job he knew it wouldn't be a walk in the park. But Obama has decided not only to take a hands-off position on the matter, which is a proper acknowledgement of prosecutorial independence, but to reinforce his "looking forward" message at every opportunity. Without taking a position on whether there should be prosecutions, the president certainly seems to be telegraphing one.
Obama has consistently opposed even a comprehensive investigation into human rights abuses and possible crimes committed by the Bush administration. His reluctance is understandable -- but it's wrong.
Given Obama's ambitious domestic agenda, he could hardly be eager to have to spend time and political capital in pursuing transgressions that took place years ago on another administration's watch. Inconveniently, however, torture and cruel treatment are clearly against the law. Holder is said to have been appalled upon reading the classified version of a voluminous report on CIA abuses. If there is credible evidence that crimes were indeed committed, I don't see how the nation's chief law enforcement officer -- or its commander in chief -- could just look the other way.
There are those who argue that such prosecutions would destroy the CIA's morale. But giving interrogators and jailers a "just following orders" free pass is unfair to those in the chain of command who knew these alleged practices were wrong and tried to prevent or halt them. Waterboarding, to cite perhaps the most flagrant abuse, has been prosecuted by the U.S. government as a war crime. This history cannot have been unknown to all CIA employees and contractors.
If Holder's reported decision to reopen the CIA cases does lead to prosecutions, there is one possible outcome that everyone should find unacceptable: that only the hands-on abusers are charged and tried. Proper investigations must work their way up the chain. In some instances, it may be a mid-level employee who overstepped clear boundaries and ordered subordinates to perform acts that might have taken place in a medieval dungeon. In other cases, illegal acts apparently were approved at the highest levels. Investigators need to be allowed to follow the evidence all the way to the top -- into the White House, if that is where the trail leads.
I'm under no illusion that George W. Bush or Dick Cheney is actually going to be prosecuted by the Justice Department. But I want to know -- and I believe the nation needs to know -- the full, unvarnished truth of what they and others did in our name. It's probable that painful scrutiny and lasting disgrace will be the only sanctions that Bush and Cheney ever face. But history demands at least that much.
eugenerobinson@washpost.comDisplay technology maker DigiLens has raised $22 million to create better augmented reality and virtual reality products in which digital information lies on top of transparent glass.
The Sunnyvale, California-based company makes diffractive optical waveguide technology and nanomaterials for AR and VR, which could be a $108 billion market by 2021, according to tech advisor Digi-Capital.
DigiLens’ technology can enable “eyeglass-thin” AR heads-up displays for motorcycle helmets, car windshields, VR headsets, aerospace applications such as fighter jets, and AR smartglasses, said Jonathan Waldern, CEO of DigiLens, in an interview with VentureBeat.
Image Credit: DigiLens
“We enable a massive reduction in size and form factor,” Waldern said. “This funding allows us to expand our scope to focus on the next areas. Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact.”
Strategic investors include Sony, Foxconn, Continental, and Panasonic, along with venture investors Alsop Louie Partners, Bold Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners, and Dolby Family Ventures. The company plans to use these strategic relationships to bring to market several augmented reality displays and sensors for enterprise, consumer, and transportation applications.
“Data on glass is a term I coined to encompass the utility of mixed reality,” said Gilman Louie, founder and managing director of Alsop Louie Partners and lead investor, in a statement. “We are betting on a variety of AR applications, from stock picking and telepresence to autonomous driving and gaming, all benefiting from DigiLens optics and AR-HUD breakthrough.”
Image Credit: DigiLens
The company is eight years old, and it spent about six of those years developing its fundamental technology, Waldern said. It targeted the aerospace and military markets first, and it has generated revenues from its heads-up displays (HUDs) for that market. The big aerospace firm Rockwell Collins is using the DigiLens technology in various projects.
“We bootstrapped ourselves on the military and aerospace business,” Waldern said.
DigiLens is also going into production on automotive HUDs that it showed with BMW last year.
“We believe Augmented reality HUDs will not only enhance driver safety but also accelerate automated driving acceptance by enhancing the drivers’ confidence in what the car actually sees and knows” said Helmut Matschi, executive board member and head of the interior division at Continental. “The large AR-HUD display will help keep drivers safe by putting critical travel information at eye level and allow them to see what the robot car sees.”
Image Credit: DigiLens
Waldern said the “key enabler for AR is the optics.” Sony plans to use the DigiLens waveguide optics in an upcoming version of its AR smartglasses. That will help Sony develop lenses with full-color capability and a wider field of view, compared to other smartglasses available today, said Hiroshi Mukawa, general manager of the AR eyeglass program at Sony, in a statement.
AR is hard to do because the devices push the laws of physics, said G. Chen, chief technology officer at Foxconn, a major contract manufacturer.
“We think diffractive optics holds the key to AR, but writing millions of tiny optic structures is best done photographically, using nano self-assembly, not expensive precision etching like HoloLens,” Chen said. “We need to break the manufacturing price barrier. With their Waveguide Diffractive Optics, [DigiLens seems] to have overcome most nagging technical problems, and we see a very bright future for them.”
Panasonic is interested in applying DigiLens’ technology in future car designs.
“We have supported DigiLens for several years and continue to believe their technology will address the complex challenge of delivering advanced diffractive optics for automotive and consumer HUDs,” said Hakan Kostepen, executive director at the Panasonic Silicon Valley car research center.
Waldern contends that the display performance of etched structures, called surface relief gratings (SRG’s), as used by Microsoft HoloLens, Vuzix (licensed from Nokia Technologies), and Magic Leap (acquired from Molecular Imprints), are all limited to narrow field of view (FOV), due to the inherent physics of SRG grating interaction.
Image Credit: DigiLens
These other technologies work for small screen display but have no place in immersive AR or VR “mixed realities,” Waldern said. By contrast, DigiLens makes precision diffractive optics by photographically recording (not etching) the nanostructures.
The company’s Switchable Bragg Gratings (SBG’s) allow much wider FOV with higher efficiency, in addition to offering a “printable” manufacturing benefit.
To date, DigiLens has raised $35 million. It employs 42 people.Image caption Brown said the show was his "most ambitious TV project to date"
Ofcom is investigating illusionist Derren Brown's latest show over a scene which showed a man in a straitjacket, chained to a rail track.
The Channel 4 programme, Hero at 30,000 Feet, followed a volunteer with an "unconfident character" as Brown built up his courage, enabling him to take on a series of personal challenges.
The scene in question saw him escape from an oncoming train.
Ofcom received 11 complaints from viewers about the safety of the stunt.
The media regulator is investigating the show, broadcast on Wednesday, 8 September, to see if it breaches broadcasting regulations.
It will consider whether the scene "condones or glamorises violent, dangerous or seriously anti-social behaviour and is likely to encourage others to copy such behaviour" or breaches "generally accepted standards" in broadcasting.
The programme culminated in the subject, Matt Galley, facing "a life-changing decision of whether to take control of a Boeing 737 packed with passengers, which he believes is about to fall out of the sky".
In reality, he was moved from a real-life aeroplane to a flight simulator after being put under hypnosis by the illusionist.
A spokesman for Channel 4 said: "The railway track challenge was one of many confidence-building experiences within the show which prepared Matt for the finale.
"For all the experiences, the programme-makers have procedures in place to ensure the contestant's welfare is protected.
"We would never recommend that viewers recreate any of the events in the programme."On Thursday, Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama (described as his "closest aide"), appeared at a question and answer session hosted by the City Club of Chicago. While answering a question regarding immigration reform, Jarrett commented on the administration's gun control efforts and made clear that part of their strategy is to pave the way for a future administration to enact restrictions.
After citing the President's failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform as one of her "largest frustrations and disappointments," she mentioned the administration's inability to enact gun control legislation as a similar "disappointment."
Later in her answer, Jarrett stated:
By the same vein, it's also a period in the presidency where you start to realize that everything you hoped and dreamed for when we first started might not come to fruition. But if you take an issue like healthcare reform, something like seven presidents before President Obama laid the foundation for healthcare reform and then he was able to take it over the finish line. And so, we hope for issues like sensible gun legislation as well as comprehensive immigration reform that the next president will have no choice but to take it up.
Jarrett's answer makes clear that the administration isn't content with merely taking increasingly audacious executive actions in pursuit of gun control. In the waning days of the Obama presidency, administration officials are working to ensure that future presidents will be in a position to adopt their anti-gun policies.
Jarrett's comments underscore just how vital the 2016 election will be for gun owners. Even with the election over a year away, it is never too early for gun owners to register to vote and learn how they can help secure a pro-gun victory at the ballot box. For more information on registering to vote, and how you can make a difference at the polls, please contact NRA-ILA's Grassroots Division by visiting https://www.nraila.org/grassroots/, or by phone at 800-392-VOTE (8683).Low Voltage Logic Threshold Levels
Low Voltage Switching Levels
Threshold Levels Description:
Comparison of Input and Output [I/O] logic switching levels for Low Voltage CMOS, TTL logic families. The graph above provides a comparison between the Input and Output [I/O] logic switching levels for Low Voltage CMOS, and TTL logic families. Low Voltage IC families normally run off of 3.3 volts [3.6 volts], 2.5 volts, or 1.8 volts. The graph shows 5 volt CMOS, TTL, and mixed CMOS/TTL IC devices, and 3.3 volt LVTTL and LVCMOS IC devices. Note many Low Voltage [LV] families are 5 volt tolerant [not damaged by applying 5v to the input pins]. The output logic levels above are defined by the Terms section below. For a review of Noise Margin numbers and a short description of many of the IC logic families, refer to the Logic Family Selection page. A graph for Standard voltage devices resides on the Logic Voltage Threshold page. An additional chart of Interface bus threshold levels is provided on the Interface Threshold Voltage Level page.
The GTLP switching levels [not shown above] follows; Output-Low is less-then 0.5v, Output |
. (The Provost Marshal had foolishly written the "stay north" order in pencil. Powell later erased it from his oath of allegiance.)
John Wilkes Booth in 1865.
The day before Powell was released, John Surratt sent a telegram to Parr in Baltimore, telling him to send Powell immediately to Washington. Powell was freed just in time to take the 6:00 p.m. train to the capital.[c] Powell arrived at the Surratt boarding house and identified himself as "Reverend Lewis Payne", a Baptist preacher. When members of the boarding house recognized him as "Mr. Wood" from several weeks earlier, Powell explained that he knew a "Mr. Wood" and that they had been confused. In a new suit, his demeanor suave and cultured (quite unlike his previous surly attitude), the members of the household accepted his explanation. But when "Reverend Payne" met with John Surratt, he claimed not to know him—even though on his previous visit he claimed to be a friend of John's. To Louis Weichmann, this was highly suspicious behavior, but Mrs. Surratt said she was happy with "Reverend Payne's" explanations. Powell stayed for three days, then left.
Powell was not the only conspirator to have arrived in the city. Booth had assembled his entire team—which consisted of John Surratt, Lewis Powell, Samuel Arnold, George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Michael O'Laughlen—because he wanted the men to plan to kidnap Lincoln the next time he attended a play at Ford's Theatre. Booth rented the President's Box at the theater on March 15, and he provided tickets to Powell and Surratt so that they could familiarize themselves with the layout of the theater and how to access the box. The two attended the theater as planned (in the company of two of Mrs. Surratt's female boarders). The group then had a late-night planning meeting at Gautier's Restaurant at 252 Pennsylvania Avenue. It was the first time that Arnold and O'Laughlen were meeting the others, and it was the first time Booth revealed his plan to kidnap Lincoln from Ford's Theatre. Booth assigned Powell (whom he called "Mosby") the job of catching a handcuffed Lincoln as he was lowered from the President's Box onto the stage. Arnold said that Powell, the strongest of the men, should be the one to subdue and handcuff Lincoln, not catch him from below. As the men argued, Booth kept altering his plan and Powell's role in it. Throughout the meeting, Arnold and O'Laughlen expressed their anger at Booth. They said they had joined a plot to kidnap Lincoln in the country, where the president would be unguarded and there was little chance of encountering a military patrol. Now Booth was changing that plan significantly, and they didn't like it. The meeting broke up at 5:00 a.m. after Arnold said trying to kidnap Lincoln from a theater full of people in the middle of the city was suicidal.
On the morning of March 17, Booth learned that President Lincoln had been invited to attend a matinee theatrical performance at the Soldiers' Home. The Soldiers' Home was in a rural part of the District of Columbia about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the city limits (at that time Florida Avenue), and Lincoln usually visited the facility without an escort. The group met in front of the Surratt boarding house at 2:00 p.m. to receive instructions from Booth. Booth sent Herold out to the Surratt tavern with equipment, and informed the others that they should wait at a local saloon while he rode out to the Soldier's Home to scout the area. When Booth arrived at the Soldier's Home, he learned that Lincoln had decided to address a group of Indiana soldiers at a downtown hotel instead. Powell and the other conspirators never left the tavern.
Powell returned to the Branson boarding house that evening, then traveled to New York City with Booth on March 21. Powell stayed at the Revere House, a fashionable hotel, and later moved to a boarding house.[d] There is evidence that Booth and Powell then traveled to Toronto, Upper Canada, a major center of Confederate activity. Richard Montgomery, a Confederate spy, said that he saw Powell meet with Jacob Thompson and Clement Claiborne Clay, the two heads of the Confederate Secret Service, in Toronto. On March 23, Booth sent a coded telegram to Louis Weichmann, which John Surratt understood to mean that Powell should stay at the Herndon House after he returned to Washington. Powell returned to the capital on the night of March 27 and checked into the Herndon House using the alias "Kensler". Powell joined Booth that night to watch a performance of the opera La Forza del Destino at Ford's Theatre.
On April 11, President Lincoln addressed a crowd from the balcony on the north side of the White House. In this speech, Lincoln discussed his plans for accepting the rebellious states back into the Union, and singled out Louisiana as the first he'd like to see do so. Lincoln announced that he also wanted to see African Americans given the right to vote. Booth and Powell stood on the White House lawn listening to the speech. Booth seethed at the idea of giving blacks political power, and told Powell, "That means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I will put him through. That will be the last speech he will ever make."
Lincoln assassination plot [ edit ]
William H. Seward, the object of Powell's murder attempt.
It is unclear just when Powell learned that the kidnap plot had turned to an assassination. There is testimony from the nurse attending the Secretary of State indicating that Powell may have learned of his role to assassinate Seward on Thursday, April 13. A man fitting Powell's description appeared at the Seward home that day to inquire about the Secretary's health. Powell himself was inconsistent. He once said he learned he was to kill Seward on the morning of Friday, April 14, but later claimed he did not know until the evening of April 14.
On the afternoon of April 14, Booth learned that Abraham Lincoln would be attending a play at Ford's Theatre that night. Booth decided that the time had come to kill Lincoln. Booth sent David Herold to tell Powell the news. The two men probably spent the afternoon and early evening at the Canterbury Music Hall on Pennsylvania Avenue, where Powell met and possibly had a tryst with Mary Gardner, a performer there.
At 8:00 p.m. that night, Booth, Atzerodt, Herold, and Powell met in Powell's room at the Herndon House in Washington, D.C., where Booth assigned roles. They would strike that very night, Booth said. Powell (accompanied by Herold) was to go to the home of Secretary of State William H. Seward and kill him. Atzerodt was to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson.[e] Booth was to murder Lincoln at Ford's Theatre.
The attack on Seward [ edit ]
Lithograph of Powell attacking Frederick Seward.
At about 10:30 p.m., Powell was escorted to the Seward residence on Lafayette Square near the White House by David Herold. Seward had been injured in a carriage accident on April 5, and suffered a concussion, broken jaw, broken right arm, and many serious bruises. Local newspapers reported that Seward was at home convalescing, so Powell and Herold knew where to find him. Powell was armed with a Whitney revolver and large knife, and wore black pants, a long overcoat, a grey vest, a grey dress coat, and a hat with a wide brim. Herold waited outside, holding Powell's horse. Powell knocked and rang the bell, and the door was answered by William Bell, Seward's African American butler. Holding up a small bottle, Powell claimed that Seward's physician, Dr. T.S. Verdi, had sent some medicine to the house. Bell was suspicious, as Dr. Verdi had departed the home only an hour earlier and left instructions for Seward not to be disturbed. Bell asked Powell to wait, but Powell pushed past him and began mounting the stairs to the second-floor bedrooms.
Seward's son, Frederick, appeared at the top of the steps in his nightclothes. As Powell reached the second floor, Frederick ordered Powell to stop. Seward's daughter, Fanny, stuck her head out of her father's bedroom door and warned the men that Seward was sleeping. She then returned to the bedroom. Powell said he was delivering medicine, and Frederick asked for the bottle. Powell gave it to him, then pulled out his revolver and pulled the trigger with the barrel of the gun against Frederick's chest. The revolver misfired, and Powell pistol-whipped Frederick over and over. Bell fled the house screaming "Murder! Murder!" and raced to the office of General Christopher C. Augur next door for help. Terrified, Herold tied Powell's horse to a tree and fled on his own steed.
Powell now drew out his knife and burst through Seward's bedroom door. Inside were Seward's Army nurse, Sergeant George F. Robinson, and Fanny Seward. Powell slashed Robinson on the forearm, and the soldier fell. Powell punched Fanny in the face, and leapt onto the bed. He savagely began knifing Seward in the head and throat. Seward, however, was wearing a metal and canvas splint on his jaw, which deflected most of Powell's blows. However, Powell managed to cut through Seward's right cheek and along his right throat, causing a large amount of blood flow.[f] Believing Seward to be dead, Powell hesitated. Just then, Seward's other son, Augustus, burst into the room. Powell stabbed him several times. Augustus dragged Powell onto the floor. Robinson and Augustus Seward wrestled with the strong, uninjured Powell. Powell stabbed Robinson in the chest and shoulder, and slashed a portion of Augustus' scalp from his head.
Powell shouted, "I'm mad! I'm mad!" and fled the room. Powell was confronted by State Department messenger Emerick "Bud" Hansell in the hallway. Hansell had just arrived at the house moments earlier and found the front door ajar. As Hansell turned to flee, Powell stabbed him in the back. Powell ran out of the house, and threw his knife in the gutter of the street.
Flight and capture [ edit ]
The Surratt House. Powell's untimely arrival here led to his capture as well as Mrs. Surratt's arrest.
Powell now realized that Herold had abandoned him. Powell had almost no knowledge of the streets of Washington, D.C., and without Herold he had no way of locating the streets he was to use for his escape route.[g] He mounted his horse, and began riding at a relatively slow pace north on 15th Street.
Powell's exact movements from the time he was seen cantering up 15th Street until the time he appeared at the Surratt boarding house three days later are not clear. It is well-established that he ended up (by riding or walking) in the far northeast part of the District of Columbia near Fort Bunker Hill, where he discarded his overcoat.[h] In the overcoat pockets were Powell's riding gloves, a false mustache, and a piece of paper with Mary Gardner's name and hotel room number on it. Sources differ widely on what happened. Historian Ernest B. Furgurson says Powell's horse gave out near Lincoln Hospital (now Lincoln Park), a mile east of the United States Capitol on East Capitol Street. He then hid in "a cemetery" (without specifying which). Ownsbey says Powell hid in a tree for three days. Historians William C. Edwards and Edward Steers Jr. claim Powell made it to both Fort Bunker Hill and Congressional Cemetery (at 18th and E Streets SE), while Ralph Gary claims that Powell hid out in a marble burial vault at Congressional Cemetery. Andrew Jampoler, however, says Powell just wandered the streets of the city. Whether Powell abandoned his horse, was thrown by it, or both is unclear, and Powell never gave a public or formal statement about what happened.[i][j]
Powell decided to return to Surratt's boarding house to seek help. His clothes were somewhat bloody from the attack at Seward's home, and he'd dropped his hat at the Seward home. During much of the Victorian era, it was considered unseemly for any man (even a menial laborer) to be seen in public without a hat, and Powell would have been viewed with suspicion had he tried to enter the city without one. Ripping the sleeve from his undershirt, Powell placed the sleeve on his head in the hope that people would think it was a stocking cap. To complete his disguise as a common laborer, he then stole a pickaxe from a farmyard. Powell then headed for Surratt's.
Members of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department already suspected John Surratt of complicity in Lincoln's murder, and had visited the Surratt boarding house for the first time as early as 2:00 a.m. on April 15, less than four hours after the attacks. Nothing incriminating was found. Federal authorities decided to make a second visit. Military investigators arrived at about 11:00 p.m. on Monday, April 17, to bring Mrs. Surratt and others in for questioning. As they were about to depart at 11:45 p.m., Powell showed up on the doorstep. Powell claimed to be a menial laborer who'd been hired that morning by Mrs. Surratt to dig a gutter in the street. He explained his arrival at the house by saying that he wanted to know what time he should begin work in the morning. His clothes aroused intense suspicion, as he wore rather good quality boots, pants, dress shirt, vest, and coat. His pickaxe seemed unused, and his hands were uncalloused and well manicured (unlike those of a common laborer). Mrs. Surratt denied knowing him. (She would later claim that her extremely poor eyesight and the darkness of the room prevented her from recognizing Powell. Powell stood under a bright lamp just five feet from her when she made her denial.)
Taken into custody, Powell was discovered to have a box of pistol cartridges, a compass, hair pomade, a brush and comb, two fine handkerchiefs, and a copy of his oath of allegiance (signed "L. Paine") in his pockets. These were not the possessions of a menial laborer. Although he claimed he was a poor man who barely earned a dollar a day for ditch-digging, Powell's wallet contained $25. About 3:00 a.m. on April 18, William Bell identified Powell as the man who assaulted Seward. Powell was formally arrested, and imprisoned aboard the monitor USS Saugus, then at anchor in the Anacostia River at the Washington Navy Yard. A second identification was made around mid-morning on April 18 when Augustus Seward visited the Saugus and positively identified Powell as the man who attacked him and his father.
Trial and execution [ edit ]
The federal government arrested a great many people for their role in the Lincoln assassination. Arrests included John T. Ford, owner of Ford's Theatre; Ford's brothers, James and Harry Clay Ford; John "Peanuts" Burroughs, the African American boy who unwittingly held Booth's horse in the alley behind Ford's Theatre; Mary Surratt's brother, John Zadoc "Zad" Jenkins; Surratt's boarder, 15-year-old Honora Fitzpatrick; and many others. Some, like Judson Jarboe, had merely seen one of the key conspirators walk by. All were released, although many were incarcerated for up to 40 days or more.
The most important prisoners were kept aboard monitors, to prevent escape as well as any effort to free them. Along with Powell on the Saugus were Michael O'Laughlen, Samuel Arnold, Edmund Spangler (scene shifter at Ford's Theatre), and George Atzerodt's cousin, Hartmann Richter (who had harbored Atzerodt for four days). Aboard the USS Montauk were David Herold, George Atzerodt (he was later moved to the Saugus), and the body of John Wilkes Booth. Dr. Samuel Mudd and Mary Surratt were held at the Old Capitol Prison (now the site of the United States Supreme Court Building).[k]
Confinement [ edit ]
Powell in the hat and overcoat he wore the night he attacked Seward
Saugus by Alexander Gardner. Powell aboard the USSby Alexander Gardner.
Reporters were denied access to the prisoners, but photographer Alexander Gardner received clearance. On April 27, Gardner began taking photographs of those who were caught up in the government's dragnet.[l] One by one, each prisoner was brought on deck and photographed in a few positions. Gardner took far more photographs of Powell than anyone else. Powell obliged Gardner by posing seated, standing (with and without restraints), and modeling the overcoat and hat he'd worn the night of the Seward attacks. Among the most famous of these photographs is one in which Powell sits against the gun turret of the Saugus, staring into the camera in a modern fashion, relaxed and direct.
Powell's confinement was not easy. He was constantly shackled with a form of manacles known as "lily irons", a riveted handcuff that had two separate iron bands on each wrist that prevented bending of the wrist or use of the hands independently. Like all the male prisoners, a heavy iron ball at the end of a 6-foot (1.8 m) long chain was manacled to one of his legs. Shackles were riveted closed about the ankles, which caused Powell's feet to swell considerably.[m] Like all the prisoners, he had only a straw pallet on which to sit or lie, and a single blanket for warmth. The same meal was served four times a day: Coffee or water, bread, salted pork, and beef or beef soup. On April 29, all the prisoners aboard the monitors and at the Old Capitol Prison were moved to newly constructed cells at the Washington Arsenal (now Fort Lesley J. McNair). The prisoners were not permitted to bathe or wash until May 4, at which time all bindings and clothes were removed and they were permitted to bathe in cold water in the presence of a soldier. In early May, General John F. Hartranft, special provost marshal overseeing the prisoners, began improving the living conditions. Powell and the other prisoners began to receive fresh clothing (including undergarments) more frequently, more food, and writing instruments (paper, pen, ink). When Powell was observed raising the iron ball to his head, Hartranft feared Powell might be contemplating suicide, and had the ball removed on June 2. Living conditions improved again on June 18, when the prisoners were given a box to sit on, outdoor exercise time each day, and reading material and chewing tobacco after each meal.
On April 22, Powell repeatedly banged his head into the iron walls of his cell aboard the Saugus. Whether this was a suicide attempt (as his jailers believed) or not, it deeply alarmed military officials. A canvas padded hood, with only a slit for the mouth and nostrils, was fashioned. Powell and all the other prisoners aboard the monitors were forced to wear them 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to prevent any further suicide attempts. Only Mary Surratt and Dr. Mudd were not required to wear the hoods. Powell cried when the hood was placed on him. The hoods were hot, claustrophobic, and uncomfortable, and in the humid confines of the monitors in the steaming Washington summer the prisoners suffered immensely. On June 6, Hartranft ordered them removed—except for Powell's.
The suicide attempt worried prison officials for another reason, too. Powell allegedly could not remember what state or country he had been born in, nor his age. Military personnel became concerned that he was insane, or was being driven mad by his confinement. Three physicians were called in to determine his sanity, and on June 17 he was interviewed for 3 hours and 40 minutes by Major Thomas Akaryote and Dr. John T. Gray. (The military tribunal later ruled him sane.)
With Booth dead and John Surratt still at large, Lewis Powell was the individual who knew most about the conspiracy, and government officials pressed him for information. Major Thomas T. Eckert spent hours with Powell over the weeks until his execution, trying to get him to talk. During this time, Powell told many stories—some true, and some obviously not—about his war experiences and various plots to kill Lincoln or commit other crimes (such as burn New York City).
Trial [ edit ]
The leaders of the prosecution: John A. Bingham, Joseph Holt, Henry Lawrence Burnett.
The trial of the alleged conspirators began on May 9. A military tribunal, rather than a civilian court, was chosen as the prosecutorial venue because government officials thought that its more lenient rules of evidence would enable the court to get to the bottom of what was then perceived by the public as a vast conspiracy. A military tribunal also avoided the possibility of jury nullification, for federal officials worried that a jury drawn from the pro-Southern populace of the District of Columbia might free the prisoners. All eight alleged conspirators were tried simultaneously. The prosecution was led by Judge Advocate General Brigadier General Joseph Holt, assisted by Assistant Judge Advocate General Colonel Henry Lawrence Burnett, and Judge Advocate Major John Bingham. A panel of nine judges (all military officers), sat in judgment over the accused. Conviction required a simple majority of judges, while imposition of the death sentence required a two-thirds majority. The only appeal was directly to the President of the United States.[n]
A room on the northeast corner of the third floor of the Arsenal was used as a courtroom. The prisoners sat together on long benches wearing wrist and ankle manacles and an armed guard on either side of each of them. The exception was Surratt, who sat in a chair unmanacled. Surratt and Powell received the most press attention during the trial.
Powell did not have legal representation until the third day of the trial. James Mason Campbell, son-in-law of late Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, Campbell had declined to represent him. On the second day, Burnett asked Colonel William E. Doster to assume Powell's defense. John Atzerodt had hired Doster to represent his brother, George Atzerodt, during the trial. Although reluctant, having his hands full with one client, Doster agreed, though for weeks Powell refused to speak to Doster.
The prosecution opened its case against Powell on May 13. Louis Weichmann tied Powell strongly to the Booth-led conspiracies against Lincoln. Slowly, the public realized that "Lewis Payne"—the name used to formally charge the individual with conspiracy, attempted murder, and murder—was really someone named Lewis Powell. Court testimony turned to other issues for a week before the prosecution's case against Powell resumed. Seward butler William Bell, Augustus Seward, and Sergeant George F. Robinson testified about the attack on the Secretary of State and identified Powell as the assailant. The Herndon House landlady testified that Powell rented a room from her, while two police officers discussed Powell's arrest. A long list of other witnesses testified about minor pieces of evidence (such as the discovery of Powell's knife in the gutter and the recovery of his abandoned horse).
Bell's testimony proved to be a turning point. Powell was freed from his restraints, obliged to put on his hat and overcoat, and place his hands on Bell as if to shove him aside. Bell's reaction provoked much laughter in the courtroom, even from Powell. But Powell was rattled by the testimony, and finally agreed to speak with Doster about himself and his case. Powell expressed remorse for hurting Frederick Seward. But most of his discussion was disjointed and rambling, and he still could not remember his age or place of birth.[o] Doster became convinced that Powell was half-witted. Although Powell revealed his real name, the name of his father, and where his parents lived, Powell's many fabrications left Doster too distrustful of these facts to act on them. (Doster did not write to George Powell in Florida until nearly a month had passed.)
The defense opened its case on June 21. Doster's defense of Powell was essentially a plea for his life. The weight of evidence against Powell was so overwhelming that Doster never attempted to disprove his guilt. Rather, Doster characterized Powell's actions as those of a soldier who "aimed at the head of a department instead of a corps". On June 2, Doster suggested to the court that Powell was insane. Dr. Charles Nichols, superintendent of the Government Hospital for the Insane, testified as to his belief that Powell was insane, as did the two guards who watched over Powell. But despite additional examinations by a number of physicians, none of them found Powell insane. Many claimed he was stupid or slow-witted, but none found him mad. Doster made one last bid to save Powell's life. He argued that Powell had not killed Lincoln, nor had he killed Seward, and thus his life should be spared. Doster ignored the conspiracy laws of the day (which incorporated the concept of vicarious liability), under which Powell was responsible for Lincoln's murder even if the original conspiracy had been to kidnap rather than kill and even if Booth had acted to kill without Powell's knowledge or consent.
Execution [ edit ]
Execution eve [ edit ]
The nine judges of the military tribunal began considering the guilt and sentencing of the co-conspirators on June 29. About an hour was spent considering each defendant's guilt. On June 30, the tribunal began voting on the charges facing each individual. They disposed of the Herold and Atzerodt cases before considering Powell's guilt. He was found guilty of all charges, except the two counts of conspiracy with Edmund Spangler. The tribunal sentenced Powell to death. President Johnson affirmed the verdicts and sentences on July 5 following an inevitable appeal.
On July 6, the verdicts were made public. General Winfield Scott Hancock and General Hartranft began informing the prisoners of their sentences at noon the same day. Powell was the first to be told that he was found guilty and sentenced to die, and he accepted his fate stoically. Powell asked to see two ministers: Reverend Augustus P. Stryker, an Episcopalian minister at St. Barnabas Church in Baltimore and a Confederate sympathizer, and the Reverend Doctor Abram Dunn Gillette, a loyal Unionist and pastor at the First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Gillette arrived shortly after Powell made his request. Powell spent several hours with Gillette, whom he had seen preach in Baltimore in February 1865. Powell told Gillette about his background, how he came to be involved in the conspiracy, and how much he regretted his actions (which he still justified as those of a soldier). Powell wept profusely during portions of their interview, and blamed Confederate leaders for his predicament.
Powell strenuously attempted to exonerate Mary Surratt. According to one source, Powell asked Gillette to bring Captain Christian Rath to him. Rath came, and Powell declared that Surratt knew nothing of the conspiracy and was innocent. Rath conferred with Eckert, and within an hour had taken down Powell's statement for consideration by President Johnson. Another source, however, says that it was the two Roman Catholic priests who were consoling Mary Surratt, Father Jacob Walter and Father B.F. Wiget, and Surratt's daughter, Anna, who visited Powell that evening and elicited the statement declaring Mrs. Surratt innocent. Whichever version is true (perhaps both), Powell's statement had no effect on anyone with authority to prevent Surratt's execution. Powell was the only one of the conspirators to make a statement exonerating Surratt.
Gillette spent the night with Powell. The condemned man alternately wept and prayed, and fell asleep for three hours near dawn. Reverend Stryker was on his way to Washington, but would not receive permission to see Powell until noon the following day.
Execution [ edit ]
left to right) Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt on July 7, 1865, at the Washington Arsenal in Washington, D.C. Execution of () Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt on July 7, 1865, at the Washington Arsenal in Washington, D.C.
A gallows was constructed in the Arsenal courtyard 12 feet (3.7 m) high and large enough for all four condemned to be hanged at once.
Powell asked to see General Hartranft, and impressed upon him once more Mary Surratt's innocence. Hartranft wrote a memorandum to President Johnson outlining Powell's statement, adding that he believed Powell to be telling the truth. Powell then made a statement exonerating Atzerodt, declaring that Atzerodt refused to kill Vice President Johnson even though Booth had ordered him to do so.
At 1:15 p.m., July 7,1865, the prisoners were taken through the courtyard and up the steps of the gallows. Each prisoner's ankles and wrists were manacled. More than 1,000 people—including government officials, members of the U.S. armed forces, friends and family of the condemned, official witnesses, and reporters—watched from the Arsenal courtyard and the tops of its walls. Alexander Gardner, who had photographed Powell and the others two months before, photographed the execution for the government.
Hartranft read the execution order. as the condemned sat in chairs. White cloth was used to bind their arms to their sides, and to tie their ankles and thighs together. On Powell's behalf Gillette thanked the prison officials for their kindness, and said a prayer for Powell's soul; Powell's eyes filled with tears. Powell said, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us".
The prisoners were asked to stand and move forward a few feet to the nooses. A white bag was placed over the head of each prisoner after the noose was put in place. Powell said to Rath through his hood, "I thank you, goodbye." Rath clapped his hands, and soldiers knocked the supports from under the drops. Surratt and Atzerodt seemed to die quickly. Herold and Powell struggled for nearly five minutes. Powell's body swung about wildly, and once or twice his legs came up so that he was almost in a sitting position.[183]
Burial [ edit ]
The bodies were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes before being cut down and placed in wooden gun boxes. The name of each deceased was written on a piece of paper and placed in the box in a glass vial. They were buried, along with Booth, against the east wall of the prison yard.
In 1867, the coffins were reburied elsewhere within the Arsenal. In February 1869, after much pleading from the Booths and Surratts, President Johnson agreed to turn the bodies over to their families.
There is some dispute about what happened next. Historian Betty Ownsbey says that Powell's family expressed a wish to reclaim the remains, but did not do so. Historian Richard Bak believes Powell's remains were interred at Graceland Cemetery in Washington, D.C. When Graceland Cemetery,[when?] Powell's remains were disinterred and reburied at Holmead's Burying Ground. According to Powell family legend, Bak says, the family went to Washington in 1871 to retrieve Lewis' remains; the skull was missing. On the return trip to Florida, George Powell fell ill, and Lewis Powell's remains were temporarily interred on a nearby farm. In 1879, the remains were retrieved and the headless corpse was buried in Geneva, Florida. Betty Ownsbey says this is nothing more than a fanciful story. She argues that the events could not have occurred as related by family members, for the city of Washington, D.C., would have issued a disinterment order as well as issued a receipt for the body—neither of which occurred. There are also other reasons to believe the family legend is inaccurate. Graceland Cemetery (a burial ground primarily for African Americans) did not open until 1872, but Powell was reburied before that. Graceland closed in 1894, a date which does not fit with the date of the Holmead's burial as related by Bak or Ownsbey.[p]
Other documents describe an alternative series of events. According to this version, Powell's family declined to retrieve the body, at which point Powell was buried at Holmead's Burying Ground in either June 1869[195] or February 1870.[196] A.H. Gawler of Gawler's Funeral Home handled the reburial. The burial site was unmarked, and only Gawler and a few Army personnel knew where Powell was interred at Holmead's.[196] Holmead's closed in 1874, and for the next decade bodies were disinterred and reburied elsewhere. Family members and friends reclaimed about 1,000 bodies. The remains of 4,200 Caucasians were removed to Rock Creek Cemetery, while several hundred African American remains were reinterred at Graceland Cemetery. According to the Washington Evening Star newspaper, Powell's body was exhumed by Gawler's on December 16, 1884. The identifying glass vial was recovered, but the paper it was supposed to contain was missing.[198] Wesley Pippenger, a historian who has studied Holmead's Burying Ground, asserts that Powell's remains were buried at Graceland Cemetery.[q] With unclaimed white remains at Graceland moved to mass graves at Rock Creek Cemetery, Powell's remains may lie there.
Powell biographer Betty Ownsbey suggests a third sequence of events. She argues Powell was interred at Graceland Cemetery, but that his remains were disinterred some time between 1870 and 1884 and moved to Holmead's Burying Ground. Powell's remains were disinterred in 1884, and buried in a mass grave in Section K, Lot 23, at Rock Creek Cemetery.
Discovery and burial of Powell's skull [ edit ]
In 1991, a Smithsonian Institution researcher discovered Powell's skull in the museum's Native American skull collection.[201] After extensive research, Smithsonian and U.S. Army investigators came to believe that A.H. Gawler removed the skull at the time of its 1869/1870 interment. The skull was then donated in 1885 to the Army Medical Museum. At that time, it was stenciled with the accession number 2244 and the capital letter "P". The museum's documentation shows that the skull came from "Payne", a criminal who had been executed by hanging. The Army gave the skull to the Smithsonian on May 7, 1898, and somehow it became mixed with the Native American collection.[202]
The Smithsonian contacted Powell's nearest living relative, his 70-year-old great-niece Helen Alderman, who requested that the skull be turned over to her.[202] Verification of Alderman's relationship took two years. On November 12, 1994, Lewis Powell's skull was buried next to the grave of his mother, Caroline Patience Powell, at Geneva Cemetery.[201]
In film [ edit ]
Powell was portrayed by Titus Welliver in the 1998 film The Day Lincoln Was Shot and by Norman Reedus in the 2011 Robert Redford film The Conspirator.[204]
In Television [ edit ]
Powell appeared in the second episode of the first season of Timeless and was portrayed by Kurt Ostlund. In the episode, he goes to kill William Seward, but is stopped and killed by Wyatt Logan (Matt Lanter).
References [ edit ]
Notes
^ There is significant dispute as to whether Mosby was involved with the Confederate Secret Service. Historian Jeffrey D. Wert noted that, in the absence of hard evidence, there is not enough circumstantial evidence to prove Mosby's involvement. C. Wyatt Evans goes even further, and has concluded there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to link Mosby to Confederate spy organization. ^ Powell later claimed that he had to use an alias, because Mosby's men would kill him for deserting. ^ Steers claims that this telegram also told Parr to give $300 to Powell. But the text of the telegram printed in Kauffman and in Griffin shows no such order. ^ Powell often told friends and acquaintances that he was going to New York City, when in fact he was headed some place else. This appears to be the first time Powell did not use New York as a "blind" for some other activity. ^ Johnson was staying in the Kirkwood Hotel, and Atzerodt checked into a room at the hotel on the morning of April 14. Atzerodt failed in his task because he lost his nerve and got drunk. ^ Seward was badly maimed for life by this attack. ^ Powell biographer Betty Ownsbey admits that "countless" historians have concluded that Powell did not know his way around the city. Ownsbey, however, asserts he knew his way around and was headed for Baltimore. She cites an 1880 article by J.W. Clampitt, one of Mrs. Surratt's attorneys, in which Clampitt says that Powell told him he was headed for Baltimore. ^ Ownsbey claims that Fort Bunker Hill is "behind" Congressional Cemetery, but the fort is 4 miles (6.4 km) north-northwest of the cemetery. ^ The horse was later found near Camp Barry, an artillery training camp on the D.C.-Maryland border at Bladensburg Road and Eastern Avenue ^ New York World newspaper by the Reverend Dr. Abram Dunn Gillette. Gillette comforted Powell in the final hours of his life, and Gillette's statement represents the only version which allegedly came from Powell himself. In Gillette's version, Powell says he was closely pursued by cavalry during his escape from Washington. His horse stumbled and Powell was thrown, so he abandoned the animal. Powell says he slept under a tree about a mile from the city, and on Saturday, April 15, he walked two or three miles through forest. Several times, cavalry or scouting parties almost discovered him, and he slept in a tree on Saturday night. Wracked with guilt, yet not willing to be captured, Powell spent Sunday preparing his disguise and Monday walking back into the city. Ownsbey gives great weight to an April 3, 1892, article |
for Hunger, the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, No Kid Hungry, and WhyHunger.
Dispatch has also been using its live show to raise awareness for the cause. Its only two North American performances this year -- a pair of Madison Square Garden shows set for mid-July -- are also built around fundraising to fight hunger. On July 10th they'll play alongside Dr. Dog and on the next night, they'll play with the John Butler Trio. Check out the band's official website for more information.Show Me! is a sex education book by photographer Will McBride. It appeared in 1974 in German under the title Zeig Mal!, written with psychiatrist Helga Fleischhauer-Hardt for children and their parents. It was translated into English a year later and was widely available in bookstores on both sides of the Atlantic for many years, but later became subject to expanded child pornography laws in jurisdictions including the United States. In Germany, the book was followed in 1990 by a second edition that included, among other additions, a discussion of the AIDS epidemic.
Publication history [ edit ]
While many parents appreciated Show Me! for its frank depiction of pre-adolescents discovering and exploring their sexuality, others called it child pornography. In 1975 and 1976, obscenity charges were brought against the publisher by prosecutors in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In all four cases, the judges ruled as a matter of law that the title was not obscene.
However, starting in 1977, some states began to criminalize the distribution of even non-obscene so-called "child pornography," or "images of abuse," which arguably is not protected by the First Amendment. New York State, home of the publisher, St. Martin's Press, criminalized the distribution of non-obscene "child pornography" in 1977, but the publisher promptly went to court and obtained an injunction against the State. The court granted the injunction because the First Amendment was interpreted to permit the banning of only obscene material.
In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision, New York v. Ferber,[1] which allowed the government to constitutionally ban the knowing distribution of even non-obscene "child pornography". Citing a chilling effect, St. Martin's Press then pulled the book, stating that though they believed Show Me! was not pornographic, they could no longer afford the legal expenses to defend it, and they did not want to risk criminal prosecutions of their own personnel and/or vendors who sold the book. The Court overruled a decision of the New York Court of Appeals, The People v. Paul Ira Ferber[1], which held that the First Amendment protected the dissemination of non-obscene sexual depictions. Show Me! was not the direct subject of the Ferber case, but the book was prominently featured by both sides in the litigation, and it played a significant role in the oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court.[2]
In its country of origin, Germany, the book first won several awards, even from church organisations, but due to rising pressure from a newly arising "moral majority" the publishers and McBride decided to take it off the market in 1996. By then over one million copies in seven languages had been sold. It was never officially banned in Germany. Public libraries there keep it on hand and out of print copies are openly sold at collectors' premium prices.
In New Zealand the book was banned by the Indecent Publications Tribunal in 1976. The ban was upheld in 1996.[3]
Critical reception [ edit ]
Show Me! received mixed reviews from the mass media when it was first published. The Los Angeles Times called the photographs "beautiful...graceful, charming, and elegant," yet accurately predicted, in a severe understatement of what actually happened, that the book "may start (an) uproar."[4] The Washington Post, on the other hand, described the photographs as "beautiful, assaultive, grotesque, and seductive," and concluded that Show Me! was only suited for "avant garde" parents.[5] Reviewer Linda Wolfe was more hostile in the New York Times, calling the book a "child-abusive joke."[6] The 13-year-old daughter of Chicago Tribune reviewer Carol Kleiman commented:
"I'm too old for it myself. The last part, though, with no pictures, looks interesting to read. The book is good for little kids because they don't know what society terms 'dirty' yet. You know, Mom, it's PARENTS I'm worried about. They're not ready yet."[7]
Recent reviews [ edit ]
A 2005 Amazon review by Dr. Russell A. Rohde claims that the book, "appropriately delves into the issues of breast feeding, adolescence, pubertal changes, menses, sexual anatomies, pregnancy, masturbation, contraception, sexual behavioral disturbances and venereal disease. [...] I am not aware of any book comparable to this illustrated primer that fills the needs of sexual education so well."[8]
D. F. Janssen places it at the one extreme of a late 20th-century visual and textual revolution that enabled parents to illustrate information that up to that time had been transmitted orally. He sees the work as subversive not for its "too frank" portrayal of childhood sexuality, but instead for the primacy that the image takes over the text. In his eyes, the work "comes out of a culture with a long history of pathologising so-addressed 'primal scenes,'" a history that became manifest in particular with regard to the works of Will McBride.[9]
The book is analyzed in an article on "Picturing Sex Education" (Discourse Volume 27, Number 4 / December 2006).
Bibliographic details [ edit ]
1974: Zeig mal. Ein Bilderbuch für Kinder und Eltern Foreword by Helmut Kentler. Wuppertal: Jugenddienst. 1975: Show Me!: A Picture Book of Sex for Children and Parents St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-72275-3 1975: Laat's zien!: een fotoboek over sex voor kinderen en ouders Amsterdam: Kosmos. ISBN 90-215-0528-2 1978: Fais voir! Un livre illustré sur la sexualité Montreal: Quinze. ISBN 0-88565-171-5 1979: Fammi Vedere! un libro fotografico di educazione sessuale non conformista per bambini e grandi Perugia: Savelli 1979: ¡A ver!: un libro de imágenes para niños y padres Salamanca: Lóguez Ediciones. ISBN 84-85334-06-X 1981: Få se: seksualopplysning i tekst og bilder for barn og foreldre Oslo: Aschehoug i samarbeid med Hverdag. ISBN 82-03-10463-0 1990: Zeig mal. Ein Bilderbuch für Kinder und Eltern (2nd. ed.) 195 p. Wuppertal: Hammer. ISBN 3-87294-301-4 1990: Ukaž mi to! : Mezinárodní osvětová obrázková kniha pro děti a rodiče s informací o AIDS, translated by Jiří Kostelecký, Czech introduction by Jiří Raboch, 1st. ed., 199 p., Praha : Kredit ; Wuppertal : Peter Hammer, 1990, ISBN 80-85279-05-3, 20.000 copies 1995: Zeig Mal Mehr (5 ed.). 176 p. Beltz. ISBN 3-407-85106-5Ben is doing well after a really crappy night. The radiation gave him an extended bought of nausea and vomiting overnight and he slept most of the morning, too.
All in all, the experience, from Ben’s perspective, has gone much quicker than he expected. Of course, the catheter is the part that bothers him the most. I’m not surprised as I couldn’t imagine having to wear that thing for 72 hours either.
From my perspective, the whole thing has been surreal and anticlimactic. Surreal because Ben was the first kid here in Denver to do MIBG so everyone was extra cautious and, even though this has been done before, it was new for everyone. Anticlimactic because once it was in, with the exception of the nausea last night, nothing happened.
Ben spent the majority of his time sleeping, watching YouTube videos, texting with his friends on Kik or playing Xbox with his cousin Anthony. All in all, it wasn’t much different than him being at home.
The plan for tomorrow is to have the catheter removed, do an MIBG scan and then release him. He’ll be going home with me as we still have to keep him away from his sister for at least another week. After that he’ll be back for labs every week as his counts are expected to drop.
Yay! More hospital time!
Thanks to all of you for your prayers and support. We do appreciate it and, even though we don’t often get to show it, couldn’t get by without it.
Blessings,
Matt
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TumblrDATE: Jan 1, 2014 | BY: David Wharton | Category: Sci-Fi
Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future is one of the few nearly perfect bits of science fiction and pop culture. It’s the rare beast that I’m hugely nostalgic about, but which still holds up brilliantly, putting it in the same camp as the first Ghostbusters movie. Aside from having a great story, unforgettable characters, and plenty of laughs, the trilogy has also earned a spot alongside Star Trek for being one of the bars by which we measure our technological progress. Each year that ticks by finds us irritated that we still don’t have functional hoverboards or flying DeLoreans or Mr. Fusion. Probably best for everybody that we don’t have time travel yet though. But as consolation prizes go, this massive gallery of images from the making of Back to the Future and its sequels is pretty damn awesome. (Props to Outatime and Geek Tyrant, who first shared all these pictures.)
It’s not just Back to the Future’s story that holds up either. The effects, for the most part, still look great nearly 30 years after the first film premiered. Sure, we know that the hoverboard sequences just have Michael J. Fox and the rest suspended from wires they take out later, but those sequences still look entirely convincing. That’s one great thing about these pictures — they pull back the curtain on how the movies’ effects were pulled off. And sure, there aren’t any real surprises, but it’s still cool to see the creative minds behind the series in action. They may not have needed roads, but they did need a bluescreen and a mess of gorgeous miniatures.
I don’t know why it never occurred to me that city hall might not be a full building, but I’ll admit that this side view revealing it as a facade kicked eight-year-old me right in the stomach. No! Hill Valley is real, damn it!
Some kids wanted to be an astronaut or a firefighter or a movie star when they grew up. I just wanted to be Marty McFly. Never did learn to play the guitar. Regrets, I’ve had a few…
And here are a few really interesting relics, shots taken from the production before Eric Stoltz was replaced by Michael J. Fox. Nothing against Stoltz, but I have to say I think it all worked out for the best. Who could play a better Marty than Fox? Nobody, that’s who.
You can check out the rest, nearly 50 images in all, in the gallery below. Let the nostalgia wash over you and then let’s all say a silent prayer of gratitude to the Movie Gods that they haven’t tried to remake these movies yet…The drowning of 15-year-old Toronto student Jeremiah Perry during summer credit course in Algonquin Park was a tragedy. His parents, teachers, family and friends are devastated and will deal with this loss for the rest of their lives. Tragedies like these are particularly frightening for parents and the adults who work with children because it highlights the fact that risks cannot be totally eliminated — only minimized. This case hit particularly close to home for me because I have a son the same age as Jeremiah and I used to be the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) program co-ordinator for outdoor education.
Fifteen-year-old Jeremiah Perry, a student at C.W. Jeffreys Collegiate Institute, is seen in a photo provided by his family. ( CTV News Toronto )
Jeremiah attended C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute, which has been particularly hard hit by tragedy. In 2007, Jordan Manners was shot inside the hallways. In 2013, Violet Liang was struck and killed by a dump truck while walking to the school to start her first day of Grade 10. After the shock of such incidents, we are forced to analyze the situation and see what we could have done differently. Risk management involves assessing the risks and rewards to ensure the right balance has been struck. After Jordan Manners’ shooting, The School Community Safety Panel was convened and made sweeping recommendations to improve school safety.
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When Violet Liang was killed, the focus was on improving traffic safety in school zones. Between the time Jeremiah disappeared on Tuesday and his body was recovered from Big Trout Lake on Wednesday, trustees and board spokespeople were already fielding questions about student/staff ratios, qualifications, swim tests and the future of similar trips. Outdoor education covers a broad range of activities that can happen as close to the classroom as the schoolyard and as far away as a wilderness area. The Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario (COEO) is “a non-profit, volunteer-based organization that promotes safe and high quality outdoor education experiences for people of all ages” and “acts as a professional body for outdoor educators in the province of Ontario.” The council has gathered extensive research showing the important role outdoor education can play in every child’s education. The TDSB supports outdoor education in many ways. In addition to installing outdoor classrooms, visits to public parks and experiences through non-board programs, it operates 10 Outdoor Education Centres (five for day trips and five for overnight stays) — a significant investment of resources.
As a student and new immigrant, school-sponsored outdoor education experiences were my only exposure to activities such as hiking, orienteering and cross-country skiing. As a teacher, I strived to provide these experiences for my own students and spent many sleepless nights away from my family, kept awake by the weight of the responsibility of the students in my charge. However, spending time with my students outside of the classroom allowed us to see each other in a different light and I believed in the value of outdoor education. Then, as the outdoor education program co-ordinator, risk management permeated every decision I made.
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During my term, I had to weigh many issues. I was in constant contact with the transportation department during inclement weather. Was it safe enough for the students to travel or would they have to miss the experience? I worked with multiple departments to develop protocols when bedbugs became an increasing problem. How do we minimize the number of students impacted by an infestation? And I worked with dedicated and passionate staff at the centres to ensure the programs we offered were safe, effective and met curriculum guidelines. How can we minimize risk while still offering exciting experiential learning? The C.W. Jefferys’ school website states that the excursion to Algonquin Park is part of “ … a continuum of Outdoor Adventure Based Learning Opportunities” in its leadership program. It goes on to say that the “Leadership program has transformed students into confident, capable leaders, not just within the school, but also within the broader community as well.” The TDSB Board Policy P.033 SCH, Excursions and its supporting documents is already 70 pages long. It outlines the procedures to be followed and defines a category of high-care activities “that involve increased risk and/or special safety considerations.” When a student dies during any school related activity, questions need to be asked. We need to find out whether everything possible was done to minimize the risk. If no, what could have been done differently? If yes, are the potential rewards of such an activity worth the associated risks? Catherine Little is a Toronto-based educator, consultant and writer. She was a science, environmental and ecological studies program co-ordinator in charge of outdoor education in the TDSB from September 2007 to August 2009.This is the mail archive of the libc-alpha@sourceware.org mailing list for the glibc project.
The GNU C Library version 2.21 is now available
From: "Carlos O'Donell" <carlos at redhat dot com>
To: GNU C Library <libc-alpha at sourceware dot org>, libc-announce at sourceware dot org, info-gnu at gnu dot org
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2015 11:04:30 -0500
Subject: The GNU C Library version 2.21 is now available
Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
The GNU C Library ================= The GNU C Library version 2.21 is now available. The GNU C Library is used as *the* C library in the GNU system and in GNU/Linux systems, as well as many other systems that use Linux as the kernel. The GNU C Library is primarily designed to be a portable and high performance C library. It follows all relevant standards including ISO C11 and POSIX.1-2008. It is also internationalized and has one of the most complete internationalization interfaces known. The GNU C Library webpage is at http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/ Packages for the 2.21 release may be downloaded from: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/libc/ http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libc/ The mirror list is at http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html NEWS for version 2.21 ===================== * The following bugs are resolved with this release: 6652, 10672, 12674, 12847, 12926, 13862, 14132, 14138, 14171, 14498, 15215, 15378, 15884, 16009, 16418, 16191, 16469, 16576, 16617, 16618, 16619, 16657, 16740, 16857, 17192, 17266, 17273, 17344, 17363, 17370, 17371, 17411, 17460, 17475, 17485, 17501, 17506, 17508, 17522, 17555, 17570, 17571, 17572, 17573, 17574, 17582, 17583, 17584, 17585, 17589, 17594, 17601, 17608, 17616, 17625, 17630, 17633, 17634, 17635, 17647, 17653, 17657, 17658, 17664, 17665, 17668, 17682, 17702, 17717, 17719, 17722, 17723, 17724, 17725, 17732, 17733, 17744, 17745, 17746, 17747, 17748, 17775, 17777, 17780, 17781, 17782, 17791, 17793, 17796, 17797, 17801, 17803, 17806, 17834, 17844, 17848, 17868, 17869, 17870, 17885, 17892. * CVE-2015-1472 Under certain conditions wscanf can allocate too little memory for the to-be-scanned arguments and overflow the allocated buffer. The implementation now correctly computes the required buffer size when using malloc. * A new semaphore algorithm has been implemented in generic C code for all machines. Previous custom assembly implementations of semaphore were difficult to reason about or ensure that they were safe. The new version of semaphore supports machines with 64-bit or 32-bit atomic operations. The new semaphore algorithm is used by sem_init, sem_open, sem_post, sem_wait, sem_timedwait, sem_trywait, and sem_getvalue. * Port to Altera Nios II has been contributed by Mentor Graphics. * Optimized strcpy, stpcpy, strncpy, stpncpy, strcmp, and strncmp implementations for powerpc64/powerpc64le. Implemented by Adhemerval Zanella (IBM). * Added support for TSX lock elision of pthread mutexes on powerpc32, powerpc64 and powerpc64le. This may improve lock scaling of existing programs on HTM capable systems. The lock elision code is only enabled with --enable-lock-elision=yes. Also, the TSX lock elision implementation for powerpc will issue a transaction abort on every syscall to avoid side effects being visible outside transactions. * Optimized strcpy, stpcpy, strchrnul and strrchr implementations for AArch64. Contributed by ARM Ltd. * i386 memcpy functions optimized with SSE2 unaligned load/store. * CVE-2104-7817 The wordexp function could ignore the WRDE_NOCMD flag under certain input conditions resulting in the execution of a shell for command substitution when the applicaiton did not request it. The implementation now checks WRDE_NOCMD immediately before executing the shell and returns the error WRDE_CMDSUB as expected. * CVE-2012-3406 printf-style functions could run into a stack overflow when processing format strings with a large number of format specifiers. * CVE-2014-9402 The nss_dns implementation of getnetbyname could run into an infinite loop if the DNS response contained a PTR record of an unexpected format. * The minimum GCC version that can be used to build this version of the GNU C Library is GCC 4.6. Older GCC versions, and non-GNU compilers, can still be used to compile programs using the GNU C Library. * The GNU C Library is now built with -Werror by default. This can be disabled by configuring with --disable-werror. * New locales: tu_IN, bh_IN, raj_IN, ce_RU. * The obsolete sigvec function has been removed. This was the original 4.2BSD interface that inspired the POSIX.1 sigaction interface, which programs have been using instead for about 25 years. Of course, ABI compatibility for old binaries using sigvec remains intact. * Merged gettext 0.19.3 into the intl subdirectory. This fixes building with newer versions of bison. * Support for MIPS o32 FPXX, FP64A and FP64 ABI Extensions. The original MIPS o32 hard-float ABI requires an FPU where double-precision registers overlay two consecutive single-precision registers. MIPS32R2 introduced a new FPU mode (FR=1) where double-precision registers extend the corresponding single-precision registers which is incompatible with the o32 hard-float ABI. The MIPS SIMD ASE and the MIPSR6 architecture both require the use of FR=1 making a transition necessary. New o32 ABI extensions enable users to migrate over time from the original o32 ABI through to the updated o32 FP64 ABI. To achieve this the dynamic linker now tracks the ABI of any loaded object and verifies that new objects are compatible. Mode transitions will also be requested as required and unsupportable objects will be rejected. The ABI checks include both soft and hard float ABIs for o32, n32 and n64. GCC 5 with GNU binutils 2.25 onwards: It is strongly recommended that all o32 system libraries are built using the new o32 FPXX ABI (-mfpxx) to facilitate the transition as this is compatible with the original and all new o32 ABI extensions. Configure a MIPS GCC compiler using --with-fp-32=xx to set this by default. Contributors ============ This release was made possible by the contributions of many people. The maintainers are grateful to everyone who has contributed changes or bug reports. These include: Adhemerval Zanella Alan Hayward Alexandre Oliva Allan McRae Anders Kaseorg Andreas Krebbel Andreas Schwab Andrew Pinski Andrew Senkevich Anton Blanchard Arjun Shankar Aurelien Jarno Bram Brooks Moses Carlos O'Donell Chris Metcalf Chung-Lin Tang David Holsgrove David S. Miller Eric Biggers Florian Weimer Gratian Crisan H.J. Lu J. Brown James Lemke Jeff Law Jose E. Marchesi Joseph Myers Kaz Kojima Kostya Serebryany Leonhard Holz Ma Shimiao Maciej W. Rozycki Marcus Shawcroft Marek Polacek Martin Sebor Matthew Fortune Mike Frysinger OndÅej BÃlka Paul Eggert Paul Pluzhnikov Petar Jovanovic Pravin Satpute Rajalakshmi Srinivasaraghavan Rasmus Villemoes Renlin Li Richard Earnshaw Richard Henderson Roland McGrath Ryan Cumming Samuel Thibault Siddhesh Poyarekar Stefan Liebler Steve Ellcey Tatiana Udalova Tim Lammens Tom de Vries Torvald Riegel Vladimir A. Nazarenko Wilco Dijkstra Will NewtonSUNRISE, Fla. -- Andong Song became the first Chinese-born player to be selected in the NHL Draft when the New York Islanders chose him Saturday in the sixth round (No. 172).
The 6-foot, 161-pound defenseman, who plays at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, had three goals and seven assists in 26 games. He said he patterns his game after former Detroit Red Wings star Nicklas Lidstrom.
Lawrenceville coach Etienne Bilodeau said Song stepped into a major role not long after arriving at the school and was named captain this season.
"Given the composition of our team this year, in a lot of ways he can relate to how many minutes Duncan Keith logged during the [Stanley Cup] Playoffs," Bilodeau said. "He was pretty much on a similar ratio minute-wise for our squad. He was our go-to guy at the blue line.... His game is steady. He has good edge work, handles the puck well and really is very well-positioned all the time in the context of anticipating and knowing how to support the offense and knowing how to take care of his end and to be very reliable on both sides of the puck."
More important than Song's statistics is the significance of his birthplace: Beijing.
"I am the first," he said. "Hopefully what I want to do is rally people behind me. Not focus on myself but do something good for Chinese hockey."
Longmou Li of Chinese television station CCTV was part of a camera crew that's been following Song for three years. He said there was a lot of anticipation in China to see when Song would be picked.
"We didn't go live for the first round but we're live for the second round," Li said. "And on a Saturday night at 10 p.m., I heard it reached 2.5 million people waiting for his news."
Song said having the camera crew recording his every move already has him feeling like a star, but said he didn't mind the pressure.
"To be the first Chinese player, it's a lot of pressure from people back home," he said. "Good pressure. That'll motivate me to become a better player and hopefully I'll make them proud."
Song came to hockey almost by accident.
"When I was 6 years old I kept getting sick as a child and my mom tried finding a sport for me and hockey came up," Song said. "I tried it out and fell in love with it."
Song said finding places to play hockey in Beijing required some improvisation. There were two ice rinks, but neither was close to NHL size. At times, he had to practice on a speed skating oval.
"There was a big loop and the section in the middle would be all concrete," Song said. "We used to section off part of the track, put a net in there and start shooting pucks around. We had to improvise a lot growing up."
Song also was on a team that took part in a Charles B. Wang Ice Hockey Project Hope tournament. Wang, the owner of the Islanders, sponsored a youth hockey team from Nassau County on Long Island that traveled to China for the tournament.
"My [Chinese] team, the Cubs, we used to play them a lot," Song said. "That was the first site of youth hockey in China for our generation."
He graduated this year, and next season will play at Philips Academy in Andover, Mass., another top prep school, as a post-graduate. He said he'll use the 2015-16 season to try to earn a spot with an NCAA team.
Song also will continue to play internationally. He's played the past two years for China at the IIHF Division II-B World Under-18 Championship. Song served as the captain of the team at the tournament this year, in Novi Sad, Serbia, and had two assists in five games. China won one of its five games and finished fifth in a six-team tournament that included host Serbia, Romania, Spain, Belgium and Australia.
China isn't close to being ready to challenge the traditional international hockey powers, but Song said he's noticed the level of play growing rapidly.
"When I started playing there weren't a lot of people there," he said. "There wasn't much support for the game. Last year when I went back, it had been eight years since I'd seen Chinese hockey and it was tremendous how far it's grown. I'm sure they'll keep trying to catch up to Europe and North America and Russia. There's still a gap between them, but I'm sure if we focus on hockey we can catch up."
Follow Adam Kimelman on Twitter: @NHLAdamKShare
With iPhone 5 pre-order sales now live on the Apple Store website, UK networks are beginning to lift the covers off their contract pricing structures for the iPhone 5. Data, minutes, SMS messages and contract lengths, we’ll be compiling all the plans into this one handy post as each network shows their hand, so be sure to keep checking back to compare which deal works best for you. Note however that if you’re planning on getting a 4G service from EE (formerly Everything Everywhere), your best bet is to get a handset from one of its subsidiary networks, Orange or T-Mobile. They’re best equipped (for the time being at least) to make the upgrade once the service launches, due to signalling band issues. We’ll keep you posted as to how that pans out in the near future.
Vodafone
Vodafone are the first out of the blocks with their iPhone 5 pricing. Starting with their premium Red Data plan, you can get the 16GB iPhone 5 for free on a £47 per month, 24 month contract that gives unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, 2GB of mobile data and 4G of Wi-Fi internet. An upfront cost of £89 is needed for the 32GB iPhone 5 on the same plan, and £169 for the 64GB iPhone 5 on the same plan. The iPhone 4S is now free on this plan too.
Slightly cheaper is their Vodafone Red contract. With a £49 upfront cost for the 16GB iPhone 5, £149 for the 32GB version and £229 for the 64GB edition, it’s a £42 per month, 24 month contract that offers unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, 1GB of mobile internet data and 3GB of Wi-Fi internet. The iPhone 4S is now also free on this plan.
There’s also another cheaper still Vodafone Red contract. Another 24 month contract at a £37 a month cost, it offers unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, 1GB of mobile internet data and 2GB of Wi-Fi data. All phones on this plan come with an upfront cost: £99 for the 16GB iPhone 5, £209 for the 32GB iPhone 5, £289 for the 64GB iPhone 5 and just £19 for the older iPhone 4S.
Lastly, Vodafone budget 100 Plan. Again, all iPhone models come with an upfront cost: £249 for the 16GB iPhone 5, £349 for the 32GB iPhone 5, £409 for the 64GB iPhone 5 and £139 for the last-gen iPhone 4S. However, 24 month contracts sit at just £25 a month and offer 100 minutes, unlimited texts, 100MB of mobile internet data and 2GB of Wi-Fi internet.
If you’re after a 12 month contract with Vodafone, they start at £36-a-month (£349 for the phone), and top out at £51-a-month with a £169 phone with only 1GB of data, and everything else unlimited. It’s not been made clear which iPhone 5 model you’re getting on the 12 month contracts, but presumably it’s the entry-level 16GB model.
Orange
All Orange contracts for the iPhone 5 last 24 months, no matter which model you opt for. All plans however also offer unlimited texts and unlimited calls, so it’s really mobile internet data that you have to mull over.
To get 1GB of mobile internet data, it’ll cost you £36 a month, with an upfront cost of £109.99 for the 16GB iPhone 5, £219.99 for the 32GB iPhone 5 and £269.99 for the 64GB iPhone 5.
To get 2GB of mobile internet data, it’ll cost you £41 a month, with an upfront cost of just £29.99 for the 16GB iPhone 5, £139.99 for the 32GB iPhone 5 and £209.99 for the 64GB iPhone 5.
To bag 3GB of mobile internet data with Orange, it’ll cost you £46 a month, with the 16GB iPhone 5 coming absolutely free, a cost of £89.99 for the 32GB iPhone 5 and £179.99 for the 64GB iPhone 5.
If you’re after unlimited mobile internet data, it’ll cost you £51 a month, but again you’ll get the 16GB iPhone 5 for free on that plan. With unlimited data, the 32GB iPhone 5 will cost £39.99, ad the 64GB iPhone 5 sits at £129.99.
Three
There are no free iPhone 5 handsets through the Three network, but all plans offer unlimited mobile internet data, which is obviously excellent for a web-friendly phone like the iPhone 5. Here then, plans come down to how many minutes and texts you’re after. Again, all contracts are two years long.
The One Plan is Three’s premium offering. With an upfront cost of £79 for the 16GB iPhone 5 and £36 monthly fee, it gets you unlimited mobile internet data, 2000 any network minutes, 5000 texts and 5000 Three-to-Three minutes. To bag the 32GB iPhone 5 the upfront fee rises to £89 and the monthly fee goes up to £39, and for the 64GB iPhone 5 the upfront fee is set at £109 and the monthly fee £42.
Slightly cheaper is Three’s Ultimate Internet 500 contracts. It offers all-you-can-eat data, 500 any network minutes and 5000 texts. For the 16GB iPhone 5 it’ll cost £79 upfront with a £34 monthly fee. For the 32GB version, the upfront fee jumps to £89 and the monthly fee rises to £37. For the daddy 64GB iPhone 5, the upfront fee is set at £109 and the monthly fee £40.
If you grab an unlocked iPhone 5, Three also offer rolling, one-month SIM-only deals. Our pick is the SIM-Only The One Plan. For £25 a month you get 2,000 minutes, 5,000 Three-to-Three minutes, 5,000 texts and unlimited mobile internet data.
T-Mobile
T-Mobile offer the iPhone 5 on The Full Monty Plan. Again lasting for 24 months, all contracts offer unlimited mobile internet access and unlimited text messages. Minutes and upfront costs are your main concern here.
For £36 a month you get 2000 any-network minutes, and unlimited T-Mobile-to-T-Mobile calls. Upfront handset costs are set at £109 for the 16GB iPhone 5, £219 for the 32GB iPhone 5 and £269 for the 64GB iPhone 5.
After that, it’s unlimited minutes, texts and internet across the board, with monthly costs rising as upfront costs fall.
A £41 a month contract sees the 16GB iPhone 5 drop to £49, the 32GB iPhone 5 hit £149 and the 64GB iPhone 5 go to £219.
A £46 contract puts the 16GB iPhone 5 at £29, the 32GB version at £99 and the 64GB version at £189.
The top-tier £61 contract puts the 16GB iPhone 5 at £19, the 32GB version at £29 and the 64GB model at £139.
O2
O2 have yet to reveal pricing for individual iPhone 5 handsets on the tariffs yet, but have revealed their monthly price plans. Expect similar pricing for the handsets as seen above, with more expensive monthly costs driving the upfront handset cost down. Again, all contracts are 24 months long. We’ll update this with handset costs once O2 announce them.
For £26 a month on O2, you’ll get unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB of mobile internet data.
For £31 a month you’ll get also get you’ll get unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB of mobile internet data, but no doubt with cheaper upfront iPhone 5 handset costs.
For £36 a month you’ll still also get you’ll get unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB of mobile internet data, but with likely even cheaper upfront iPhone 5 handset costs.
For £41 a month you’ll still also get you’ll get unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB of mobile internet data, but with likely even cheaper upfront iPhone 5 handset costs than the previous deals.
For £46 a month you’ll still also get all of the above, but with even cheaper upfront iPhone 5 handset costs.
The premium £63 a month deal gets unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and |
that young Muslims are especially frustrated because “we” don’t let them join in. In actual fact, the young Turk may become furious if promotion does not come instantly. But the West offers him a cornucopia of possibilities: from attending school, through volunteer service for the republic, to the casting of “Germany Is Looking for the Superstar” — nowhere he does not have access to them. On the other hand, the absence of free choice of partner and sexual development is difficult to escape. It is fenced off by the ever-present “honor”. The individual means nothing — honor means everything. This lack of alternatives can only be endured, or fled.The Cardinals have announced that they have been informed that Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton will not waive his no-trade clause to approve a deal to St. Louis. Jose de Jesus Ortiz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tweeted the full statement.
Miami had put deals in place with both the Cards and the Giants, allowing Stanton to speak with both organizations before deciding whether to approve a deal. (With full no-trade rights, he controls the process.) It’s not certain at present whether a final decision has been issued with regard to the San Francisco organization, but we heard last night that there are indications the Marlins star is disinclined to go there, too.
The Cardinals expressed disappointment that Stanton had decided against joining the organization, but surely have had backup plans on their mind from the get-go. That could even include pursuit of some other notable Marlins outfielders, though there are a wide variety of directions which St. Louis could take.
As for Miami, this is a less-than-ideal development — unless, perhaps, Stanton is willing to go to the Giants. If both of those top suitors fall through, the Fish will need to go back to the drawing board. While yesterday’s news suggested the Dodgers and Yankees could still be brought into the hunt, indications are that those organizations won’t be willing to take on anything approaching all of Stanton’s sizable salary.An Idea That Sticks: Another Plunger-Protected Bike Lane Goes Permanent Tactical urbanism projects are prompting cities to improve the bike-riding environment.
There’s been something in the air this spring. Can you smell it?
Two of 2017’s three cheekiest guerrilla bike lanes have now been made permanent.
The Providence Journal reported Tuesday that the city of Providence, RI, has taken a local group’s civic action to heart and started installing flexible plastic posts where a row of plungers had been set up, separating a “floating” parking lane from a curbside bike lane on downtown’s Fountain Street.
Similar plunger-bike-lane installations this year came in Wichita and Omaha. Wichita, too, made its short stretch of plunger protection permanent two weeks later.
Parking-protected bike lanes have become common across the United States. But practices differ on whether to include plastic posts. Posts cost about $60 apiece, including installation time, but they make it more obvious where people are (and aren’t) supposed to park cars.
The Journal reported that the new posts can be removed during the winter, if necessary, to keep the street plowed.
Organizer Jeffrey Leary, 49, told the paper he spent $72 on the Providence demonstration: $1 per plunger.
Martina Haggerty, a projects manager with the Providence planning department, said the city had always planned to improve the Fountain Street bike lane “incrementally” but that the plungers “certainly gave a new sense of urgency to it, which is great.”
“I think it’s a really effective way of bringing about change and bringing things to the attention of officials,” she said.
A national trend: hyperlocal activism
Meanwhile, across the continent in San Francisco, residents are conducting a slightly different campaign: They’ve literally been standing in the streets themselves to call attention to the number of people who try to pull across unprotected curbside bike lanes in their cars. That, too, has prompted local politicians to call for permanent physical protection.
Maureen Persico, a lead organizer of the San Francisco effort, said direct, fun local actions like these can be powerful during a time of national political turmoil because they can open a “little crack” in people’s walls of cynicism or isolation.
“It’s cheap, and it’s pretty easy to get people together,” she said. “And there’s a lot of people interested in the issue. Everybody knows somebody who’s been hit by a car.”
PlacesForBikes is a PeopleForBikes program to help U.S. communities build better biking, faster. You can follow them on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook or sign up for their weekly news digest about building all-ages biking networks.Rony Tennenbaum Wedding Jewelry View Full Caption
ANDERSONVILLE — There's money to be made in marriage equality.
Wedding jewelry designer Rony Tennenbaum said he predicted when he started a jewelry line for matrimony-minded gay couples six years ago that the push for same-sex marriage wouldn't just shift social norms.
The designer, whose brand will be one of many stocked at Sparkles Fine Jewelry, a new store opening this month at 5405 N. Clark St., was convinced that an important market niche was set to boom as gay marriage gained support.
"My feeling was that the country would start coming around and we would start seeing laws take shape, and I just felt like, 'I will be there when they do,'" the 48-year-old Israel native said.
"Right off the bat," when Sparkles opens on Sept. 17, the store "will be marketing to the LGBT community by stocking a jewelry collection whose very reason for being is to celebrate same-sex marriages," said a news release. The store, which welcomes gay and straight couples, hopes to provide a comfortable location for people to shop regardless of sexual orientation.
The country's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population has an estimated $790 billion in purchasing power that Tennenbaum, Sparkles owner Rachel Meyering and others hope to tap into as the push to legalize gay marriage continues.
Gay marriage supporters had big victories in 2013 at the state level and in the Supreme Court, which ruled this year that same-sex couples are entitled to federal benefits.
One of the latest states to legalize gay marriage was Minnesota, where officials are urging Chicagoans to come get hitched while a gay marriage bill sits stalled in the Illinois legislature. Now, an estimated 30 percent of the U.S. population lives in 13 states (plus the District of Columbia) where same-sex couples can tie the knot.
Jason Cox, assistant director of the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce, said that "with all the conversation around gay marriage and hopefully some action very soon in Springfield, I think reaching out to the LGBT community makes a lot of sense," particularly in LGBT-friendly Andersonville.
"We have a lot of patrons to whom supporting locally owned independent businesses is important, and if they are able to find unique products that aren't already being offered in the neighborhood, it is really a benefit for everyone," said the assistant director, who is gay.
The market for same-sex marriage is about a decade old. And "even within the [LGBT] community there are a lot of questions and unknowns," said Tennenbaum, a gay New York resident who plans to marry his partner of 20 years in October.
He said, for instance, that some lesbian couples "don't necessarily want a traditional Tiffany's ring."
He said same-sex couples often have questions about who proposes to whom, who buys the ring, who wears it and if they should get matching engagement or wedding rings. Tennenbaum's advice is to buy something that speaks to both people's individuality but also to the couple's bond, such as similarly designed rings where one is gold and the other is white gold.
"We're starting to see people putting together traditions that have never been in place before for this community, and that's a part of what I'm doing," he said. "We are in the middle of writing the rules and writing these etiquettes."
Tennenbaum had been working in jewelry for more than 20 years when he decided six years ago to "branch out," and design engagement and wedding jewelry for same-sex couples.
Googling around for gay marriage jewelry back then yielded "awful, really gaudy, very symbolic" jewelry that incorporated "rainbows and triangles," he remembers, saying a lot of it was "really not something that friends of mine would want to wear."
He also said some gay couples feel uncomfortable shopping at stores for jewelry together because "they don't really know if it's a store that will frown upon it."
"You know, two guys walking into a store and trying on diamond rings can pose a bit of discomfort, " Tennenbaum said.
But the jewelry designer said he is confident Sparkles will help gay couples who may be nervous about walking into just any jewelry store, and explained in a statement that the concept is simple:
"Engagement and wedding rings should proclaim love, not sexual orientation."As Medford schools round out almost a month in session, elected officials have worried dormant water fountains might progress to issues of lead poisoning, such as what happened with Boston. This week, the Transcript examines lead in schools and where Medford fits into recent state tests.
Lead in drinking water has been in the national spotlight since the public learned government officials were concealing information about lead-tainted water in Flint, Mich. earlier this year.
And, the issue cropped up again closer to home when Boston schools revealed dormant water fountains were exceeding standards.
This week, the Transcript examines the lead issue, as Medford school officials await the results of water tests by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA).
Now dozens of Massachusetts public schools are testing their drinking water not only for lead, but other pollutants. Many have tested above the federal action level for lead or copper over the past decade, and many more have never been tested.
As of mid-May, 51 schools responding to a voluntary Lead and Copper in Schools Maintenance Checklist from the state Department of Environmental Protection reported results above the action level.
As of Monday, Medford Public Schools had not responded to the DEP checklist, which the agency sent to districts in January.
However, Medford Superintendent of Schools Roy Belson said water in the district’s schools are tested regularly by the MWRA, including a recent round of tests for which the district is still awaiting results.
The previous set of tests took place in September 2015.
“Our lead levels are so far below the requirements that we easily passed muster with them,” Belson said. “The high school gets checked very frequently. Basically, we’re well below [regulated levels]. At this point and time, we think we’re OK because they’ve pretty much covered every school over the last few years.”
Public water suppliers have never collected lead and copper samples from at least 150 Massachusetts schools, while the vast majority of schools have not been tested within the past year.
Boston Public Schools made headlines this past spring after tests revealed elevated levels of lead in drinking fountains at four schools, and one week later, six other BPS buildings prematurely had their fountains turned on before lead testing had been completed.
But Boston is far from the only community in the region to find elevated levels of lead or copper in school water. Since 2010, public schools in Malden, Melrose, Natick, Newton, Stoneham, Wayland and Wilmington have been among those to test over the action level of 15 parts per billion for lead or 1.3 parts per million for copper.
In Melrose, a kitchen faucet and a drinking fountain at the Franklin Early Childhood Center tested above the 15 parts per billion action level for lead in 2013.
That same year at Stoneham High School, a water fountain outside the cafeteria showed lead levels of 17.5 ppb.
A tap at the Early Learning Center in Malden exceeded the action level for lead in 2010.
In each of these cases, lead service lines, which were banned in 1986 under the Safe Drinking Water Act, were not the problem. While older communities still have some lead service lines — Malden has 2,705, down from 6,281 a decade ago — most service lines at school buildings have been replaced with materials such as cast iron or ductile iron.
Among the schools that filled out the DEP’s lead and copper checklist, 389 reported not having lead service lines, one reported having a lead line and 64 were unsure.
The water source is also not usually the problem. Water in the commonwealth is typically lead-free when communities receive it. According to the MWRA — which takes its water from the Quabbin Reservoir 60 miles west of Boston and delivers it to 51 communities, including Medford — lead levels in MWRA water have dropped almost 90 percent since corrosion control was instituted 20 years ago.
But even without lead service lines or lead fixtures, lead can leach into drinking water from brass pipes that contain the poisonous chemical. Lead solder on pipes, which was banned in 1989, can have the same effect.
The longer water sits stagnant in pipes without being used or flushed – say, overnight in a school building – the greater the risk becomes.
“We live in an old [region] where this stuff is,” said Becky Smith, Massachusetts campaigns director for the environmental advocacy group Clean Water Action. “We knew lead was bad a long, long time ago, and decisions that were made to use it anyway have really left us a toxic legacy.”
Never been tested
In Massachusetts, each public water supplier is required to test two fixtures — one kitchen faucet and one drinking fountain — at two schools per sampling period. A sampling period can be every six months, once a year or once every three years, depending on the results of lead testing in a community’s homes.
These state requirements are not strictly enforced, but are more stringent than those of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which does not require schools to test for lead at all.
Nonetheless, most school taps across the commonwealth have never been tested, and schools in larger communities often go years between samples.
“Resources and time is a big part of it,” said Malden Assistant City Engineer Gary Stead, noting testing needs to take place early in the morning after water has been sitting overnight but before students arrive. “It’s kind of an organizational and a manpower issue.”
In the wake of the crisis in Flint, Mich. that led to as many as 12,000 children being exposed to high levels of lead in drinking water, some Massachusetts school districts have performed comprehensive tests of their water fixtures for the first time — with unforeseen results.
In Natick, samples collected at two schools in 2014 came back below the action level for lead and copper. But this year, when the town tested hundreds of fixtures throughout the district, elevated lead and copper levels were discovered at 82 faucets across six buildings.
Some sinks came back several times above the lead action level, with one initially reading 474 ppb. Four drinking fountains tested between 15 and 23 ppb.
At Natick High School, 15 fountains and 18 sinks tested high for copper.
The district has since replaced fountains with water bubblers that have internal filters to reduce lead, flushed water fixtures each morning for two to five minutes, and put signage on sinks in every school reading, “Not Drinking Water.”
“We plan to retest all schools at two points over the summer, as well as develop a regular schedule for water testing moving forward,” Natick Superintendent Dr. Peter Sanchioni wrote in a letter to the Natick school community.
A lack of comprehensive testing also precipitated the revelations in the Boston Public Schools. Most BPS buildings have used bottled water exclusively since the late 1980s, when testing showed elevated levels of lead. But among the 38 city schools that still use tap water, most had gone years without testing.
When 364 drinking fountains at those 38 schools were tested earlier this year, eight fountains across four schools showed high lead levels.
“We’re getting down to the root cause of what’s happening here,” Boston Mayor Marty Walsh told reporters. “It certainly concerns me that we’re putting the health of our kids at risk.”
Different courses
There is no blueprint to follow for schools that test high for lead. The DEP recommends schools remove fixtures with elevated lead levels, but it does not require them to do so. Often, it falls on local officials to determine the best course of action.
In Stoneham, a variety of steps have been taken since a fountain at the high school tested high for lead. According to Water and Sewer Supervisor Bob Radigan, the fountain in question and others were replaced with water bubblers that have filtration systems; some fountains with lead-containing brass fixtures were swapped out for lead-free brass; and custodians were instructed to flush fountains for 30-60 seconds each morning.
“As long as someone gets by there and hits it first thing in the morning, you’re in good shape because the rest of day you’re not going to have more than two hours of standstill,” Radigan said.
At the Early Childhood Center in Melrose, the DEP did not propose any remedial action after a kitchen faucet and a water fountain tested high for lead in 2013.
The MWRA, which performed the tests and analyzed the samples, relayed the results to Melrose officials and suggested flushing out the system each morning, but it did not recommend removing the fixtures.
“Whenever we are advised what to do, we do that to the letter of the law,” said Melrose DPW Director John Scenna, adding that the Early Childhood Center is flushed regularly. “I’m very confident that we followed that.”
Getting schools tested
In the wake of the test results in Boston, Gov. Charlie Baker announced a $2 million program through the DEP to perform additional lead testing in public schools across the state. The Massachusetts Clean Water Trust, which provides loans to the DEP to fund water infrastructure projects, is subsidizing the program.
Previously, the state government did not provide any money for municipalities to test for lead.
According to DEP spokesperson Ed Coletta, the new funding could help as many as 1,750 schools perform tests, create plumbing maps of their facilities, train staff in best sampling practices, and devise long-term testing plans.
“We would like to see every single school district test every single school,” Coletta said. “That’s certainly our hope.”
Coletta said the program will be a collaborative effort: DEP, EPA, MWRA and private labs have all offered to analyze samples, and the University of Massachusetts system will help the DEP review and prioritize applications.
Around Greater Boston, communities seem to be taking notice. Officials in Melrose, Stoneham, Hamilton-Wenham and Saugus all told Wicked Local they were planning to apply for the program or already had.
“We have a potential to have a huge benefit from this program,” Melrose City Engineer Elena Proakis-Ellis said. “Financially, it’s tough to sample all locations in all schools.”
But environmental advocates question whether water quality in the schools and beyond is being prioritized at the state level, particularly in light of substantial cuts to the DEP budget.
In 2009, DEP had a funding level of $33.6 million and a staffing level of 940. In the proposed House budget for Fiscal 2017, just over $25 million is allocated for DEP, and the department’s current staffing level is 645.
At the same time, the department is being asked to take on new responsibilities, such as enforcing the EPA Clean Water Act historically administered at the federal level.
“They have broad responsibilities, laws not enforced, fees not collected, and that’s related to years of disproportionate budget cuts and staff reductions,” said Environmental League of Massachusetts legislative director Erica Mattison.
More funding for lead testing in schools is welcome, Mattison said, but a one-time infusion of $2 million only goes so far.
“You can go through $2 million pretty quickly,” she said. “We have an aging water infrastructure system in Massachusetts. A couple million dollars here, a couple million dollars there, it’s better than nothing. But if you really want to address our water needs in a sustainable way, starting to take on these costs more aggressively is what’s needed.”
On the DEP’s lead and copper survey, schools were asked whether every tap and fixture used for water consumption in their buildings had been sampled for lead and copper at least once. Seventy answered “yes.” Three-hundred ninety-two answered “no.”
But schools are seeing the headlines and starting to mobilize, including some that had never even considered testing for lead.
Sean O’Neil, executive director of the Salem Academy Charter School on the North Shore, said the issue came to his attention after lead was found in the Boston Public Schools. Now, O’Neil is working on hiring a contractor to have his school’s water tested.
The school was built just 12 years ago, he said, but it stands on the site of an old mill building and may have old pipes.
“We want to make sure our water is clean,” O’Neil said, “and safe for our kids.”“The Muslims make me nervous. They went to my hometown and tried to shoot people. This is Texas. You ain’t gonna do that in Texas. I don’t think so. We will kill you first.”
In December 2015, Wright showed up at the mosque. He had ditched his normal attire — button-up shirt and loafers, what he called “the Barack Obama style” — in favor of a black T-shirt that showed off his shoulder tattoo depicting the 3 Percenters, an anti-government militia movement. He came with six of his buddies. He carried a 12-gauge. Others carried AR-15s.
“We didn’t do it because we want to look like bada‑‑‑s. We did it because we needed protection,” Wright said. “I’m not going out like the people in France did,” a reference to the 2015 shootings at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.
Reporters showed up, too. They stuck a microphone in Wright’s face when two unidentified members of the mosque approached. One man came in camouflage; the other carried a sign that said “Islam is a Religion of Peace.”
The man in camouflage thought Wright’s concern was easy to fix. He encouraged Wright to file a public information request to get the mosque’s financial records.
Wright didn’t want to do that. He declared that he had the right to walk in and examine the books himself. He didn’t trust official tax documents.
“They have ways to make it where it flies under the radar,” Wright told the man in a video recording of the encounter. “The Clintons, for example, they are professionals at that.”
The video ends with the mosque members inviting Wright to come with them to meet an FBI agent who could vouch that mosques — not just theirs but across the country — have been working hard to identify and turn in suspected terrorists. Wright said he thought that might be a good idea, but the two never followed up.
Instead, Wright used the footage to recruit more members.
“My first videotaped debate,” Wright wrote when he posted the video on BAIR’s Facebook page. He started getting messages from around the country.
More Texans wanted to join his cause. So did private investigators and veterans, he said. Their vigilante operation began to metastasize. There were meetings in undisclosed places “in the sticks” to share information about things they read and heard about Islam. At the meetings, they looked at satellite images of mosques in rural areas in case they were masquerading as training centers for the Islamic State. Despite their suspicions, they haven’t taken any action.
They practiced shooting at targets from up close and afar, and they drilled how to advance in case of an ambush — training for a possible sudden onslaught from counterprotesters.
They felt righteous and saw themselves as modern-day follow-ups to the Founding Fathers — self-motivated and -taught, taking on a larger global force. Standing up against that kind of threat reaffirmed their sense of what it meant to be an American.
“We are exercising our Second Amendment rights to protect our First Amendment rights,” Wright liked to say, even though he grew nervous about what some of his fellow members were saying. Some called for genocide of everyone who wasn’t white. He publicly yelled at the Ku Klux Klan when they tried to become allies. “Those guys are bigots,” he told news reporters at the time. Others wanted to do something more menacing than just showing up with guns.
“They want to take pigs’ heads and hang them on signs, put bacon on buildings,” Wright recalled one recent day at dinner with a friend. “There’s a lot of goofy people on our side, and that stuff is counterproductive. My goal is not to make fun of Muslims; it’s to point out the people who are the problem.”
He started explaining his mission to the waitress when she asked how his day was going.
“I remember seeing you on the news,” said the waitress, who was African American.
“Those people, sometimes they call me the KKK,” Wright said. “That’s offensive. I got black people in my group. I have gay people in my group. Now, everyone has a special feeling for pride for their own race and culture. I do, you do — the people, the food. But even if I like our food more, I also like collard greens and hot sauce.”
Few things are more irritating to Wright than being falsely accused because of the way he looks.
“I am not a white supremacist,” he told her. “I hate those guys.”
“It’s just that by 2050, or something, there will be more Muslims than Christians,” his friend Tommy interjected. “Then what’s going to happen with the world?”
“That’s interesting,” said the waitress. “Let me follow you on Facebook.”Here’s a teaser. Imagine a helicopter takes off from the most northerly point in the UK and flies in a straight line to the most southerly point. Exactly half way through this flight it stops to refuel. What country is it in? It’s still in Scotland.
It took off from Muckle Flugga on the Shetland island of Unst, headed for Land’s End, and stopped half way, near Lockerbie. Surprising? Now you might say that this is a bit of a cheat, to include such far flung islands. But their very remoteness is a significant factor in Scotland’s natural assets. Their position affects Scotland’s oil and gas resources and fishing grounds, and determines their strategic significance to Europe’s northern defences. But it’s not just Scotland’s geographic reach which is surprising. We have also been trained to underestimate Scotland’s size by the media’s lazy approach to graphics. The map of the UK with Shetland in a little box somewhere off Aberdeen became a recognised cliché. (The T-shirts available in Shetland with those islands in centre position and the UK mainland in a little box to the right of Yell are a splendid response.) But the BBC constantly exposes us to a more blatant misrepresentation. And the insidious nature of this visual deception is totally inappropriate in the lead-up to the independence referendum.
Maps have a power to shape our perceptions. And the maps which we see more than any other are the weather maps on TV. Take a look at those on the BBC.
The virtual camera floats above the north of France, looking down diagonally at the UK. The south of England looms large, while Scotland diminishes in the distance. Surely we can interpret that, you might think. That was the response of the BBC when the maps were first introduced in May 2005. There were over 4000 complaints. Responding in the Scotsman a BBC spokesperson explained why we were all misguided in our objections. That’s how it would really look from space. But I’ve done a bit of 3D graphics modelling over the years, and could see that the underlying issue wasn’t obvious to those debating the perspective. I wrote to the Scotsman pointing out that the BBC was being disingenuous. When you model a virtual 3D scene you have the freedom to put the camera wherever you like, and also to choose the virtual lens. Looking down from a great height with a standard lens would result in a faithful representation of the land masses. But what the BBC’s modellers had done was to use a wide angle lens and move the virtual camera position much closer to the south of England. This has the effect of making the nearer land masses bulge larger, and those further north to taper off rapidly in perspective. The maps changed significantly two weeks later. (Yes – they were even worse at first! Check out the original map here)
There’s a further problem. The land mass is not just seen from an angle. It is also on a sphere, so Scotland, further away from the camera, is also disappearing over the curve of the earth. None of this is evident. We cannot interpret what is happening, because no lines of latitude and longitude are shown. To make matters worse the temperature numbers and place names do not get smaller when they apply to further places, further undermining our ability to understand the perspective and see the true size of Scotland.Introducing the updated Microsoft Authenticator! One app to quickly and securely verify your identity online, for all of your accounts. This app provides an extra layer of protection when you sign in, often referred to as two-step verification or multi-factor authentication. If you’ve enabled this for your Microsoft accounts, you’ll get a notification from this app after trying to sign in. Just tap approve and you’re good to go. For any other account, or if you’re offline, our built-in security code generator has got you covered. New features and updated app design are only available if you have completed the Windows 10 Anniversary update. Without the update, you will receive an older version of the app which only supports two-step verification for work and school accounts. This new app replaces the Azure Authenticator, Microsoft account, and Multi-Factor Authentication apps.Although lithium ion batteries have seen some significant improvements over the last few years, they still have a number of weaknesses, including fragility, sensitivity to operating temperatures, bulky support structures, and flammable electrolytes. As a result, researchers (and a few start-ups) have been attempting to develop updated versions based on different chemistries. One option is a lithium-air battery, where one of the electrodes moves charges by allowing the lithium to react with oxygen, saving the space involved with a standard electrode. The primary alternative is a solid-state battery, where the liquid electrolyte is replaced by a solid version.
A number of solid-state lithium electrolytes have been identified, but these have their own issues: low ionic conductivity, temperature sensitivity, and chemical instability. As such, they've typically performed significantly worse than existing lithium-ion technology. A Japanese group that includes some researchers at Toyota has now found a solid electrolyte that's also a superionic conductor, and show that it may have what it takes to function in batteries.
"What," I'd imagine you're asking, "is a superionic conductor?" These solids have internal pores within their crystal structure that allow ions to pass through, even at temperatures below the melting point of the solid. When the ions aren't being driven through the structure, they remain in place, allowing them to serve as a charge storage area. The new material uses lithium as its charge carrier, but embeds it in a crystal lattice made of germanium, phosphorus, and sulfur (the chemical formula is Li 10 GeP 2 S 12. The authors have determined its crystal structure, which contains an ordered array of components like GeS 4, PS 4, and LiS 6. This array creates a series of channels that contain individual lithium and sulfur ions, which are apparently mobile.
When it comes to the ionic conductivity of lithium, the material performs just as well as standard lithium-ion batteries, which is about double the performance of previously published solid-state materials. And its performance doesn't appear to be nearly as sensitive to temperature as existing battery technology. The material worked nicely at 100°C, and showed a relatively gradual decline as the temperatures dropped to -100°C; standard lithium batteries tend to drop off dramtically, performance wise, a bit below freezing.
A battery built with the material showed stable performance, but the authors only took it through eight charge/discharge cycles, so it's difficult to say whether this really has what it takes to power anything electronic. Although the details are sparse, it appears to be easy to make: just put the right ratio of chemicals in a vacuum and heat it to 550°C.
The authors send a bit of a mixed message when wrapping up, as well. They start off by saying that the new material should enable us to get a better understanding of how ions move within solid, which will aid the development of a new generation of battery materials. That sounds a bit like they don't expect their own electrolyte to make it to market. But in the very next sentence they claim their new material is "promising for applications requiring batteries with high powers and energy densities, and for pure electric and hybrid electric vehicles and other electrochemical devices that require high safety, stability and reliability." So, maybe we'll see this in future Toyotas yet.
Nature Materials, 2011. DOI: 10.1038/NMAT3066 (About DOIs).If you haven’t had the opportunity to attend one of the University of Hawai’i at Hilo Jazz Orchestra’s semester-end concerts, a rare February performance is slated for this Saturday.
The Honoka’a community will host the orchestra for a special one-night-only performance of the orchestra’s popular Frank Zappa show.
“Last year, we were invited to perform at the Honoka`a Peoples Theater for the first time. We had a great time playing the show and the Honoka`a audience gave us such an incredible welcome. We are beyond thrilled to have been invited back this year,” said Musical Director Trever Veilleux.
The performance will focus on Zappa’s bestselling albums from the 1970’s, which include Joe’s Garage, Apostrophe’, and One Size Fits All.
“Zappa’s music can be very difficult to play and students in the band rise to the challenge, putting in countless practice hours in order to play this stuff correctly,” Veilleux said. “I think someone coming to see one of our concerts for the first time will notice that we put a lot of effort into putting on a fun and entertaining show. What you will see is more akin to a rock concert then a typical university jazz band recital.”
General admission tickets are $15 and the event will be open seating. Tickets can be purchased at the door.
For information, contact the Honoka’a People’s Theater at 776-0000
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or e-mail hpt@honokaapeople.com.Endless rows of bright sunflowers, all facing in the same direction, are an arresting summer sight at Dennis and Lynn Finkbeiner’s farm on U.S. 12 between Saline and Clinton. A picture of the farm was once number 28 in a Lifebuzz.com list of 30 of the most "epic photos" from around the world.
Besides it’s beauty, the farm is notorious in other ways. For example, the legendary Detroit Tigers manager Sparky Anderson, who was known for endlessly chewing on sunflower seeds in the dugout, got his seeds from Finkbeiners.
The farm is also one of the oldest in the area. It has long had a “centennial farm” sign out front, and Lynn says it’s been in the Finkbeiner family for about 180 years and perhaps seven generations.
Of course it has not always been a sunflower farm. Dennis’ dad Alwin planted some sunflowers just as an experiment several decades ago. At the time he wasn’t even sure how to harvest them. Then he heard a report on Chanel 11 news out of Toledo.
“They had a guy harvesting sunflowers...” My dad right away looked him up and found out how to harvest them and it kind of all stated from that,” Dennis said.
The business received a boost after making a connection with Bob Whiting of the Audubon Society. He asked the Finkbeiners to make a special seed mix for them.
“This guy was, I call him the state guy, he would go to all the Audubon clubs and tell them about bird feeding and he would sell them the birdseed that he recommended,” Dennis said.
Of course the seed he recommended was from Finkbeiners. The Audubon name is now displayed on their bags of seeds.
Today, they sell seed to various independent stores in the area. They do not go through a wholesaler, but sell directly to the retailers. They have a route and typically sell in lots of a ton or more.
In Ann Arbor, their seed is available at Downtown Home and Garden.
Farming is a challenging occupation, all the more so when avoiding the use of herbicides and pesticides as the Finkbeiners do. Dennis feels he would be betraying his forbearers to pollute the land with chemicals.
Instead, the Finkbeiners use various kinds of integrated pest management on their farm. For one thing they rotate the crops every year. That’s why they only grow sunflowers every third or forth year.
Alternating crops prevents crop-specific pests from becoming established. It also helps to avoid depleting the soil of nutrients.
What about rodents, birds and other animal pests? One of the Finkbeiner’s strategies has been to make their farm welcoming to cats. They provide a warm place for them to sleep and warm water in the winter, and they feed them year-round.
“If you come out at night, it’s just eyeballs everywhere from the cats,” Lynn said.
Apparently both the presence and smell of cats tells rodent and bird pests to steer clear. Lynn also said, however that they definitely do not need any more cats.
In fact, the Finkbeiners work with an organization called Kat Snips that helps control the cat population. Kat Snips will spay or neuter a cat and give it its needed shots for just $15. The Finkbeiners use the group for their farm cats and also support the program through their birdseed sales.
Hawks may also play a role in keeping the pest population under control. There are a lot of hawks in the area and even they had a bald eagle for several years.
This year the pest problem was not as bad as it has been in some past years. They used to shoot off air cannons and shotguns (for the noise) to scare away hungry birds. They have also used balloons that look like giant eyeballs.
Deer are also a problem in the spring. Deer like to eat fresh sprouts and young sunflower plants are like candy to them.
“We just accept the fact that you loose a lot of them when they’re real little to the deer,” said Lynn. “You loose a few acres to them and a few acres to the birds. That’s just built into feeding God’s critters. What can you do about it?”
One other annoying pest has been people. Many people stop along the road to take photos, but some enter the fields, trampling the soil and even collecting flowers. The Finkbeiners use signs to try to keep them out.
People often wonder how sunflowers are harvested. In fact it is not very |
effectively to manage crises, it must be able to fund itself at the speed of crises," he argued. "It needs, in our view, somewhere around €2,500bn to be a credible lender of last resort for solvent but illiquid sovereigns."
The euro rose 1% against the Swiss franc, a day after the Swiss central bank cut interest rates to tame its currency.
"Wednesday's calamitous session in Europe was rounded off with that heavy bout of selling on Wall Street which served to push the FTSE to its lowest close since November of last year," said Cameron Peacock, market analyst at IG Markets. "However, some upbeat earnings news from the US helped turn the tide and the bulls are starting to edge back in, with the Dow breaking its eight-session losing streak. The dilemma now is that equities are looking quite cheap and bonds rather more expensive, so this certainly has the potential to limit the downside even if concerns over the global economic recovery continue to linger."
Central banks in focus
The Bank of England voted to leave interest rates unchanged at noon. There were rumours that the European Central Bank could announce it was buying more bonds 45 minutes later, after its own monthly meeting.
Japan's intervention came after days of official warnings that the yen had risen so much that it threatened to derail the country's recovery from the devastating tsunami and earthquake in March.
On Wednesday, Swiss authorities moved to stem what the national bank called the "massive overvaluation" of the Swiss franc. The Swiss National Bank announced a surprise interest rate cut to ease buying pressure on its currency.
Japan's intervention pushed the yen as low as 80.19 yen to the US dollar, from 77.10 yen.THQ Nordic announces its gamescom 2017 line-up
It’s that time of the year again… THQ Nordic to present its biggest line-up so far at the Koelnmesse, Cologne, from 22nd August.
Vienna, Austria, July 25th 2017: Gamescom, one of the world’s biggest gaming conventions, is upon us and THQ Nordic is happy to announce its biggest line up so far. This year, during the event in Cologne, Germany, THQ Nordic will present a total of eight games, with two yet to be announced.
The short breakdown: Journalists and players alike can look forward to playing a near-to-final version of ELEX, the open world RPG from Piranha Bytes. Coming to PlayStation™4, Xbox One and PC on October 17th.
Battle Chasers: Nightwar was nominated for the “Best RPG of E3” award and is shaping up nicely for its multi-platform release on October 3rd. For the first time, you can get your hands on the game on the Nintendo Switch.
The multiplayer beta of SpellForce 3 is now running and has already seen thousands of players contributing providing valuable feedback to the development process. At gamescom, the focus will be on SpellForce 3’s deep single-player campaign.
First-person underwater shooter Aquanox: Deep Descent will show its campaign for the first time to journalists and players alike.
For The Guild 3 you cannot only expect to see an improved version and advanced gameplay, but we will also have a surprise announcement to make.
The recently announced cooperation with Bugbear Entertainment for Wreckfest allows the game to make a pit stop at gamescom where it will show off a raft of new content for upcoming updates.
The first new announcement is a brand new original IP. This open world RPG is set in a unique universe and will be a post-apocalyptic kung-fu fable.
The second new announcement is a new instalment of a well-known, mysterious and horrific IP.
THQ Nordic will be in gamescom’s Entertainment Area, Hall 8, Booth A011. All the games revealed above will be fully playable during the show.Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has issued a list of 60 U.S. and international organizations that it accuses of inciting this summer’s post-election unrest and fomenting a “soft war” against the Islamic Republic:
“A deputy intelligence minister for international affairs, whose name was not given, accused the groups of working against the Iranian regime and said that contacts and cooperation with them were banned.
The unprecedented move appears to be part of the Iranian authorities’ efforts to isolate critics and activists inside Iran and prevent them from having any contact with the outside world.
Activists and opposition supporters say Iranian authorities have been intensifying efforts to limit the free flow of information in and out of Iran in the wake of mass protests against June’s disputed presidential election.
“Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has always been trying to prevent contacts between Iranians inside the country and international organizations,” says Faraj Sarkuhi, a prominent Iranian exiled writer and journalist. “In the past they accused the publication ‘Adineh,’ of which I was the chief editor, of espionage over contacts with International PEN [writers’ organization] and said it is illegal.”
An extended list of the banned groups on the “gooya” news site includes: [Open Society Institute, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Yale University, RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, the BBC, VOA, Radio Zamaneh], National Endowment for Democracy, National Republican Institute, Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Search For Common Ground Organization, New American Foundation, British Center for Democratic Studies, East European Democratic Center, MEMRI, U.S. National Defense University, The Smith Richardson Foundation, and Brookings Institute.
The intelligence official said that contacts and cooperation with these organizations are banned.
Tini van Goor, director of the human rights department at Hivos, a Dutch NGO among those named, rejected the Iranian authorities’ charges.
But he also said the move came as no surprise, since Hivos — which has worked on women’s rights and HIV/AIDS issues with local civil society groups in Iran — had faced similar accusations in state media in recent years.
“It is simply nonsense what they say that we have an agenda of regime change or whatever,” he told RFE/RL. “No – what we did was being in contact with civil society activists. And those activists, some of them are also activists in the time of the post-election discussions in Tehran. But it is their choice.”
A prominent Tehran-based professor of law, Mahmud Akhundi, told Radio Farda that the Intelligence Ministry’s list and warning have no legal basis.
“It is in clear contradiction with human rights principles and with international principles of law. It doesn’t even have any Sharia-based justification,” Akhundi said. Nobody has the right “to define an action that has not been defined previously as a crime, as being criminal,” he added.
Writer Sarkuhi said he thinks the list could be used against those arrested in the postelection crackdown, which intensified after violence broke out during the Shi’ite commemoration of Ashura on December 27, leaving at least eight people dead.
The Intelligence Ministry “is making such a big claim at a time when Iranian authorities are getting ready to issue heavy sentences against arrested protesters; they want to use it to justify the heavy sentences that are likely to be issued,” Sarkuhi said.
In late November, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran was facing a “soft war” with its enemies abroad, who were fomenting the street protests that hit the country following the disputed June 12 vote.
Many of those arrested in the postelection crackdown have been accused of being involved in a “soft coup” against the Iranian clerical establishment.
Among those arrested and sentenced to jail is a well-known Iranian-American scholar, Kian Tajbakhsh, who used to work as a consultant with Soros’ Open Society Institute. His family and colleagues have rejected all the charges against him as baseless…”President Donald Trump has long loved counterpunching against opponents — no matter how small they might be — to secure publicity and more attention. | Getty Longtime observers say Trump’s behavior with Comey fits lifelong pattern Secret deals, threats a part of his New York repertoire
Former FBI Director James Comey's accusation that President Donald Trump asked him to end an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn startled many in Washington. Those who know the president best — and have known him for the longest amount of time — say they were not surprised.
"What you’re seeing is a president who is now very publicly learning about the way people react to what he considers to be normal New York City conversation," said Gov. Chris Christie, an ally, on TV on Wednesday afternoon.
Story Continued Below
Trump has said the allegations are a "witch hunt," and his lawyer said Wednesday he was "completely vindicated" by Comey's submitted opening remarks.
But Comey's explosive accusations and many of Trump's other publicized missteps in Washington are the product of a president steeped in the ways of doing business in New York as a flashy real estate developer, CEO of a family business and a celebrity — and who has no plans to change, say friends, observers and longtime associates.
"I've known him for a long time, and he's no different in his job than when I knew him," added George Arzt, who knew Trump while he was a reporter and a fundraiser and a spokesman for Mayor Ed Koch. "He never knew boundaries. He was tutored by Roy Cohn, the famous New York lawyer, who never knew boundaries."
Trump has long sought to strike secret deals or end investigations, such as when he grew exasperated with casino regulators in Atlantic City or city and federal officials, said Timothy O'Brien, a longtime biographer, and Arzt.
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He threatened opponents — as he did with Comey, saying there could be "tapes" of their private conversation — with threats of lawsuits and public bullying.
"He has repeatedly throughout his career tried to intervene with law enforcement, regulators and take matters into his own hands that he knew other people didn't do,” O'Brien said. "The difference between now and then is that he wasn't president then. He has never been subjected to this broad of a variety of legal and ethical norms."
Trump has shown little diplomatic restraint in his conversations with foreign adversaries and allies alike — just as he blurted out whatever was on his mind to visitors in Trump Tower — but now is sharing intelligence secrets instead of tawdry celebrity gossip.
The president's loose lips in telling intelligence secrets to the Russians that reportedly angered Israeli officials — the source of the information was reportedly from that nation — staggered many in Washington and in diplomatic circles. That he criticized Comey to the Russians as a "real nut job," according to The New York Times, drew gasps across political circles.
One longtime adviser said he would brag in Trump Tower about "how great everything is, how elegant it was, how great the views were. Of course he wanted the Russians to know how great his intelligence was."
"I wasn't surprised one bit that he told the Russians that about Comey," this person said. "It was on his mind. He says what is on his mind. He doesn't think, 'Oh maybe I shouldn't tell the Russians that.'"
In his private enterprise, he secured attention by using superlatives and bragging about his projects. He said his building was 10 stories taller than it was. Trump, at times, inflated his wealth — and admitted as much during a deposition. Yet when he told press secretary Sean Spicer to inflate his Inauguration Day crowd size, it cost the administration much-needed credibility — and hurt Spicer "almost irreparably," in the words of one Trump adviser.
"When I saw the reports about his crowd size being smaller, I knew it would drive him crazy," the adviser said.
Trump has long loved counterpunching against opponents — no matter how small they might be — to secure publicity and more attention. He hasn't changed, taunting the mayor of London and aggravating legislative allies with endless days of distractions. One White House aide, without laughing, likened his fight last week with London's mayor the day after a terrorist attack to his long-running feud with Rosie O'Donnell.
Officials in the White House and outside advisers fear, and Trump has even privately mused, that his attacks on the intelligence community have created a cascade of damaging leaks. Senior advisers, lawyers and almost everyone within earshot has encouraged him to change his Twitter habits.
But he has told several associates that he has always been successful on the attack and that he isn't going to change. His threat angered Comey, according to one associate of the former FBI director. Now, Comey has a worldwide audience Thursday to tell his story, and his opening remarks struck biographers, friends and observers as spot on.
"It doesn't surprise me one bit he would want complete loyalty," Arzt said.
One adviser who knows Trump well read the Comey testimony Wednesday afternoon and wrote in an email: "Sounds about right."
Friends say they hope the investigative scrutiny, and the nonstop bad press, will lead Trump to make some changes. But many aren't holding their breath.
"It's different. There's an immense learning curve," said Vincent Pitta, a New York City lawyer.
Pitta thinks Trump can still adapt. "He was a businessman. He was a builder. He's accustomed to a certain speed and way of doing things. He's not accustomed to three branches of government. I hope he will figure it out and some of the bumps will get worked out."RB Sims not returning to UH for senior season
Running back Charles Sims said Wednesday he will not return to the University of Houston for his final season and is still exploring future options.
"It is with regret and deep humbling that I am ending my playing career at the University of Houston," Sims said in a statement released to Rivals.com. "I have a lot of great memories that I will carry with me forever."
Sims, the Cougars' leading rusher, said it is unclear what his next step will be but two possible options are to transfer to another school or enter the NFL supplemental draft.
As of late Wednesday, a UH spokesperson said Sims had not asked for his release from the school.
"We congratulate Charles on receiving his degree last week and becoming a Cougar for life," UH coach Tony Levine said in a statement. "He has been a leader for our program both on and off the field with a number of accomplishments."
UH said it would have no further comment.
Sims rushed for 851 yards and 11 touchdowns last season despite missing three games - most of three others - with leg and ankle injuries.
Running back Charles Sims rushed for a career-high 851 yards for the Cougars in 2012. Running back Charles Sims rushed for a career-high 851 yards for the Cougars in 2012. Photo: Nick De La Torre, Houston Chronicle Photo: Nick De La Torre, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close RB Sims not returning to UH for senior season 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
He received his degree in May and has one year of eligibility remaining.
Back in January, Sims and his family met with Levine and said after "serious consideration" he would bypass the NFL draft and return for his senior season.Note: By submitting this form, you agree to Third Door Media's terms. We respect your privacy.
Gary Illyes, a Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, announced on Google+ this morning that over 80% of the eligible HTTPS URLs are not being displayed in Google’s search results as HTTPS URLs, instead they are showing up as HTTP URLs simply because of webmaster configuration.
Gary said they ran a small analysis at Google and found that of the HTTPS URLs eligible to be displayed in the Google search results, over 80% of them are not being displayed. Eligible HTTPS URLs include URLs that have no crawl issues, don’t contain the noindex and have no other problems. But because of how the webmaster configured the site, Google is being instructed to display the HTTP URL instead of the HTTPS URL.
Gary said the webmaster is using the HTTP variant in their sitemap files, in the rel-canonical and rel-alternate-hreflang elements instead of the HTTPS variant.
Google wants you to go HTTPS and even started months ago giving a small ranking benefit to HTTPS URLs. But still, many webmasters are not going HTTPS.
Gary from Google said:
If your site supports HTTPS, please do tell us: use HTTPS URLs everywhere so search engines can see them!An elephant escaped from a circus museum Friday morning and was caught roaming the streets of Baraboo, Wisconsin, according to multiple reports.
>> Read more trending news
The Sauk County Sheriff’s Office was called around 5 a.m. after the elephant was spotted wandering the neighborhood, WKOW reported.
Circus World elephant back home after getting loose in Baraboo neighborhood #WKOW https://t.co/OnAY50iphO pic.twitter.com/YzvLH6glRX — WKOW 27 (@WKOW) June 30, 2017
The elephant had gotten loose from Circus World, WMTV reported, a museum dedicated to circus-related history. The complex hosts live circus performances over the summer and is home to Ringlingville, the original wintering grounds of the Ringling Brothers Circus.
ELEPHANT IN BARBOO: An elephant was wandering through a neighborhood Friday morning. https://t.co/ZuaJX32oA7 pic.twitter.com/8ZdAGc9Gch — nbc15_madison (@nbc15_madison) June 30, 2017
Authorities called circus trainers on Friday morning, and the elephant was returned to Circus World around 5:45 a.m., WMTV reported.Receiving wage payments should be easy, and we at Bitwage think living in this new digital world–in which earning a wage is an integral part—everything should be a fast, transparent, seamless, and secure experience.
That’s why we have been continuously working to make Bitwage more accessible to all of our users. As you may already know, our Bitwage Payroll services for Individuals (BPI) enables anyone, whether you are an employee or an independent contractor, to receive wages through our service without your employer or client signing up.
Given the success of our Wage Payments platform in the US and abroad, we wanted to illustrate how easy international & domestic wage payments could be in Europe by offering our service to individuals. This is why we are excited to announce the launch of our Bitwage Payroll service for Individuals (BPI) in Europe. Now, you can accept Euro wages through European bank accounts provided to you by Bitwage while living anywhere in the world.
Bitwage Payroll for Individuals
BPI allows individuals to receive their wage in a variety of outputs including Euros, Gold, Silver, Bitcoin, 20+ other national currencies or even a Euro denominated debit card with as fast as same or next day payout speed. BPI is compatible with any existing payroll systems like Intuit, ADP, Bill.com, Gusto, TriNet and freelance marketplaces like Upwork. Users can even track their funds like fedex packages, knowing when the funds were sent and where they are during transmission.
This is why employees from Google, Airbnb, Facebook, the World Health Organization, and Uber are receiving their salary through Bitwage. Users can select if they want to receive part or all of their wage through Bitwage and manage their account through our Android, iOS or web application.
With BPI, receiving international contractor payments is as easy as receiving a domestic transfer. Here is how it works:
We give you a US or EU bank account number depending on your client/employer's location. You invoice your client/employer using that bank account information (tell your employer or payroll provider to send any percentage of your payroll to that account). You get Digital or Local Currency on the Next Day after Deposit.
Isn’t that simple?
By using Bitwage Payroll for Individuals to accept the payments in the EU, you are reducing costs for both you and your employer, and having whatever asset(s) you choose sent straight to your digital wallet, debit card, or bank account.
“Bitwage is the best option since it doesn't require the client to create any kind of account, they can simply pay it using Wire or ACH as they've been done their entire life. The process is also really quick since it takes about just 2 business days to make the payment appear in my account. The fact that you guys don't put an initial transfer limit value is really a huge upside specially when it comes to companies that usually need to handle big amounts of money.”
Cheesecake Labs
As we introduce BPI to Europe, we will initially be keeping BPI and Automatic Zero-Click Payrolls with zero fees. Although, charges may apply for features such as non-automatic payrolls with Wire as well as 1099 Filings.
“In 2015, the European Union had a higher GDP than the United States. With our launch in the European Union, contractors and freelancers all over the world will have a much easier way to receive their wages abroad from one of the largest economic zones in the world. All without the friction involved in trying to convince clients to change their payment solutions.”
Jonathan Chester, Founder, and President
-Team Bitwage
Photo via Michał Paluchowski(updated below — Update II) Hours after a new poll revealed that he’s trailing Ted Cruz in Iowa, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump issued a statement advocating “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our representatives can figure out what’s going on.” His spokesperson later clarified that this exclusion even includes Muslim-American citizens who are currently outside the U.S. On first glance, it seems accurate to view this, in the words of The Guardian, as “arguably the most extreme proposal to come from any U.S. presidential candidate in decades.” Some comfortable journalists, however, quickly insisted that people were overreacting. “Before everyone gives up on the republic, remember that not even a single American has yet cast a vote for Trump,” said New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. The New York Daily News opinion page editor, Josh Greenman, was similarly blithe: “It’s a proposal to keep Muslims out of the U.S., made in a primary, being roundly condemned. We are a long way from internment camps.” Given that an ISIS attack in Paris just helped fuel the sweeping election victory of an actually fascist party in France, it’s a bit mystifying how someone can be so sanguine about the likelihood of a Trump victory in the U.S. In fact, with a couple of even low-level ISIS attacks successfully carried out on American soil, it’s not at all hard to imagine. But Trump does not need to win, or even get close to winning, for his rhetoric and the movement that he’s stoking to be dangerous in the extreme. Professional political analysts have underestimated Trump’s impact by failing to take into account his massive, long-standing cultural celebrity, which commands the attention of large numbers of Americans who usually ignore politics (which happens to be the majority of the population), which in turn generates enormous, highly charged crowds pulsating with grievance and rage. That means that even if he fails to win a single state, he’s powerfully poisoning public discourse about multiple marginalized minority groups: in particular, inciting and inflaming what was already volatile anti-Muslim animosity in the U.S.
FBI is investigating bloody pig's head left at Philadelphia mosque https://t.co/jwROcjur8U @NBCPhiladelphia — NBC News (@NBCNews) December 8, 2015
As The Atlantic’s Matt Ford put it yesterday, “The immediate danger isn’t Trump’s actual policy, but the bigotry and violence that it both legitimizes and encourages.” Muslim Americans (and, for that matter, Mexican-Americans and African-Americans) don’t have the luxury that people like Douthat and Greenman have to be so dismissive. That’s what Al Jazeera’s Sana Saeed meant when she said that she’s “tired of people telling us to not be afraid — Trump may not win but his words will last & there are people who support” the bile he’s spewing. All that said, it’s important not to treat Trump as some radical aberration. He’s essentially the American id, simply channeling pervasive sentiments unadorned with the typical diplomatic and PR niceties designed to prettify the prevailing mentality. He didn’t propose banning all Muslims from entering the U.S. because it’s grounded in some fringe, out-of-the-mainstream ideas. He proposed it in part to commandeer media attention so as to distract attention away from his rivals and from that latest Iowa poll, but he also proposed it because he knows there is widespread anti-Muslim fear and hatred in the U.S. Whatever else you want to say about him, Trump is a skillful entertainer, and good entertainers — like good fascist demagogues — know their audience. Trump’s proposal yesterday, though a new low, is not that far afield from what other credible GOP presidential candidates previously proposed. Jeb Bush previously urged that the U.S. be wary of Syrian Muslim refugees but eagerly accept “proven Christians.” Ted Cruz advocated an outright ban on Syrian Muslim refugees and then introduced a bill to bar refugees from multiple predominantly Muslim countries unless they’re Christians. Ben Carson argued that no Muslim could be president because their beliefs are anathema to constitutional principles. Those proposals are more limited than what Trump advocated yesterday, but they’re hardly in a different universe; they’re grounded in the same principle that Muslims are uniquely dangerous and antithetical to American values. Lest liberals become self-satisfied about all this, this obsession with demonizing Muslims is by no means confined to the GOP presidential field. Residing — or so they claim — outside the far-right and Fox News swamps, there’s a sprawling cottage industry of pundits, academics, authors, TV hosts, think tanks, and “anti-extremist” activist groups devoted primarily to one idea: that Islam is supremely dangerous and Muslims pose the greatest threat. Beloved Democratic Gen. Wesley Clark, while on MSNBC earlier this year, explicitly called for “camps” for radicalized American Muslims. CNN’s role in all this is legion. These are the people who have laid the rancid intellectual groundwork in which Trump and his movement are now festering. Just yesterday, the Daily Beast’s supremely loyal Democratic partisan columnist Michael Tomasky — who in 2013 instructed us all to celebrate the Egyptian military coup of the brutal tyrant Abdel Fattah al-Sisi because it got rid of the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood — repulsively demanded that American Muslims first prove they are loyal and can be trusted before they are “given” their rights. Praising Obama (as always), this time for saying that religious fundamentalism is “a real problem that Muslims must confront, without excuse,” Tomasky wrote: “If anything Obama should have been more emphatic about this. He should now go around to Muslim communities in Detroit and Chicago and the Bay Area and upstate New York and give a speech that tells them: If you want to be treated with less suspicion, then you have to make that happen. That would be real leadership, and a real service.” The liberal pundit added, “That doesn’t mean just reading them their rights. It also means reading them their responsibilities.” The imposition of this sort of collective responsibility — telling Muslims, as CNN anchors did after the Paris attacks, that they are all legitimately regarded with suspicion when individual Muslims engage in violence — is unthinkable for almost any other group. Indeed, it’s the defining hallmark of bigotry: imputing the bad acts of individuals to all members of a group or to the group itself. But it’s commonplace when it comes to discussions of Muslims. It’s not hard to see why this demagoguery is so effective, why it spreads so easily and rapidly. Tribalism is a potent component of human nature, one of the most primitive and instinctive drives. Stoking it is and always has been easy. It’s particularly easy to do in an overwhelmingly Christian country that has spent 14 years and counting waging a relentless, seemingly endless war in predominantly Muslim countries and that touts Israel as its closest ally. Numerous factions have all sorts of lurking incentives to demonize Muslims as the greatest menace, and Trump has simply become an unusually unrestrained vehicle for expressing all of that and an unusually aggressive exploiter of it, but he is not its creator nor its prime mover. All of this preexists Trump’s candidacy and is fueled by a wide array of groups with all sorts of cultural, religious, ideological, financial, and tribalistic motives for isolating and demonizing Muslims. Trump is not an outlier, and it’s dangerous to treat him as one. As for the American media, I hope nobody harbors any hope that they’re going to be some sort of backstop preventing the emergence of dangerous extremism. They simply do not see that as their role. For most of them, a posture of “neutrality” and “opinion-free” blankness are the highest values. Here, for instance, was CNN anchor and dynastic prince Chris Cuomo last night vehemently scorning the suggestion that the U.S. media has any role to play in sounding the alarm bells on Trump’s growing fascism:
So the media should strike him down for making a suggestion that perhaps offends certain sensibilities? https://t.co/2AxRlKUOs7 — Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) December 8, 2015
In Cuomo’s TV journalism-trained mind, Trump’s call for the complete exclusion of all Muslims from the U.S. is nothing more than “a suggestion that perhaps offends certain sensibilities,” and it’s not for him or other journalists to “strike him down.” When people objected, he said: “Characterize? Hmm. Test him on the implications, bring on other opinions and analyze the potential … that’s the job.” In response to an angry individual denouncing Trump’s extremism, Cuomo added (emphasis added): “Absolutely. That’s your role in voting. Accept and reject. Your role, not mine.” Here’s what Mark Halperin — whose little-watched Bloomberg TV show was just picked up by an increasingly desperate MSNBC — had to say about Trump’s announcement:
Whatever happens, this is an historic day in the history of the @realDonaldTrump campaign. — Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) December 8, 2015Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and opinions. That's why each and every week, we turn to you, to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he responds to your reader questions!
Q: Thanks to his appearance in LEGO Batman 2, my children are asking me to explain Hush to them. How do I do this? -- @jason1749
A: I'm not a parent, and it's pretty rare that I'm called upon to answer a question about raising a child, but I can definitely understand the problem you're facing here. No father should ever have to explain a terrible Batman story to his child. But sometimes, I guess it just can't be avoided, and when your kids find out about Hush, it's up to you to take responsibility. As much as I enjoyed the game, I have to admit that it was pretty irresponsible of Traveller's Tales to include Hush as a playable character. I mean honestly, what kind of message does that send to our kids? That starring in one of the most overrated comic stories ever printed is something to be applauded or, even worse, emulated? It's no wonder these kids today are in such dire straits if that's the kind of message they're getting from so-called " family friendly " entertainment. I'm not usually one to romanticize the past, but it really does make me long for the good old days where Batman games were built around more respectable characters, like psychopathic mass-murdering clowns, horrifically scarred schizophrenics or kleptomaniac dominatrices.
But I guess what's done is done. As much as we'd all like to protect children from knowing that Hush exists, he does, and they were bound to find out sooner or later. It may actually be better that it happens this way. You have the chance to be involved, and the last thing you want is for your kids to be learning about Hush on the street -- or, God forbid, from Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee's original story. That said, it does present quite a few problems, and for most of it, you're going to be on your own. I do, however, have a few tips.
[ Editors' Note : We probably don't even have to say this, but please do not follow Chris Sims's advice for raising your children. He does not have great ideas about parenthood. ]
First of all, don't lie to your kids. As tempting as it might be to avoid a tricky subject by making things up, the trade-off is potentially losing their trust when they inevitably find out the truth. They're young now, but in a few years, they'll be coming home with questions about all kinds of comics, and you need them to be able to trust you when you tell them things like "there are only 12 issues of Watchmen, no more."
Besides, pretty much anything you make up about that dude is going to sound way better than he actually is. Seriously, if you tried to explain Hush just by looking at him and his goofy outfit of constant facial bandages and Gambit-esque collar-popped trenchcoat?
You would most likely end up with "Hush is a hard-boiled private eye who is also a pharaoh, preserved through the art of mummification and animated by an ancient curse," and that actually sounds pretty awesome. There's no way your kids aren't going to want to find out more about that guy, and down that road lies only misery.
At the same time, you don't really want to tell the whole truth, either. Presumably, your kids' curiosity is a sign that they like Batman, a very natural and healthy opinion to have. But at such a young age, affection for Batman is a very delicate balance, and if you actually tell them that Hush is an evil super-surgeon who hated Batman because Batman's dad accidentally didn't let Hush kill his own mom, and so Hush decided to get his revenge through a combination of plastic surgery, neurosurgery, whatever kind of doctoring it is that fixes up a mute hunchback, dressing up as a dead Robin and whispering menacingly for an entire year, all while actually just sidekicking for the Riddler? They'll probably run screaming from the entire franchise, and with good reason. And that's before you get to the story where Hush performs plastic surgery on himself (?!) to look just like Bruce Wayne and then literally steals Catwoman's heart from her chest and keeps it in a jar for a few weeks, which for some reason does not kill her at all because he was able to build "Apokolips-level technology" in his spare time:
When you're dealing with a stack of hot garbage like that, full disclosure really isn't going to help matters. If that's the case, then you're going to have to figure out how to tell them just enough to satisfy their curiosity, but not so much that they realize the depths of awfulness that we're dealing with here. It's a very delicate balance, and it's going to be tough to pull off.
My advice would be to keep it simple. Leave out the patricidal origin, the stuff with Harold and Two-Face, the Jason Todd fake-out, and pretty much any details of Hush that were done better in other comics -- by which I mean all of them. Go ahead and ditch the "Heart of Hush" part, too; as resoundingly stupid as that story was on the page, a quick summary sounds a little too much like Crank 2 Starring Catwoman, which would be fantastic. Also, if you haven't already, let your kids watch Crank 2. It's a very educational film.
[ Editors' Note: Again, Chris's advice on parenting should not be taken by anyone, ever. ]
Depending on how inquisitive they are and whether you're at a point in the game where you can just move on to explaining Ra's al-Ghul or Killer Moth, you might be able to get away with something as simple as "He's an evil doctor who worked as one of the Riddler's henchmen for a little while."
If you can pull it off, there are a lot of advantages to going this route. For one thing, it's mostly true! Hush is, in fact, an evil doctor, and not only does that give you an out for explaining those dumb bandages on his head (you're on your own for the trenchcoat), but evil doctors show up in comics by the truckload! There are like twenty-six of them in that game! Lumping Tommy Elliot in with a bunch of interesting characters in the same line of work makes him a lot less distinctive. Plus, that phrasing shifts the focus away from Hush and onto the Riddler, who is awesome.
Really, it's all in your delivery. You may want to practice with a spouse or another adult that you can trust with a sensitive subject like Hush. Be prepared to handle any follow-up questions, and if it comes down to it, you may just have to break down and have a frank discussion with your kids about bad storytelling and what happens when melodramatic pastiches go wrong.
In the end, they'll thank you, even though they may not like learning that Hush exists. Lord knows I didn't.
That's all we have for this week, but if you've got a question you'd like to see Chris tackle in a future column, just send it to @theisb on Twitter with the hashtag #AskChris, or send an email to chris@comicsalliance.com with [Ask Chris] in the subject line!Some speed camera controversy in College Park, Maryland. Hundreds of drivers were ticketed but it turns out thanks to I-Team Investigator Scott Taylor more than 600 of you are getting those tickets thrown out of court.
This all has to do with a speed limit sign and a speed camera that just wasn’t in the right place and now College Park is out more than $27,000 in fines.
Our Scott Taylor got a tip from one of his sources something odd was happening along Baltimore Avenue in College Park, Maryland.
Last September, a speed camera appeared to be ticketing drivers in a 25 mph zone but the camera was actually focused in a 30 mph zone.
Five drivers disputed the tickets and the City of College Park dismissed their tickets citing drivers might have been confused over the placement of an old 25 mph speed limit sign.
The old 25 mph speed limit sign use to be farther down Baltimore Avenue than it is now, and the old speed camera was a mobile unit on the ground down the street near a corner with its focus pointing into a 30 mph zone before the 25 mph speed limit sign.
Turns out it meant 685 drivers were wrongly ticketed.
Five miles per hour can be critical plus the speed camera |
antibodies. Yablon explained these can be prepared from a piece of a live, weakened virus or a killed virus. Vaccines can also be developed from bacterial protein that can also trigger an immune response.
“The goal of that is that you get the immunity, but you don’t have the disease,” Yablon explained. This gives the advantage of developing an “immune memory” before you are exposed to an infection. The vaccine doesn’t provide immunity in-and-of-itself; it prompts your body to develop an immune response. Many of the recommended childhood vaccines are for diseases that can cause death or permanent disability.
The audience was then presented a round of slides showing pictures of people suffering from the diseases that these vaccines are intended to prevent. Many people in the audience were eating or had just finished eating. There were more than a few downward stares or turned heads during this part of the presentation. Pictures of babies suffering from measles was unpleasant, but images of children with skin lesions caused by diphtheria were downright uncomfortable. (You can look at the images by downloading the presentation slides here. After dinner)
The main crux of Yablon’s presentation was that the diseases we’re encouraged to vaccinate children from are very serious. More serious is the case of children who are unable to be vaccinated because of an allergic reaction or other medical condition. These children (and later, adults) depend on the “herd immunity” provided by the people around them who have already been vaccinated. But as some groups, for one reason or another, have made the decision to not vaccinate their children, the U.S. and Alaska have seen outbreaks of diseases that should have been preventable.
One of the most recent measles outbreaks in the U.S. was in Juneau, Alaska in 1996. Many of the children in the 63 confirmed cases had had a single measles vaccination, but not the recommended second dose. Since that incident, Alaska now requires children to have two measles vaccinations before being admitted to public school. Yablon said there were many common reasons for parents not following the recommended vaccination schedule, ranging from busy schedules to low parental education to a lack of available health structures. He explained that fears or skepticism over vaccinations was a factor for some, but despite media sensationalism, the more prominent barriers to timely childhood vaccinations tend to have more to do with socioeconomic status and healthcare access.
“[referring to the image to the right] This is a large school district in Alaska, and this is a graph that shows the vaccination coverage rates plotted against their age. Coverage, you know, the higher the better, right at the top. And the reason it looks like that, with the steps, that first line is how many people got their first vaccine when they were supposed to, so between the age of three months and five months, did they have one dose? Between five and seven months did they have two doses? Between seven and 15 months did they have three doses? And then later at 16 months or later did they have the fourth vaccine? And so you can see in this school district that most people get vaccinated. And so, over 90 percent were vaccinated with that first dose, when they should have been at some point. Later on, you sort of have attrition and you lose the numbers. And then when you break that down by socioeconomic markers and you look at the children in blue who are higher socioeconomic status, not on school lunch, and then the purple, the children who have lower socioeconomic status who qualify for free or reduced school lunch, you see that there is a very large disparity between those two groups. It’s about 11 percent disparity. And so what this practically means is that within Alaska there are going ot be subgroups and subsets where the herd immunity is different. And that the socioeconomic status in Alaska and nationally are still an issue when we talk about vaccine coverage.”
It’s important to keep these socioeconomic challenges in mind when discussing vaccination rates, and letting the conversation focus on people who choose intentionally not to vaccinate allows the more urgent problems of access and education to be ignored.Text size
It’s not official yet, but it seems certain: The Republican Party is a house divided against itself. In its early days, Abraham Lincoln recalled the words of Mark’s Gospel and warned that the nation divided could not stand. These days, the warning is true of Lincoln’s party.
The Republican Party could go the way of the Labour party in the United Kingdom in 1979: After choosing radicals to lead them, party members cheerfully turned their backs on their moderate colleagues.
Working with the traditional third party, the Liberals, the Labour moderates turned the U.K. over to Margaret Thatcher. Although Thatcher was very good for the country’s economy, her opponents would not recognize her successes. They denounced her over and over again and suffered three defeats. Thatcher never won a majority of the nation’s votes but held majorities of the seats in Parliament from 1979 to 1990.
Labour’s losers blamed the British electoral system, known by the scornful term “first past the post” because each seat is awarded to the candidate receiving the greatest number of votes, even if that’s not a majority. The chattering classes of London considered Thatcher’s economic and social reforms to be illegitimate, never minding that Labour’s previous reforms had been installed the same way.
The U.S. has the same system. Nearly all of the time it works smoothly, because just two major parties contest presidential and congressional elections.
Now comes the possibility of a third party.
Over decades, bitter partisans have labeled the Republican Party the “Stupid Party.” Unfortunately, most of these bitter partisans are Republicans who cannot understand how their party fails so often to capture the votes of a majority of Americans.
Some blame the party leadership for favoring wishy-washy candidates just because they can get elected. They want “a choice, not an echo,” even if the echo is more popular. Others blame allegedly stupid candidates for saying allegedly stupid things, especially about the people they need to win over to build majorities. This year, they are thinking of Donald Trump.
Both U.S. political parties have long records of success when they fudge their differences and try to please as many voters as possible. When both parties work like that, we have close elections and often get divided government. The parties enjoy special success when the opposition is attempting to purge a faction. The saving grace after such landslides is that the losing party comes to value discipline more than purity.
The election of 2016 may not have any such saving grace after the campaign turned to Trump’s using offensive language to brag about sexual conquests that may have been sexual assaults. Although he had said much the same things in books and interviews, a revealing and repulsive video leaked on Sept. 30 was the last straw for many grudging Trump endorsers, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan.
“It’s every person for himself or herself right now,” said former Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. “The nominee for president is so destructive to everyday Republicans.”
Trump declared last week in a tweet that defecting Republican officeholders and contributors had liberated him to “fight for America the way I want to.” Inspired by that, some of his supporters defected from the defectors, refusing to support Republican candidates for Congress who don’t back Trump.
A prime example was Diana Orrock, a member of the Republican National Committee from Nevada, who withdrew her support for the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Nevada, heedless of the importance of that race to continuing Republican control of the Senate. The same sort of thing is happening in other close Senate races, where Republican candidates know they can’t win without Trump and doubt they can win with him.
Trump sounded almost gleeful in another tweet: “So many self-righteous hypocrites. Watch their poll numbers—and elections—go down!”
It’s difficult to imagine Trump getting such a wish and also winning the White House if local races are dragging the ticket down. It’s even harder to imagine him governing with congressional members of both parties more hostile to him than Republicans have been to Barack Obama. But it’s easy to imagine Trump as an embittered loser loudly dividing the party for years to come.
Editorial page editor Thomas G. Donlan receives e-mail at tg.donlan@barrons.com
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Follow Barron’s on TwitterGuus Hiddink believes Diego Costa will channel his emotions and make a positive impact over the second half of Chelsea’s season, and the striker will lead the line in the interim manager’s first game in charge against Watford on Boxing Day.
Costa’s contribution was so significant when the London club claimed the title in his first season in English football, but he has been a snarling presence too often in this campaign. The forward has contributed only seven goals for club and country since mid-January, twice incurring retrospective suspensions from the Football Association for incidents on the field. He publicly argued with José Mourinho on the stroke of half-time in the Champions League win over Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Chelsea fans boo their own players in win over Sunderland Read more
The Spain international was left out of the games against Tottenham Hotspur, when he flung his bib petulantly towards the coaching staff after completing a half-hearted touchline warm-up, and Bournemouth, and he was one of those singled out for catcalls in last Saturday’s win over Sunderland.
“I’ve worked with him a few days and in the past I’ve seen him on television a few times,” said Hiddink of the £32m signing from Atlético Madrid. “What I experienced in the last few days, and with the last game I watched last weekend, he was in control.
“He was focused more on what he is hired for here, which is to help to score or assist and not go into ‘other’ things. I think he was well controlled when I experienced him over the last days. I cannot have any complaints about him. I think he can focus on what he is able to do. I cannot guarantee there won’t be an outburst from him, or from other players, but they have to focus on what they’re good at.”
Hiddink is aware of Costa’s disciplinary issues and his aggressive style but can empathise with his frustration at being left out under Mourinho, who was sacked last week. “Diego is clearly an emotional guy and there was something with a bib which I read about, too,” he said. “But I understand that [frustration]. I remember a long time ago when I was a player, captaining my club team, and I was subbed. I wasn’t used to that, which is why it’s still fixed in my brain even though it was just after the second world war …
“The manager substituted me at half-time saying I hadn’t done well enough. I thought I’d performed OK so I ripped off my armband and threw it at him: ‘You make a new captain.’ It was also an emotional reaction born of frustration. What Diego did was a sign of frustration. Sportsmen are allowed to show a bit of emotion but they must know, five or 10 seconds later, that they were wrong.”
Hiddink still hopes to secure Didier Drogba’s release from his contract with Major League Soccer and Montreal Impact to take up a role, nominally as a mentor, in his coaching staff. The Ivorian is credited with making a major impact on Eden Hazard last season when the Belgian swept all before him. The playmaker has not managed a goal for Chelsea since Drogba left for Canada and will require a late fitness test on the hip injury sustained against Leicester, Mourinho’s final game in charge, before determining whether he can play against Watford.
The champions begin Boxing Day 11 points behind the Champions League places and only three above the relegation zone, though Hiddink has stressed to his players they can still finish in the top four. “The target is still to get into fourth position because, mathematically, it’s possible,” he said. “If the target is impossible, don’t set it. But I did put that to them when I spoke to my squad at Cobham on Tuesday.
“After that it’s the Champions League. Then the FA Cup. So two or three targets still to go. On top of that, or as a foundation of that, the players must show now what they’re capable of. If you do that then, slowly, you can achieve those targets.”Get this one: Halloween mask sales predictor says incumbent will beat Kerry in November.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Forget about the guesswork from the political pundits and ignore all those election polls. The real key to predicting the outcome of the presidential election is this year's face-off of the Halloween masks. It's as unscientific as it gets, but the theory, according to some people in the costume business, is that the winner in every election since 1980 has been the candidate whose masks were most popular on Halloween. So far this year, Bush masks have been outselling those of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry by a 57 percent to 43 percent margin, according to one outfit, BuyCostumes.com, the online arm of Wisconsin-based costume marketer Buyseasons Inc. BuyCostumes.com says Halloween sales figures from manufacturers, national store chains and its own efforts have accurately picked the last six presidential elections. So does this mean W. gets a second term in office? "It hasn't failed us yet," Daniel Haight, chief operating officer at Buyseasons, said in an interview. "The masks are a great way for people to express their political leanings at a Halloween party or at a political gathering." Haight declined to disclose just how many Bush and Kerry masks the company has sold so far, saying only that several thousand had been sold of each candidate. The company's most popular presidential mask? That of former president Ronald Reagan in 1984, Haight said. "Bill Clinton masks are still very popular and masks of Bush cabinet members such as Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell are also gaining popularity." "As a company, we're neutral in terms of affiliation," Haight said. "We're just having lots of fun with the mask predictor. We're not here to influence people one way or the other on how to vote. We want the customer to influence the outcome through their wallets."in June 2013
before taking off on their Summer Holiday.
From the Abstract: (my emphasis)
In contrast to Arctic sea ice, average Antarctic sea ice area is not retreating but has slowly increased since satellite measurements began in 1979. While most climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) archive simulate a decrease in Antarctic sea ice area over the recent past, whether these models can be dismissed as being wrong depends on more than just the sign of change compared to observations. We show that internal sea ice variability is large in the Antarctic region, and both the observed and modeled trends may represent natural variations along with external forcing. While several models show a negative trend, only a few of them actually show a trend that is significant compared to their internal variability on the time scales of available observational data. Furthermore, the ability of the models to simulate the mean state of sea ice is also important. The representations of Antarctic sea ice in CMIP5 models have not improved compared to CMIP3 and show an unrealistic spread in the mean state that may influence future sea ice behavior. Finally, Antarctic climate and sea ice area will be affected not only by ocean and air temperature changes but also by changes in the winds. The majority of the CMIP5 models simulate a shift that is too weak compared to observations. Thus, this study identifies several foci for consideration in evaluating and improving the modeling of climate and climate change in the Antarctic region.
If Prof Chris Turney had used real world data instead of climate models, he and his team might not have set off on a wild goose chase.
Mahlstein, I., Gent, P.R. and Solomon, S. 2013. Historical Antarctic mean sea ice area, sea ice trends, and winds in CMIP5 simulations.
: 5105-5110.
What was learned
Quoting the three researchers, "the representations of Antarctic sea ice in CMIP5 models have not improved compared to CMIP3," in that "the spread in sea ice area is not reduced compared to the previous models." Most important of all, however, was their finding that whereas most CMIP5 climate models "simulate a decrease in Antarctic sea ice over the recent past," real-world data demonstrate that the "average Antarctic sea ice area is not retreating but has slowly increased since satellite measurements began in 1979."
What it means
It is difficult for a climate model to be more wrong than when it hind-casts just the opposite of what has been observed to be happening over the past three and a half decades in the real world, which is what most of the CMIP5 models apparently do.
Perhaps the characters from the University of NSW should have read Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 118 Journal of Geophysical Research: AtmospheresNote: this is Part 1 of a three part series. See also Part 2, and Part 3.
Introduction
“We can share the women, we can share the wine.
We can share what we got of yours, ‘cos we done shared all of mine.”
So begins the Grateful Dead’s signature murder ballad, “Jack Straw”. As a neophyte to the Dead’s music in high school, I naively thought these lines spoke to the hippie ethos at the core of the band’s being. Then, eventually, I listened to the words! Well folks, it ain’t about pleasure cruising boys and their sexist ideas of free love. This is a ballad proper.
Jack Straw utters these words to his “old buddy” Shannon, and we soon see why. The two are on the run, presumably escaped prisoners, and their story unfolds under the hot July sun of the American desert southwest during what seems to be the Great Depression. Jack dreams of hopping a train out of Santa Fe and finding an anonymous life somewhere far away. Shannon doesn’t dream at all and is instead motivated by violent instinct. He kills a watchman for four bucks and is more interested in settling an old score in Tulsa than in finding freedom. This troubles Jack deeply and keeps the duo moving and insecure. In the end… well, I already told you – it’s a murder ballad!
“Jack Straw from Wichita cut his buddy down.
He dug for him a shallow grave and laid his body down
half a mile from Tuscon by the morning light.
One man gone and another to go…”
The Song
The Grateful Dead never released a studio version of “Jack Straw”. But they introduced the song into their repertoire on October 19, 1971 and it stayed there, but for one short absence, until their last tour in the summer of 1995. The performance on their epic live triple album Europe ’72 was my ‘gateway’ to the song, and such is probably true for many. But for all its greatness, that recording is only a snapshot. They performed it nearly five hundred times in 24 years.
The video below is from their show on July 9, 1989 at Giants Stadium, and is very much an inspired performance. The Spotify link below it is the classic track from Europe ’72, from their show on May 3rd at Olympia Theatre, Paris.
Grateful Dead – “Jack Straw” Europe ’72 (Spotify)
“Jack Straw” Lyrics – from The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics by David Dodd
Pegging this song to a moment in time is easy compared to some of the others we’ve covered in this blog. The Dead’s long-time lyricist Robert Hunter penned the tune with rhythm guitarist Bob Weir likely sometime in late 1970 or early 1971. Hunter even posted an early manuscript online! (If you click on the image, it should be large enough to read.)
Hunter is well-known for saying little about the meaning of his songs as written, preferring instead to let listeners find their own interpretations of his work. This essay is an interesting aside on that point.
However, Weir declared that the song was inspired in part by Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. I don’t know when he first revealed this, but a comment of his in 2004, recorded and posted by David Gans in this thread on The WELL, makes it clear enough. An interview by David Cavanagh in 2007 with Weir, for Uncut magazine, removes all doubt and adds some detail.
“I don’t watch much TV, but one night I was home, it was late, and an old version of Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men came on. I was mesmerized. We were coming out of the Workingman’s Dead phase, and Hunter had this lyric. I grabbed it, and we came with a little sketch of heartland Americana, a ballad about two ne’er-do-wells. It was patterned on Of Mice And Men, but we tried to put a twist or two on it. Same story, different context.”
So we can identify the origin and *some* of the inspiration (note that Hunter had the seed of the song before Weir “grabbed” it) for this totally fictional tale of a desperate murder. You’ll judge for yourself whether or not it makes depth, but this song is clearly not pastiche balladry like the Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon“. Neither is it simply an homage to Steinbeck or a reworking of Of Mice and Men, as I’ll observe in my mid-week post. Indeed, it functions well as a post-modern murder ballad, albeit differently than the other examples we’ve considered thus far in this blog. I’ll explore that at the end of the week, as well as to offer my own humble interpretation of the lyrics. (You think I’m going to let Bob Weir tell me what the song’s about?)
From One Voice to Two
It’s often noted that “Jack Straw” is a song in two voices, like the ancient murder ballad “Edward“. This is critical, though not because of the comparison. Jerry Garcia gave voice to Shannon and Bob Weir channeled Jack. The narrative passages and some other key lines were usually harmonized by the two, and with others in the band depending on the lineup. But the key conversation in the ballad was shared by Jerry and Bobby. It seems like it was crafted that way; it feels natural and keeps the song in graceful balance.
Yet, it’s also been often noted that this was not the original way the song was delivered on stage. Weir originally sang all of both characters’ bits solo. I don’t have all of the recordings in my bootleg collection to prove it, but I can’t find any performance before the one on May 3rd from Europe ’72 where Garcia sings in Shannon’s voice. I believe it’s the first.
Here is a performance of the song from Copenhagen, on April 17, 1972. Weir handles all lead vocals and, though it’s cool to watch and the playing is good, the song just doesn’t work as well..
I wonder what conversation happened to inspire them to change their approach. Maybe Hunter heard it that way when he started writing it, but the occasionally stubborn Weir heard it differently and just took awhile to come around. Maybe it evolved as an idea over time as the power of the song came into focus for the band on the Europe ’72 tour, and they decided finally to try it in Paris on May 3. (They go back to the old way the next night, but that seems to be the last example.) Maybe it was something unique about being in Germany (where they were for the two weeks between this show on April 17th and the one in Paris on May 3rd) that inspired someone to flash on the possibility and convince everyone to try it. Who knows?
It doesn’t matter why, really. It seems clear to me that the change to performance in two voices, whenever it happened and for whatever reason, was a breakthrough that allowed both Garcia and Weir to ‘inhabit’ the characters in the song. Ken and Shaleane have in this blog repeatedly noted this important dimension in many murder ballads. One singer couldn’t truly ‘be’ both Jack and Shannon, for himself or for the audience, and still have the song fire on all cylinders. Whether the Grateful Dead considered the change carefully or decided on it in a blaze of inspiration, there is no doubt that singing the song in two voices allowed it to come into its own. It must have made it more fun to perform as well, which in the end may have been the deciding factor!
Coda
You think I’m speculating recklessly about the effect Germany might have had on our fearless hippie horde? Nah. Check out Robert Hunter’s 1995 recollection included in the liner notes for the album Hundred Year Hall, a recording of part of the Grateful Dead show from April 26, 1972.After a controversial Super Bowl spot last year, GoDaddy will not be returning for Super Bowl 50 in February. It's part of the Web domain company's effort to reposition its marketing strategy.
"The Super Bowl has been a great platform for our domestic brand building," a GoDaddy rep said in an email statement. "It's done its job to get our name out there. Now, we can move beyond the generic megaphone of a Super Bowl campaign to a more targeted brand of marketing."
GoDaddy has run risqué ads during the Big Game every year since 2005—it launched in the late 1990s—including several memorable spots with Nascar driver Danica Patrick and supermodel Bar Refaeli.
Last year, the brand pulled its ad featuring a golden retriever puppy that falls off a truck and is sold to a new owner, spoofing Budweiser's popular "Puppy Love" Super Bowl commercials. The spot was removed from YouTube after critics panned it for making light of puppy mills.
Instead, GoDaddy and agency Barton F. Graf swapped in another spot, called "Working," about a small-business owner who decides to work instead of watching the Super Bowl with his friends.
According to a GoDaddy rep, the brand is moving on from the Super Bowl to targeted marketing geared toward small-business owners.
"As you've been tracking us over the past several months, you've seen us shifting away from high-level domestic brand awareness to a more personalized, data-driven marketing approach as we expand globally," GoDaddy said.
Just yesterday, the brand hired MEC as its first global marketing agency and also recently started working with TBWA.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 reportedly called 21st Century Fox Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch ahead of Disney’s announcement that it would purchase of much of his company to make sure the deal wouldn’t impact Fox News.
According to a New York Times report published Saturday, Trump made the call before news of the sale emerged earlier this month.
The president frequently watches Fox News and often tweets about the network’s coverage of his administration.
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Murdoch reportedly assured Trump that the network would not be impacted by the sale.
Fox News and Fox Business Network were not part of the $52.4 billion deal that Disney announced.
The White House told reporters last week that Trump made a congratulatory call to Murdoch on the deal.
"The president spoke with Rupert Murdoch earlier today, congratulated him on the deal and thinks that, to use one of the president's favorite words, that this could be a great thing for jobs," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
"And he certainly looks forward to and is hoping to see a lot more of those created."
The pair reportedly talk on the phone once a week, according to the Times.
Trump, a frequent viewer of cable news, has highlighted Fox News as a favorite. The Times reported earlier this month that Trump watches up to eight hours of television a day, a report Trump has denied.This year marks the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film franchise. To celebrate, the studios behind the longest running series in film history are releasing Bond 50, a special edition Blu-ray package that includes all 22 Bond films to date and over 130 hours of bonus features, and we couldn’t be more excited. In true Flavorpill fashion we’re honoring the world’s most dashing Brit licensed to kill’s cultural milestone by combining two of our very favorite things: super sexy secret agents and architecture. If you’re a fan of Bond then you know the design legacy of the films is as exotic and varied as the celebrated women who call themselves Bond Girls. What you may not know is the deep-seated relationship between design and the Bond character’s creator, Ian Fleming.
Legend has it, as The Guardian reports, that Fleming was an outspoken hater of modernism. So much so that he named one of his most evil villains after Erno Goldfinger, architect of London’s famed Trellick Tower. Apparently the architect was a neighbor of Fleming’s in Hampstead, and “the conservation-minded author was incensed when he demolished two Victorian houses to build his now-classic modern villas on Willow Road. He returned the insult by lending Goldfinger’s name to his fictional gold-loving megalomaniac.” It’s no accident that all of the Bond villains reside in modernist lairs with obvious influences from the likes of Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Chamberlin Powell & Bon, the firm responsible for what’s been deemed London’s ugliest building, the brutalist Barbican Center. Fleming openly admits the correlation and in doing so — we think — can officially lay claim to the greatest cerebral snub in pop culture history.
From John Lautner’s iconic mid-century masterpieces to the world’s first revolving mountaintop restaurant to a stunning observatory residence in the Chilean desert, here’s our roundup of some of the most incredible statement architecture featured in the franchise to date.
Festival House Bregenz by Dietrich and Untertrifaller, Bregenz, Austria — featured in Quantum of Solace
Image credit: Festspielhaus BregenzAstronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2017 February 23
Explanation: Seven worlds orbit the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, a mere 40 light-years away. In May 2016 astronomers using the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) announced the discovery of three planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. Just announced, additional confirmations and discoveries by the Spitzer Space Telescope and supporting ESO ground-based telescopes have increased the number of known planets to seven. The TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely all rocky and similar in size to Earth, the largest treasure trove of terrestrial planets ever detected around a single star. Because they orbit very close to their faint, tiny star they could also have regions where surface temperatures allow for the presence of liquid water, a key ingredient for life. Their tantalizing proximity to Earth makes them prime candidates for future telescopic explorations of the atmospheres of potentially habitable planets. All seven worlds appear in this artist's illustration, an imagined view from a fictionally powerful telescope near planet Earth. Planet sizes and relative positions are drawn to scale for the Spitzer observations. The system's inner planets are transiting their dim, red, nearly Jupiter-sized parent star.Bitcoin prices crossed $1,000, as the virtual currency continues its spectacular rise this year.
The price of one bitcoin has surged 78-fold in 2013 on hopes the experiment in digital money will eventually become a legitimate global currency. Prices hit a new peak of $1,044 in early trading Wednesday. One bitcoin was worth about $13 in January.
Bitcoin, which trades non-stop on the Mt. Gox exchange and other online markets, has been extremely volatile. It rose to what was then an all-time high of $900 earlier this month, only to fall back to $500 in the span of 28 hours.
Demand for bitcoin has been particularly strong in China, where the leading search engine, Baidu (BIDU), now accepts the currency for certain services.
In the United States, lawmakers have been examining potential regulations for bitcoin, which is the currency of choice on certain online markets for drugs and other illicit goods.
Federal authorities shut down the online drug bazaar Silk Road last month, though a new version of the market has resurfaced a few weeks later.
Bitcoin has received a measure of support from officials at the Federal Reserve, including chairman Ben Bernanke, who said the currency "may hold long-term promise" as part of the international payment system.
Some proponents say government regulation would be a positive for bitcoin, since it could lead to wider adoption of the currency. But others argue that bitcoin is decentralized by design and the government should leave well enough alone.
Related: 8 things you can buy with bitcoins right now
Investors say bitcoin is highly speculative, and should not exceed 1% of a portfolio. Many have compared bitcoin to a lottery ticket, saying it could be worth a lot, or nothing at all.
Bitcoin prices surged in April following an unprecedented bailout of the banking system in Cyprus, a move that led to concerns about the stability of European banks and the euro currency. But prices plunged in May in what many saw as the bursting of a bubble. Bitcoin traded in a range around $100 for most of the summer before the current rally kicked off in October.
Meanwhile, a growing number of businesses now accept bitcoins, ranging from some Subway sandwich shops to Richard Branson's commercial space travel venture, Virgin Galactic.
The program behind Bitcoin was created anonymously and introduced on the internet in 2010. Unlike traditional paper currencies, bitcoins are not managed by a central authority and exist only in cyberspace.
Bitcoins are "mined" by powerful computers that complete complex math problems. The total quantity of bitcoins is capped at 21 million, and about 12 million are currently in circulation, according to blockchain.info.Speaking at a town hall in Green Bay Wisconsin, President Barack Obama addressed head on what is the hot debate of the day: whether a health reform overhaul should include a public option for health insurance.
"I also strongly believe that one of the options in the exchange should be a public insurance option," Obama declared, in what was one of his most forceful statements of support since the health care debate began. "And the reason is not because we want a government takeover of health care. I've already said, if you've got a private plan that works for you, that's great. But we want some competition. If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and it will help keep their prices down."
The remarks came just several hours after the American Medical Association said it would oppose a public option for coverage. But in a reflection of just how delicate this debate has become, the 250,000 member physician group largely backtracked from its opposition later in the day.
"Make no mistake: health reform that covers the uninsured is AMA's top priority this year," a clarifying statement from the group read. "Every American deserves affordable, high-quality health care coverage.
"Today's New York Times story creates a false impression about the AMA's position on a public plan option in health care reform legislation. The AMA opposes any public plan that forces physicians to participate, expands the fiscally-challenged Medicare program or pays Medicare rates, but the AMA is willing to consider other variations of the public plan that are currently under discussion in Congress. This includes a federally chartered co-op health plan or a level playing field option for all plans. The AMA is working to achieve meaningful health reform this year and is ready to stand behind legislation that includes coverage options that work for patients and physicians."
While not directly addressing AMA's position on the public plan, the president did offer what seemed to be a subtle dig at the group's seemingly conflicting objectives. AMA's mission has been health care coverage for all, but it has also opposed every major attempt at a systematic overhaul since the FDR administration.
"Doctors didn't get into the medical profession to be bean counters or paper pushers," Obama said in his early remarks, underscoring the bureaucratic problems that exists in the status quo. "They are not interested in spending all their time acting like lawyers or business executives."
Later in the question and answer session, Obama directly addressed the political component of the debate over the public option, gently calling out critiques for misrepresenting the plan's objectives.
"Now, how this debate is evolving in Washington, unfortunately sometimes kinds of falls into the usual politics, right?" the President said. "So, what you've heard is some folks on the other side saying, I'm opposed to a public option because that's going to lead to government running your health care system. Now, I don't know how clearly I can say this, but let me try to repeat it. If you've got health insurance that you're happy with through the private sector, then we're not going to force you to do anything. All we're saying is for the 46 million people who don't have health insurance or for people who have got health insurance like you... let's change some of those incentives so that we get more people getting prevention, more people getting health care to keep them healthy as opposed to just treating them when they get sick. And I think that we can come up with a sensible, commonsense way that's not disruptive, that still has room for insurance companies and the private sector, but that does not put people in the position where they are potentially bankrupt every time they get sick."
The ability of the president to elevate himself above the usual political scrum proved monumentally valuable during the course of the campaign. His appearance at Green Bay on Thursday suggests that the Obama White House thinks it can apply this formula to the health care reform debate. The friendlier turf, they believe, is outside Washington.I love using Ubuntu. It’s easily my favorite Linux distribution. Sadly though, even in the most updated release of Ubuntu comes with the Firefox browser.
While some might not think of this as a problem, the fact of the matter is that it is considering the browser runs like cold snot on a winter’s day. It’s not very usable. The browser is so bad, that we STILL see users forced to make edits to the browser as apparently, Mozilla still can’t seems to get it right on this platform.
Speaking for myself, I am done dealing with Mozilla’s ability to offer a working version of Firefox for Linux. To combat this, I use Swiftfox. not only are the needed edits made for me already. I am also happy to see that it’s designed to meet with my CPU architecture, rather than just a vanilla solution. So does it run faster? In a word — YES. It’s just more stable, has less hanging and it’s the only version of Mozilla browsing I use. The alternative of course, is Chrome. Sadly, I cannot get over the lack of a URL pulldown, lack of File, Edit, View, etc. Not for me. |
the rule is a reason that France’s unemployment rate is more than double Germany’s rate of 5 percent.Vegetarian, vegan and raw diets can be healthful, probably far more healthful than the typical American diet. But to call these diets “natural” for humans is a bit of a stretch in terms of evolution, according to two recent studies.
Eating meat and cooking food made us human, the studies suggest, enabling the brains of our prehuman ancestors to grow dramatically over a few million years.
Although this isn’t the first such assertion from archaeologists and evolutionary biologists, the new studies demonstrate that it would have been biologically implausible for humans to evolve such a large brain on a raw, vegan diet and that meat-eating was a crucial element of human evolution at least a million years before the dawn of humankind.
Calories to grow our brains
At the core of this research is the understanding that the modern human brain consumes 20 percent of the body’s energy at rest, twice that of other primates. Meat and cooked foods were needed to provide the necessary calorie boost to feed a growing brain.
One study, published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined the brain size of several primates. For the most part, larger bodies have larger brains across species. Yet humans have exceptionally large, neuron-rich brains for our body size, while gorillas — three times as massive as humans — have smaller brains with one-third the neurons. Why?
Eating meat and cooking food enabled the brains of prehumans to grow dramatically over time. (Bigstock photo)
The answer, it seems, is the gorillas’ raw, vegan diet (devoid of animal protein), which requires hours upon hours of eating to provide enough calories to support their mass.
Researchers from Brazil, led by Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, calculated that adding neurons to the primate brain comes at a fixed cost of approximately six calories per billion neurons.
For gorillas to evolve a humanlike brain, they would need an additional 733 calories a day, which would require two more hours of feeding, the authors wrote. A gorilla already spends as much as 80 percent of the tropics’ 12 hours of daylight eating.
Similarly, early humans eating only raw vegetation would have needed to munch for more than nine hours a day to consume enough calories, the researchers calculated. Thus, a raw, vegan diet would have been unlikely, given the danger and other difficulties of gathering so much food.
Cooking makes more foods edible year-round and releases more nutrients and calories from both vegetables and meat, Herculano-Houzel said.
“The bottom line is, it is certainly possible to survive on an exclusively raw diet in our modern day, but it was most likely impossible to survive on an exclusively raw diet when our species appeared,” Herculano-Houzel told LiveScience.
The study puts an upper limit on how big a brain is able to grow while on a premodern raw, vegan diet. But the researchers could not determine when daily cooking began. Was it about 250,000 years ago, when humans were nearly fully evolved with big brains, which is supported by archaeological findings? Or was it about 800,000 years ago, when prehumans began their most dramatic brain-growth spurt, an era for which there is little archaeological evidence of controlled fires for cooking?
Meet the meat-eater
If cooking wasn’t routine before the dawn of modern humans, eating meat certainly was.
The second study, published in October the journal PLoS ONE, examined the remains of a prehuman toddler who died from malnutrition about 1.5 million years ago. Shards of a skull found in modern-day Tanzania reveal that the child had porotic hyperostosis, a type of spongy bone growth associated with low levels of dietary iron and vitamins B 9 and B 12, the result of a diet lacking animal products in a species that requires them.
The child was around the weaning age. So either the child’s mother’s breast milk lacked key nutrients or the child himself did not consume enough nutrients directly from meat or eggs.
Either way, the finding implies that meat must have been an integral, and not sporadic, element of the prehuman diet more than 1 million years ago, said the study’s lead author, Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo, an archaeologist at Complutense University in Madrid.
This supports the theory that meat fueled human brain evolution because meat — from arachnids to zebras — was plentiful on the African savanna, where humans evolved, and is the best package of calories, proteins, fats and Vitamin B 12 needed for brain growth and maintenance.
“Carnivore animals, whether terrestrial or aquatic, are bigger-brained than herbivores,” Dominguez-Rodrigo told LiveScience. He added that “there is no [traditional] society that live as vegans,” essentially because it wouldn’t be possible to get Vitamin B 12, which is only available in animal products.
Vegetables still healthful
Both sets of researchers said their conclusion — that cooked food and meat were necessary for human brain development — is not a statement of how the human diet must have been but rather how it likely was in order to make humans “human.”
With supermarkets and refrigeration, humans today can and increasingly do eat a vegetarian or vegan diet year-round. And given the amount of heart-stopping saturated fats in factory-produced animal products, a plant-based diet can be more healthful.
Yet both extremes of the meat argument — the unapologetic meat-eater and the raw vegan — should remember that few of today’s so-called natural foods were around as little as a few hundred years ago, from the modern invention called corn-fed beef to genetically altered strains of Queen Anne’s lace called the carrot.
There are many reasons to go vegetarian, go vegan and even go raw, but evolution isn’t one of them.
Wanjek is the author of “Hey, Einstein!,” a comical nature-vs.-nurture tale about raising clones of Albert Einstein in less than ideal settings. His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.
7 Perfect Survival Foods
6 Foods That Are Good for the Brain
Top 10 Things that Make Humans SpecialAsserting that the party's main aim was to tackle corruption, Arvind Kejriwal claimed his was the first government to sack a Minister for involvement in graft.
Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal today claimed that the party is not in the race for 2019 elections and asked its members to not run after polls even as he indicated that the party could get a Delhi-like opportunity in Punjab."We are not here for power politics. People ask if AAP is in race for 2019? We are not in any race. Delhi's win was miraculous. We just have to keep working hard and honestly.""Don't run after elections. All indications are that you are going to get the same opportunity in Punjab," he said in his address at AAP's National Council meeting.The meeting where the party is expected to elect its new members of the National Executive, the second highest decision-making body of the party, began here today amid protests outside the venue by AAP members who claimed that they were not invited for the meet.Asserting that the party's main aim was to tackle corruption, Mr Kejriwal claimed his was the first government to sack a Minister for involvement in graft."We had two aims in the beginning - tackling corruption and bringing Janlokpal and Swaraj. In the last 10 months, we have worked so hard, I can challenge, Sheila (Dikshit) government did not do in 15 years. (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi had the entire nation at his disposal, even he did not do.""Let's talk about corruption first. There is no such instance in the past that a government sacked its own Minister found involved in corruption. We see how governments keep brushing corruption cases under the carpet, especially against their Ministers.""But in the case of our govt, nobody knew about it. Someone had sent a clip on WhatsApp. We saw it and felt that the Minister was involved. We analysed it and summoned the Minister and confronted him. He confessed and we sacked him in a press conference in an hour," he said.Assuring that the Janlokpal bill will be passed in the ongoing Winter Session of Delhi Assembly, Mr Kejriwal said, "Lokpal is also going to be passed in this session. It's the same old bill minus citizen charter and vigilance. We have implemented the vigilance aspect. Citizen charter is being tabled today. So BJP and Congress have no issue to protest against."The Chief Minister also claimed that, "the party is implementing the idea of Swaraj through executive orders and not through legislation, because Centre would never clear it. Why should we give them an opportunity to install Swaraj?"Listing AAP government's achievements, Mr Kejriwal said, "We completed a flyover before deadline. Metro also completed its project ahead of deadline. But what is different is, we saved Rs 100 crores on it"."Manishbhai (Sisodia) is today tabling a historic bill today. All services will be delivered in time bound manner. In case of default, officers will pay fine to you," he said.The National Council is the body of founding members of the party, while National Executive is the second highest decision-making body of the party. The Council ratifies all the decisions taken by the party.According to the party's Constitution, the National Executive has to be reconstituted every three years. The tenure of the present members of the National Executive ends this month. The AAP was formed in November 26, 2012. Founding members Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav, Ajit Jha and Anand Kumar, who were expelled in April this year, are to be replaced by new members.“Why can’t you get that done?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Just apply yourself.”
We ADHDers hear that all the time and we look around at our messy house, our endless list of to-dos and we wonder how people manage to get it all accomplished.
We are good at Angry Birds, Candy Crush and the assortment of distractions that live in our computer and phone.
Why can’t it we get it done? Why can’t we keep up with our lists and tasks?
The following is a list of tactics to get not only more done, but to use your ADHD powers to tackle procrastination.
Procrastination will always be there, because our ADHD brains will always want to put something off. Our ADHD brain will want to do something more comfortable every time.
But with more tools in our tool belt, we can finally draw a line through that item on our list.
Some of these tactics will work for you and some won’t but make sure you give them a solid try before dismissing them.
To Do Lists That Are Manageable
Our ADHD hates big projects. It likes small things. Tiny little successes. When we make a list that is twenty items long (at least!), our ADHD brain shuts down. It’s like asking a four year old to clean out the garage.
This is what works for me. I make a list of all the things you have to get done and then make a separate list of 3-5 things you need to do. These are your top things, your highest priorities. That’s where you start—and when you are done with that list, grab other items off the main list and do those.
Your ADHD brain will appreciate it more and you’ll find you’ll burn though the list much faster.
Themes are Better Than Lists
Humans are completed people—and we aren’t just one thing. If we spend our time in the classroom, we are not merely a teacher. We are many different things.
When I find myself frustrated by doing things that don’t mean anything or have no intrinsic value, I make sure I look at the themes of my life and write them down: friend, writer, son, traveler, uncle, etc. I put my to-do list in those categories. I’ll then see if any theme is being neglected or if items don’t belong in a theme.
For example:
Some of them will not fit in those themes like, “Clean bathroom.” or “Pay electric bill”.
I notice that none of my items are in the theme of “friend.” That’s a problem. I try very hard to be a good friend; it’s a value of mine.
So I’ll go through my list of friends in my phone and start calling them to see how they are doing, catch up on their lives, etc. While I’m on the phone, I’ll start doing those non-theme things and multitask—I can pay the bills while I’m on the phone with Jason and clean the bathroom while I’m talking with Alfred.
I can get two things done at once and feel like I’m connecting with the real part of who I am.
Prep at Night. Execute in the Morning.
My ADHD doesn’t let me plan and then execute in the same breath much less the same day. It’s hard for me to go shopping and then cook a meal. My willpower is sapped by preparing so when I want to execute, get stuff actually done, I can’t sit around and make a list and then execute.
After I make a list, I just want to watch TV or read a book, something that doesn’t have five, ten or two steps.
If your willpower is empty after you do all the preparation, how can you possibly get stuff done?
Just prepare and execute at different times.
Mornings is the best time to execute and at night is prime time to plan for the next day. In the morning you’ve had some rest, you haven’t made many decisions and you are not burdened by any mistakes, shortcomings or
For example, when I want to write, night time is the worst time for me to get that done. I’ve already been creative in my 9-5 job and I don’t have the energy to come up with anything. I just look at a blank page and wind up watching the newest thing on Hulu.
So I outline at night. I make a simple outline with only two or three words to describe what I want to write and I keep going down the page. That’s all. When I’m done, I’m done.
Then the next morning I’m ready and stoked to get going on this miraculous outline so I can just start.
Here are other examples of how you can plan and execute. Cleaning the garage the next day? Set out your grubby clothes, the bags, boxes and cleaning stuff you’ll need.
Cleaning the kitchen? Set out all the stuff to get that done and put all the dishes in the dishwasher. Maybe run the dishwasher. If not, it’s cool.
Getting rid of all your excess clothes? Just put some bags around the closet door and find the address to the thrift store you’ll drop them off at. Throughout the week, put two items in there a day. You’ll fill it in no time.
Wanting to hit the gym in the morning? Set out your clothes tonight before you even think of turning out the light. Put some water in the fridge. Create your playlist on your iPod already.
Need to take out the trash? Put the trashcan by the door and the next time you leave, well, grab that bag my friend.
It’s much easier to do the prep and then initiate later. If you can do both, well, I clap my hands in your general directions and with a couple of fist-bumps.
Journal about Your Doneness
Did you have a major win? Write it down. Finally get that project done? Make sure you write that you finished it. It’s much more satisfying than crossing it off your list. Austin Kleon wrote a phenomenal article on this and I love the idea (I’m working on executing it soon.) You’ll be able to see your progress because our ADHD tends to wash away our successes in the deluge of the chaos we have going on.
Call Someone and Tell Them
Really struggling with a task? Call a friend and say, “I don’t want to get this done, but if I don’t, I’m going to send you $5.” If you want to really increase the pain, increase the money. If you really want to increase the pain, when you send the money to your friend, your friend will ship that money to an organization or ex that you can’t stand.
Get up 1 hour before everyone goes to sleep or stay up 1 hour later than everyone
A friend of mine gets up at 4 AM to workout. That’s extreme for me, but he also has 4 little girls with a 5th on the way. It’s the only time he has the house to himself and can have his “me time.” I respect that and if you can (silently) get up, you will have a magical hour of no distractions. Just don’t run the vacuum.
Your Lunch Hour is Wasted and It’s All Your Fault
One day I had 4 phone calls to make: the dentist, my insurance agent, my cable company and my credit card company. I had put off these phone calls forever and now I had no choice but to make them.
So I did them on my lunch hour while eating a kale and broccoli salad (insult, I’d like you to meet injury).
Every time I called I said, “I’m on my lunch hour and I’m afraid I’m low on time.” Every single person knew what I meant. The credit card company said, “Yeah, I get that. Let’s make this fast.” I got the phone calls done and had time to spare getting a candy bar out of the vending machine.
I usually bust out unpleasant tasks during my lunch hour or try to type 300 words just to see if I can do it. But just sitting there watching TV? No way, good sir.
Carry a Book With You
A lot of ADHDers I know will say, “Ryan, how do you find the time to read? It’s impossible.” Nope. It’s not. My English professor in my undergrad heard me complain about all the books I had to read and he said, “Ryan, you have to carry a book with you wherever you go.”
And that’s what I do. it’s easier now that our books can be digital and we can read them from our phone, but still to this day I keep books in my car so if I’m going to wait somewhere, I bring a book. Getting my oil changed, dentist office, etc, I bring a book. If I can get 6-10 pages done a day just by running errands, I can tackle a book a week.
If you are looking for great books on productivity and organization, this is what I’d add to my bookshelf:
Start, by Jon Acuff.
Do Over, by Jon Acuff.
The ADHD Advantage, by Dr. Dale Archer
Essentialism, by Greg McKeown.
And if you have others, please shoot me a line at theadhdnerd(at)gmail.com. I’d love your recommendations.
Reduce Your Choices
I think a lot of what fuels our ADHD procrastination is that we have too many choices in front of us. Read this. Wear that. Try this. Answer that.
In the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown, talks about reducing our choices to what is important and vital to what we love and who we are. I’m for this but it takes some pruning to get there:
It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.
So far I’ve been able to:
clean out my closet and pitch any clothes I’m not really crazy about.
end all of my subscriptions to magazines.
unsubscribe from emails that I never open
throw away clutter (for some reason I keep empty boxes... I might send someone something someday and what if the world was out of boxes?!)
Because I reduce my choices (wear things I really like, have more empty space) I don’t have as many distractions and it helps. There is less stuff shouting for my attention. And I buy less stuff because I remember the pain of throwing out stuff.
Cull Out the Negative People
This is a hard one and it doesn’t sound like it would enhance your productivity, but just trust me on this. We’ve come this far.
There are people in your life who are a bit toxic, a bit negative and I hate to say it, but they have to go (unless it’s your two year old). Now you might not be able to show them the door, but having boundaries up to lessen their toxicity is important. They tear down your ideas. They make you feel like garbage when you are around them. They say little snippy things that drain your reserves. They might “mean well”, but as it turns out they are carelessly bruising us.
But what do negative people have to do with productivity and getting things done?
As it turns out—everything.
Negative people drain our willpower to move in the right direction. They are the quicksand of our souls—they dampen our creativity, drive and hope.
There are certain people in my life I don’t share my dreams with. I don’t tell them about the conference I went to or the new connection i made. I simply nod and smile as they tell me how horrible their barista was at Starbucks. Eventually I slink away.
Here are some great articles on the topic:
Seven Strategies for Dealing with Toxic People
The Seven Golden Rules for Collaborating with Great People
How Being Non-Confrontational Has Held Me Back in Life
Delegate Your Weaknesses Out
We ADHDers love a challenge most of the time. When we see a glaring weakness, we either completely avoid it or we tackle it. And our culture, especially our work culture would say, “TACKLE THAT WEAKNESS! YOU NEED TO DEVELOP! WAY TO GO.”
Screw. That.
I’m terrible at cleaning my house. I’m not at a Hoarders level, but I treat dusting my apartment like I just won an Ironman triathlon. So what do I do? I get a housecleaner once a month. It costs about $80 and people would turn up their nose and say, “Well, aren’t we just the fanciest?”
No. I’m not fancy. We go to restaurants because we don’t want to cook. We pay to get our car washed instead of grabbing a bucket and some soap. We exchange money for time, especially in the areas we don’t want to be bothered with or what we can’t do ourselves.
Find your weaknesses and then see where you can pay someone else to do it. Whether it’s editing something (which I pay for), getting a housecleaner or a dog walker.
But where does this magical money come from? Try eating out a little bit less or find a service you can offer that will pay for it. For example, I help people make better presentations in my spare time and earn a little coin. Once I earn enough side money, I give my housekeeper a ring. Maybe you can sell some stuff. Maybe you have a mad skill you can use to tutor. Whatever it is, delegate your weaknesses and focus on your strengths. You will have more time for productive, life-giving work.
Small Steps. Long Direction.
Your ADHD flips out when you don’t finish something. Whether it is cleaning the house, developing a skill, losing weight, developing a workout regiment, etc. During your first workout, your ADHD will say, “That’s it? You walked for an hour? What about some pushups? I hear everyone is planking! We should plank.”
Here’s what happens. You give in, you do more than you are capable and your ADHD will flip on your the next day, “Dude, you’re too sore to work out. In fact, let’s not do that again. Ever. Cool? Who wants ice cream?!”
You exhaust yourself with a big project and then you give it up.
This is your ADHD spiral in a nutshell.
1. Start a big project! Right now!
2. Find out you can’t get it done in the time you thought it would take.
3. Feel disappointed and see how everyone on Facebook is getting stuff done. And they are really happy.
4. Give up on the project. Feel sad.
5. Eventually get back to step 1. Some day.
But here’s the method around that. Commit to the smallest move and celebrate that. Need to rearrange and clean out a bookshelf that is a nightmare? Just do the smallest part and move on. Whittle it down. Make small changes that add up.
Need to stop drinking soda? Don’t go cold turkey. Go from 5 sodas to 4 sodas per day for a week. Next week alternate 3 sodas and 4 sodas the next week. Then slowly reduce it. When you hear that ADHD voice pipe up (oh, and it will) stick to the plan.
Focus on small changes, better habits and take it slow.
Keep a Piece of Paper Besides You
I know I’ve been bagging on your ADHD. But it can be helpful. My ADHD is a creative little engine, but I’ve never found the on-off switch. Randomly my ADHD will shout out ideas.
“You need new pants!”
“Change the oil in your car!”
“Do we have enough ice cream? Check the ice cream!”
Then and there I either put that in my phone as a reminder or just jot it down on a piece of paper next to me. Once I write it down, my ADHD shuts up about it because I won’t “forget it”. I do my best to immediately act on it. Some of my ADHD material is very relevant and some if it is like, “Give me a break.”
But I write it all down so I can get some peace. When I have a moment, I’ll go through it and see what is relevant and what isn’t It either goes in Evernote or my calendar. It helps keep my ADHD from overloading me with the same message over and over so I can get to what’s important.
Your Radio Station is Terrible
You think I’m going to talk about your inner dialogue telling you all that negative stuff.
Nope. I’m actually talking about your actual radio station.
How often do you listen to the same songs all the time? My guess is—often.
Here’s what my ADHD loves: podcasts. You probably own a device that lets you listen to your podcasts wherever you are (but don’t use headphones while you drive. That’s a big no no.)
It enhances your productivity for two reasons:
One, I find that my ADHD calms down when I make it listen to new information when I drive.
Two, I get a ton of new ideas. This is healthy eating for my ADHD. I can’t tell you how often I’ll have a new idea because of something I listened to on a podcast.
Here’s what I currently have in my current list:
This American Life.
Serial.
Start Up.
Reply All.
Mystery Gift.
Death, Sex and Money.
Entrepreneur on Fire.
Invisibilia
99% Invisible
I find that stories and new info help my ADHD and keep it full. Find podcasts that interest you—your ADHD will thank you.
Forgive Yourself Often
Every morning our intentions are great. We want to have friends and family love us. We want our careers to be great and meaningful. We want our houses to be clean and we want to be productive, getting things done.
And we have all been awake at 10 PM and our to do list isn’t checked off and we don’t even know where we put it. We feel guilty and terrible. Nothing got done. People are disappointed in us, but not more than we are in ourselves.
But condemnation never motivates towards something great. Sure, we can do things out of guilt, but there is no joy in that.
The best thing I found is to forgive myself. Remind myself that what I do is not who I am. Because I don’t have the bathroom exactly how it should be doesn’t make a bad person.
Sometimes our ADHD and even our life gets ahold of us. Start again. Conduct an autopsy on how everything went awry.
Forgive yourself, start over. Start small and just remove a couple of obstacles. Try again.
Do you have a strategy for tackling procrastination? Drop some wisdom below.
If you have a friend who needs this article, I’d love for you to share this article below!No, this is not a joke. It isn’t a set up for a routine or comedy. It is a real title for a very real and nerve wracking experience I had.
On May 20th, 2015 I was in New York City. Like I love to do on a nice day, I took a long walk through the city. When I say long, I mean long. From Columbus Circle down to the Alphabet Streets and back. My step count was through the roof :).
I got back to my apartment, showered and soon after I had a headache. I rarely get headaches so I thought maybe it was dirt and grime and whatever that had accumulated on my contacts. Took them out. I was tired. So I went to bed. Expecting to feel better in the morning after a good nights sleep
May 21st, 2015. I woke up dizzy.
My initial reaction was that I had a form of Vertigo.
I had experienced Vertigo multiple times before. Once when I was staying in Manhattan Beach, I woke up with Vertigo, thought we were in the middle of an earth quake and rushed to alert my neighbors. All of whom made it clear that there was no earthquake. There hadn’t been an earthquake. And maybe I had too much to drink the night before
My most recent Vertigo experience was a good 10 years ago and with a trip to the doctor I was given a few pages with a series of head movement exercises. By the next day I was fine. It was as if nothing had happened.
So on May 21st, 2015 my expectation was that all would be fine shortly. I did my exercises. Unfortunately they didn’t work. At the end of the day I was still was what is easiest to describe as being dizzy, but it was far more than that.
My brain was in a fog, I felt hungover. i felt some nausea, without having had a drink. My face and ears felt full. I can’t fully describe it or give justice to just how off I felt. My balance was fine. My body below the neck was fine. I never felt better. But inside my head something was definitely wrong.
I headed back to Dallas still believing it was Vertigo related and I was just missing something.
I visited my doctor who suggested I get more electrolytes and see if that helped. It did a tiny bit, but not much. After which I started “the rounds”
He sent me for an MRI of my head, nothing. My neck. Nothing. An MRA. Nothing. All of which was obviously good news at the highest level. It didn’t appear to be anything life threatening.
Then I made the rounds to Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) doctors. Nothing. I was in tip top shape. Then my doctor suggested I visit a Neurologist. She immediately concluded that it was not physical and was completely stress related and that I should see a Psychiatrist, but first here is some Klonopin for you to take to help you.
That made me even worse. I would take dizzy and nauseas over how the klonopin made me feel any day and I knew it wasn’t a psychological issue. So I got off of those meds quickly.
Then I found another Dr who had more experience in treating Dizziness and related issues. To his credit, he pushed me to do the full battery of tests that are normal for these types of issues, but unfortunately it was now the second week of June and I had to head to LA to start shooting Shark Tank in a couple days. I don’t remember how we got to it. but he suggested Valium.
Boom. It worked. Mostly.
I was no longer dizzy. I actually felt alright. When I took 9mg of Valium. The problem of course is that I always wanted to lay down and take a nap.
But it got me through the first shooting pod of Season 7 of Shark Tank. So when you are watching, if you notice I look really, really relaxed and maybe a little tired or sleepy, now you know why.
While the Valium certainly helped, it became obvious to me that taking 9mg of Valium a day was no way to go through life. So I began trying to reduce my dosage. I got it so that within a couple weeks I could take half a mg in the morning and half in the afternoon and get to an acceptable state. I also found that the busier I kept myself, the less I thought about it and the better I felt.
Of course the doctors were sure at that point that if valium worked (as did drinking. Drunk felt like every drunk night before it ), that it must be stress. It wasn’t
I would be lying if I didn’t say that I was concerned as my family headed off to Southern California for a vacation. I didn’t want to drive with my family in the car. Every terrible possibility I could conjure in my head as a problem, I did. I read everything and anything that I could about dizziness. Unfortunately, dizziness is a symptom for almost everything. I found nothing.
I was miserable. Valium was not a solution. Not a way I wanted to go through life.
Then I stumbled onto a website, http://www.dizziland.com. It claimed to cure 95% of patients who come in with dizziness. I was desperate. It was a 30 minute drive from where we were vacationing, so I made an appointment. It was for first week of August.
Dr. Mango and his crew put me through about 5 hours of tests. From what I understand they were traditional, for the most part. I got spun, turned, twisted, ballooned and then they put me in a dark room, strapped me in to a chair and asked me to use a joy stick to demonstrate that I could align a red line absolutely vertical, and absolutely horizontal.
My vertical was no problem. Horizontal? I was convinced I was laying the line down so it was absolutely flat. As it turns out I wasn’t close. I was off 38pct. That was good.
The audiologist, Dr Pearce, told me that was the information they needed. She was confident she could get me back to normal. When I asked what caused the problem. There was no answer. It could be an inner ear infection or something else. But she was fairly certain that an Otolith in my vestibular system had been damaged.
The way she explained it, and Im paraphrasing, I was dizzy because my eyes, the otolith in my vestibular system and brain were out of whack. My damaged otolith was telling my brain I was falling or off balance, but my eyes was saying everything was normal. So my brain was confused and working overtime, resulting in all the problems I was experiencing.
Obviously I was thrilled. But getting back to normal wasn’t a quick process. Below is a video I asked to do for Dizziland to tell people who were experiencing what I was experiencing that there was hope.
What you can’t really see is that I’m in front of what is called an Epley Chair.
If you watch the video below, you will see the spinning chair. For my case, the chair was in a dark enclosure.
Dr. Mango had created the special enclosure for the chair, but more importantly, he created a protocol of videos that would be projected against the walls. While I watched the videos there were cameras looking at my eyes, measuring the response of my eyes. It was a solution that he had integrated and it was working.
In the dark room, the protocol would sometimes show star like objects projected against the walls of the room. Sometimes I would be still. Sometimes I would be moving. Sometimes they would be slow, sometimes they would be faster. All in all I would be in the chair about an hour. Every day.
I was making progress. But my time in Southern California was coming to an end. I had to get back to Dallas. Which was a problem because my brain really benefited from daily treatment.
There were not chairs available to me in Dallas. There were only 20 in the entire country. Almost all in Veteran’s Hospitals where they were used to treat servicemen and women who had suffered various types of head trauma resulting in dizziness. The closest to me was in San Antonio and it did not run the protocol Dr Mango had created.
I literally was desperate.
I was making progress. I was getting closer and closer. So I looked into buying my own chair and enclosure and hiring one of Dr Mango’s audiologists to move to Dallas to start a Dizziland branded office in Dallas. It would help not only me, but also others who could benefit from the same therapy.
It was September going into October at this point and I was at what I would call about 60pct. But unless I could just go back out to Southern California and stay until i was fixed, I was going to have to wait several months to put all this together.
To try to mitigate the problem and buy time, the Docs gave me videos to watch on a laptop screen in the dark. It didn’t help. I wasn’t getting better and on some days it was much worse.
Then it hit me.
Why not put the videos on my phone and look at them in the Samsung VR set I had bought just to try to learn more about VR
Bingo.
I started using Dr Mango’s protocol in the Samsung VR Glasses every morning and every night and started making progress nearly every day. Day after day, night after night I was in my bedroom or a hotel room with my Goggles on watching white boxes on a black background scroll past my eyes. My doctors had me standing sometimes. Laying down sometimes. Standing on a pillow in the morning, rolling side to side while watching at night.
By November I was 75pct, by December 90pct. By the end of January and in to February I had days where I felt completely normal. I was able to reduce my use of the googles to every 3rd day. Then every week.
Today, I use them for maintenance every couple of weeks just to play it safe, but I’m back to normal and happy.
Virtual Reality along with Dr Mango, his protocol and some amazing Audiologists in Dr Pearce and Dr Nava gave me my brain back. I can’t thank them enough
VR worked so well, Dr Mango and I are now patenting the entire protocol and program and he is already testing it with great results with some of his other patients. Hopefully it can have the same impact on others that it had on me.FORMER state treasurer Kevin Foley is poised to lead the Port Adelaide Football Club out of its deepening crisis.
The long-standing Port supporter yesterday declared his |
at high speed, sending the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Congressional Limited, packed with servicemen and vacationers, catapulting off the track. According to an Associated Press story published at the time, the accident happened at Frankford and Glenwood Avenues in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood—on the same great bend of the tracks where Amtrak train 188 derailed today. In fact, the intersection of Frankford and Glenwood Avenues is only a few tenths of a mile away from the 2000 block of Wheatsheaf Lane, where a local NBC affiliate is reporting Tuesday’s crash occurred.They say you have to wait a few years to get a better handle on draft grades, so The Sideline View's attempt to re-grade the 2010 NFL Draft earlier this week makes some sense. We're four full seasons removed from that draft, and I think most would agree it was a pretty important draft in 49ers history.
Aside from just the picks, that was a significant transition point for the 49ers. General manager Scot McCloughan left the team a month prior to the draft in a rather bizarre set of circumstances. Current general manager Trent Baalke was serving as Vice President of Player Personnel at that point, and became what most would view as the de factor GM at that point. He did not formally get the job until the end of the 2010 season, but at that point, he was sort of the guy in charge.
At the same time, you had a fairly powerful personality in Mike Singletary in the war room during that draft. We'll never know with complete certainty who was responsible for what that day. Given how big that day was for the future of the 49ers, it would be nice to know, but I doubt we will ever get the complete story.
This was an important draft going in because the 49ers held a pair of first round picks. The previous year, they had dealt a second and fourth round pick to the Carolina Panthers in exchange for the Panthers 2010 first. The Panthers put together a fairly blah season, which resulted in that pick becoming the No. 17 overall pick. The 49ers had their own No. 13 pick following a disappointing 8-8 season of their own.
On draft day, the 49ers made two trades of note. The first saw them trade their first and fourth round picks to the Denver Broncos to climb up to No. 11 and draft Anthony Davis. The 49ers then traded their third round pick down to the San Diego Chargers in exchange for the Chargers third round and sixth round picks, and then also the Chargers 2011 fourth round pick. For full accounting, in moving down, the 49ers grabbed NaVorro Bowman with the third round pick, Anthony Dixon with the sixth round pick, and Kendall Hunter with the 2011 fourth round pick.
It is also worth noting the 49ers acquired Ted Ginn Jr. prior to the draft in exchange for their fifth round pick. In terms of rookies, the 2010 NFL Draft resulted in the following for the 49ers:
1 (11). Anthony Davis, offensive tackle, Rutgers
1 (17). Mike Iupati, guard, Idaho
2 (49). Taylor Mays, strong safety, USC
3 (91). NaVorro Bowman, inside linebacker, Penn State
6 (173). Anthony Dixon, running back Mississippi State
6 (182). Nate Byham, tight end, Pittsburgh
6 (173). Kyle Williams, wide receiver, Arizona State
6 (173). Phillip Adams, defensive back, South Carolina State
At the time, grades were a bit of a mixed bag for the 49ers. Mel Kiper gave them a B for their work, saying:
Give San Francisco credit. Early on in the draft it had a chance to get better in a couple of places and decided to get a lot better in one. But consider the trickle-down effect: By taking Anthony Davis, the left tackle with the highest upside in the draft -- emphasis on "upside" -- and then a lock to be a good NFL guard in Mike Iupati, the Niners are a better running team right now. The passing game suddenly seems better, as well. Taylor Mays at No. 49 is a good value selection, and the kid will be motivated, but I think we're past pretending he was a steal because of his size-speed combination. His tape fell really flat. Navorro Bowman has size questions, but he's better than No. 91 overall.
Pete Prisco gave the 49ers a C for the Davis pick, a B for the Iupati pick, and a B+ for the Bowman pick. Unfortunately the page with the Taylor Mays grade does not work.
And that's part of the rub of that 2010 draft. The team spent a mid-second round pick on a guy they dealt away after only one season with the team. We don't know who was responsible for which picks, but I have to think we can infer Singletary had some kind of say on the Taylor Mays pick.
In re-grading the draft, The Sideline View gives the 49ers an A. The 49ers have retained three players from that class, but did receive some contributions from Anthony Dixon and Kyle Williams. TSV had the following to say in their re-grade:
The only thing really, truly keeping this grade from being an A+ was the selection of Mays in the second round. The much ballyhooed high school recruit from the state of Washington rode a massive hype wave throughout his USC career, culminating in a second round selection. He didn’t even make it to the second season in San Francisco. Other than Mays and Byham, the 49ers got excellent value from everyone on this board.
Although "only" three players remain on the team from this class, I think we'd qualify this as a success. They've got a long term right tackle, a long term inside linebacker (who happens to be one of the best in the game), and a very solid left guard, who may or may not make it to his second contract with the team. You are always going to want more from a draft as the years pass, but all things considered, this worked out pretty well.The execution-style murders of eight members of the same family in rural Pike County, Ohio, has set residents on edge and sent investigators into overdrive as they try to find out who killed the Rhoden family members, and why.
Adding to the intrigue: the discovery of marijuana growing operations at three of the four crime scenes.
Here's what we know, and don't know, about the crimes:
The killings
What we know:
In a series of what investigators called well-planned, execution-style killings carried out at four locations, eight members of a single family were methodically shot in the head Friday while they slept in their homes about 50 miles south of Columbus.
A relative discovered the bodies.
"There's blood all over the house," the woman told 911 operators. "My brother-in-law is in the bedroom. It looks like they beat the hell out of him."
Authorities identified the victims as Hannah Gilley, 20; Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40; Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16; Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20; Dana Rhoden, 37; Gary Rhoden, 38; Hanna Rhoden, 19; and Kenneth Rhoden, 44.
Authorities in Ohio released this chart tracing the relationships of the slain Rhoden family members.
Amid all the carnage, three children were found unharmed -- a 4-day-old infant who was next to her mother when she was killed, a 6-month-old baby and a 3-year-old. State authorities are now caring for the survivors.
Two of the residences where the killings took place are within walking distance, authorities said. A third is about a mile away and the fourth about eight miles away, they said.
What we don't know:
Who killed them, or why. Authorities do, however, think the killers were familiar with the victims.
"It was a sophisticated operation and those who carried it out were trying to do everything they could do to hinder the investigation and their prosecution," Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said.
JUST WATCHED 911 call: There is blood all over the house Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH 911 call: There is blood all over the house 02:13
Marijuana grow operations found
What we know:
Extensive marijuana grow operations were found at three of the sites, DeWine told reporters Sunday.
An official with knowledge of the operation told CNN's Nick Valencia that the marijuana wasn't being grown for personal use.
An aerial view of one of the crime scenes.
"It was for something much bigger than that. It was a very sophisticated operation," the official said.
Such operations are often located indoors, and use elaborate lighting, watering and feeding systems designed to yield crops every three to four months, according to an April article in Police Chief magazine
What we don't know:
Whether the killings had anything to do with the marijuana grow operation.
The investigation
What we know:
It's likely to be lengthy.
DeWine said police have executed at least five search warrants and 50 of 60 people have been interviewed so far. Authorities have received 100 tips and 18 pieces of evidence have been submitted to the crime lab. Seven of the eight autopsies have been performed so far, he said. The last one scheduled is for Monday, said DeWine.
What we don't know:
What investigators have found or how many guns were used in the shootings.
Family warned
What we know:
Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader
Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said he has cautioned surviving family members that they may still be in the killers' crosshairs.
"We have a specific family that's been targeted but I don't think there's been a threat to any other members of the community," he said. "I cautioned them they are a target and I cautioned them, 'Be armed.'"
What we don't know:
Exactly why the Rhoden family had been targeted -- or if it had anything to do with the marijuana operation.
Pot in Pike County
What we know:
Pike County is no stranger to marijuana problems. In August 2012, Ohio law enforcement officers found "a major marijuana grow site in Pike County with suspected ties to a Mexican drug cartel," according to a press release DeWine's office issued at the time.
Investigators destroyed about 1,200 marijuana plants and found two abandoned campsites they believe belonged to Mexican nationals, the release said.
What we don't know:
DeWine has not indicated any connection between the 2012 findings and the operations found on the Rhoden properties.Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press
RIO DE JANEIRO -- Rosie MacLennan won an Olympic title four years ago by really pushing the limits on the trampoline.
She showed Friday that playing it safer could still lead to victory.
MacLennan delivered an impressive mix of flips, twists and jumps in her final routine to outscore the competition at the Rio Olympic Arena, becoming the first Canadian summer athlete to successfully defend an individual Olympic title along the way.
"It feels incredible," MacLennan said. "I don't know how it compares but it's just absolutely amazing."
An underdog at the London Games, MacLennan had little to lose in 2012 and was rewarded for nailing a very difficult routine. She considered something groundbreaking for Rio but eventually decided to dial it back.
That turned out to be a wise call.
Opting to minimize the risk and go for a better execution score made her routine a little easier. It also allowed her to jump a little higher and display improved form.
"She did very close to a perfect routine," said head coach Dave Ross.
MacLennan earned 56.465 points to move into first place and put the pressure squarely on the two remaining competitors in the eight-woman final.
Reigning world champion Li Dan of China followed with a score of 55.885, taking bronze when Tatsiana Piatrenia of Belarus closed things out by settling for fifth place.
That result gave Britain's Bryony Page (56.040) the silver and MacLennan her second Olympic title.
"Unfortunately the rules don't reward for brilliance, they deduct for mistakes," said Ross. "And she just made the least mistakes. The other girls did some skills just as brilliantly as Rosie but they did a few bad ones and she didn't.
"So that's what set her apart."
Not bad for someone who nearly had her Rio plan derailed after a pair of head injuries last year.
MacLennan battled headaches, vision issues and occasionally mixed up her words. She took some time off and was eventually cleared to return, but her confidence needed to be restored.
When competitors jump 25 feet high in the air, the trampoline looks more like a postage stamp than a large mat. Razor-sharp focus and a steady belief in one's skills are requirements.
MacLennan said she finally felt like she was fully back to normal in March.
"In some ways it was really tough," MacLennan said. "But it was also a reminder of how much I really did love the sport. Because if I didn't, I would have given up."
There were pockets of Canadian fans in the 13,000-capacity venue, which was about three-quarters full for Friday afternoon's session.
MacLennan, 27, flirted with the outside padding during the second qualification round before finishing strong. Her form was virtually flawless in the final routine.
"I was a lot more confident in it," MacLennan said, a folded Canadian flag on her arm and a shiny medal hanging around her neck. "The other one was a little shaky and we knew it would be a bit of a gamble. And the Olympics isn't a time to gamble."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted a tweet on his Twitter account shortly after her victory
MacLennan finished seventh in her Olympic debut in 2008. She won a world title in 2013 and took gold at last year's Pan Am Games in Toronto.
As Canada's lone defending Olympic champion, MacLennan was often in the pre-Games spotlight back home. That ramped up even more when she served as flag-bearer at last week's opening ceremony.
She handled it all with aplomb, becoming her sport's first back-to-back Olympic champion.
"I knew I was giving everything I had to give myself the best chance," she said. "I hoped I was capable of it. I just really wanted to keep pushing and to keep working."
Jason Burnett of Nobleton, Ont., is Canada's lone representative in the men's trampoline competition. The qualifying round and final are scheduled for Saturday.
Ross, who coaches MacLennan at their home club north of Toronto, described her as consistent, tough, focused and motivated.
But he has always been most impressed by her determination and the fact she always gives back.
"She's a very bright girl and she's really good with other athletes," Ross said. "She helps other athletes. It's not all about her. Little kids come up and she gives them pointers or she goes over and holds a mat for somebody else.
"She's completely the opposite of a prima donna. She's amazing."
Canada is the only country that has won at least one trampoline medal at every Summer Games since the sport made its Olympic debut in 2000.
MacLennan, from King City, Ont., plans to keep jumping next season and will see if she can master that routine she considered for Rio. She added that she'll keep going in her sport as long as she has "that joy."
"It's so fun. It's a perfect combination of power and beauty and strength and pushing your limits and trying new skills," she said. "There's always something to learn, there's always something new to conquer.
"You can keep pushing yourself. The limits are endless."Recent outbreaks of encephalitis in India have killed around 550 people this year and the toll is likely to rise with health experts saying 70 million children nationwide are at risk.
Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, and Bihar, further north, are ravaged by encephalitis every year.
A total number of 104 people have died in UP from the mosquito-borne virus which affects mainly malnourished children. The disease causes brain inflammation and can result in brain damage. Symptoms include headaches, seizures and fever.
A total of 309 children have been infected in the state, according to health administration sources. Eighteen per cent children infected with the killer virus had died in UP in 2012, lower than the 37.2% who have lost their lives to the disease so far in 2014. The figures raise questions over initiatives taken by the health and family welfare department to check the outbreak of the disease.
The Japanese Encephalitis was first reported in 1955 in Tamil Nadu. The virus has spread to over 171 districts in 19 states since then.
In Bihar, the official toll from Acute Encephalitis Syndrome stood at 162 on Wednesday. “It covers patients from adjoining districts who were brought to Muzaffarpur for treatment,” a hospital source said on condition of anonymity.
The state has sent blood serums and other pathological samples drawn from affected children to Atlanta in the United States to determine the reason behind the outbreak.
In West Bengal, around 117 people have died of Japanese Encephalitis and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome infections. Although there is a vaccine for JE, victims also die from other forms of the disease, including AES, the exact causes of which are not known.
In West Bengal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said fumigation had been ramped up to kill mosquitoes, along with health education campaigns for residents.
Hundreds die across the country each year, mainly children, from different forms of the disease, but West Bengal is not normally the worst-hit state.
Encephalitis can be transmitted by mosquitoes from pigs to humans and officials have pointed to the fact that farmers in West Bengal's worst-affected districts breed pigs.
In the northeastern state of Assam, 165 people have died from JE and AES with more than 300 infected with the virus, an official said on Wednesday. Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi held an emergency meet, directing officials to set up an intensive care unit at each district hospital for the treatment of emergency cases.
Many of the deaths have occurred since the onset of the monsoon season in June when mosquitoes breed in large numbers. According to Dr RN Singh, who is working on Encephalitis cases in UP’s Gorakhpur region, the monsoon may make the virus more active.
(With inputs from agencies)
First Published: Jul 23, 2014 19:06 IST10.4.14
SkRAQ
The Warehouse – Columbia SC
Set One
Will Run ->
Tone >
(with Skerik; Last played 7.11.08)
Shirley Be a Drooler >
(with Skerik; Reggae version)
Will Run
Something
(with Skerik; First time played; Beatles cover; “First Dance”)
Led Boots
(with Skerik; Last played 7.5.08; Jeff Beck cover)
Midnight Moonlight
(with Skerik; First time played; Peter Rowan cover)
Tough Mama
(with Skerik, Last played 11.9.07; Bob Dylan cover)
Dear Prudence
(with Skerik; Beatles cover; w/ Hava Nagila tease)
The Power of Love
(First time played; Huey Lewis & The News cover)
Glimpse
(Last played 2.29.08)
Dancing in the Moonlight
(First time played; King Harvest cover)
Silly Love Songs
(First time played; Wings cover)
I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide
(with Jeff Kozelski & Wes Avinger on guitar; Last played 7.5.08; ZZ Top cover)
Set Two
Push th’ Little Daises ->
(with Skerik; Ween cover)
Hitchhiker
(with Skerik; Last played 4.30.10)
Dirty Love
(with Jeff Kozelski on guitar; Frank Zappa cover; with Franklin’s Tower / Time Bomb tease)
One-Eyed Jack >
(Last played 3.1.08)
Hava Nagila
(with Skerik; Last played 2.28.08)
Nasty ->
(with Skerik; Last played 6.18.08)
Girl >
(with Skerik; Last played 4.19.08)
Clamslide
Set Three
Gabvonie
(with Skerik)
Bag It Out
(with Skerik & Jeff Kozelski; Last played 4.18.08)
Brother From Another Mother ->
(with Skerik)
Circumstance >
(with Skerik & Wes Avinger)
Carbohydrates Are the Enemy >
(with Skerik & Wes Avinger)
Brother From Another Mother
(with Skerik)
Encore
Time Bomb
(Last played 10.29.10)
- October 9, 2014Detailed breakdownABC has renewed “Designated Survivor” for Season 2, “Agents of SHIELD” for Season 5 and “American Housewife” for a second season for the 2017-2018 season, Variety has learned.
Kiefer Sutherland stars in “Designated Survivor” as Tom Kirkman, a lower-level cabinet member who is suddenly appointed President of the United States after a catastrophic attack on the US Capitol during the State of the Union. Kirkman now finds himself thrust into a role he never wanted. He must struggle to keep the country and his own family from falling apart, while navigating the highly-volatile political arena and while leading the search to find who is responsible for the attack.
In addition to Sutherland, the series also stars Natasha McElhone, Adan Canto, Italia Ricci, LaMonica Garrett, Tanner Buchanan, Kal Penn, and Maggie Q. David Guggenheim is the creator and executive producer. Simon Kinberg, Mark Gordon, Jon Harmon Feldman, Nick Pepper. Suzan Bymel, Aditya Sood, and Sutherland also executive produce. The Mark Gordon Company and ABC Studios produce.
The show has been a solid ratings performer in the L+SD numbers, averaging a 1.3 rating and 6 million viewers per episode. The show has seen incredible success in delayed viewing, however, typically doubling its viewership between L+3 and L+7.
Related ABC Greenlights Another Shondaland Drama, Three More Series for 2017-2018 ‘Marvel’s Inhumans’ Series at ABC Completes Full Cast
Freshman comedy “American Housewife” stars Katy Mixon as Katie Otto, a confident, unapologetic wife and mother of three, as she raises her flawed family in the wealthy town of Westport, Connecticut, filled with “perfect” mommies and their “perfect” offspring. The series also stars Diedrich Bader, Meg Donnelly, Daniel DiMaggio, Julia Butters, Carly Hughes, and Ali Wong. Sarah Dunn created the series, which is produced by Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and ABC Studios. Dunn, Kaplan, Rick Wiener and Kenny Schwartz serve as executive producers. Ruben Fleischer directed and was executive producer of the pilot.
The series has held up well in the ratings compared to other ABC comedies. It is averaging a 1.5 rating and 5.3 million viewers for its first season, putting it just below other popular shows like “Speechless,” “Black-ish,” and “The Middle.”
“Agents of SHIELD” stars Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson and his team of SHIELD agents who deal with cases and enemies, including Hydra and the Inhumans. Gregg stars with Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmon and John Hannah.
In its fifth season, “SHIELD” will reach the coveted 100-episode mark, which likely influenced the renewal. The fan-favorite series is an important property to ABC, given the corporate Disney/Marvel synergy. In its fourth season, the series moved to the lower-rated 10 p.m. timeslot, but still held onto its audience.
“SHIELD” is not the only Marvel show that will be on ABC’s air next season. The network also greenlit “Inhumans,” which debuts this fall.Homeowners in the Fall River area who get their drinking water from Lake Fletcher are being told to take precautions.
According to Nova Scotia's Department of Environment there was a domestic oil spill overnight Thursday into Friday morning. Some of that oil went into Lake Fletcher.
A department official could not say how much fuel leaked or how many people could be affected by the spill.
However, people are being warned to watch out for an oily sheen or a strong odour. If any fuel does show up, boiling will not make the water safe to drink.
Department spokesperson Krista Higdon said cleanup and containment have begun, but it's unclear how long the process could take.
Fire department received call
Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency first got the call of the leaking oil tank around 10:25 p.m. on Thursday night, said division commander Brad Connors.
The oil was coming from a house in a subdivision off Highway 2, between Fletchers Lake and Lake Thomas. By the time crews arrived on site, the house's oil tank was empty.
"Our responsibility is to contain and stop any leak of that kind. The leak in a sense had been stopped because all the fuel had run out of the tank," he said.
"Then we tried to minimize any spread of the fuel, we put some dyking material, and some absorbent pads, and some Absorb All, which is sort of a kitty litter-like product, just to try to minimize any further damage to the environment."
Connors said it was unclear how much fuel was in the standard-size house tank.
Some water customers safe from contamination
Meanwhile, 80 customers who get their water supply from the Collins Park facility operated by Halifax Water don't have to worry about contamination.
"As soon as we became aware of the fuel leak, we shut down the intake," said James Campbell, a spokesperson for the water utility.
"We have a large holding tank on hand, so we're drawing down on that."
According to Campbell, bulk water can be trucked to the facility if its needed. All Halifax Water customers have been informed about the situation through hand-delivered notifications.We are living through a golden age of the female-comedian memoir. Stoked by Chelsea Handler’s consistently bestselling memoirs about drinking and sex, the genre became a full-on trend with Tina Fey’s Bossypants in 2011. In short order, we had books by Sarah Silverman, Mindy Kaling, Judy Greer, Rachel Dratch, anyone who’s ever been on the Chelsea Lately comedy panel, and an upcoming collection by the forever-likable Amy Poehler. Some have succeeded and some have flopped, but it’s a wave that apparently hasn’t even crested yet, with a new million-dollar book deal announced seemingly every day.
The latest example to achieve a level of hype that rivals Fey’s, riding the complicated line between “celebrity essay collection” and New Yorker-approved “feted literary memoir,” is Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned”, the debut book by Girls creator, writer, director, and lead actress Lena Dunham. Notable for garnering a $3.7 million advance and much attendant outrage (although did we hear any kickback when Aziz Ansari got $3.5 million to write about “modern love”?), it’s a beautiful book-as-object, handsomely designed, with charming illustrations by Joana Avillez, filled with essays about the 28-year-old artist’s life so far, with subjects ranging from childhood to boys to work.
Dunham is nothing if not a lightning rod for criticism and praise, with every tweet and Girls storyline wrung for clues as to what it means to be a millennial today. But beyond the hype that signals that everything its author does is Important, is Not That Kind of Girl any good? Is Dunham the next Nora Ephron? And is she the voice of our generation — or a voice of a generation, an appellation that a drug-addled Hannah Horvath uttered in Girls‘ pilot episode and that will now follow Dunham forever? Four Flavorwire staffers — all women, or “girls” if you must — have four different takes below.
Measured Appreciation
Not That Kind of Girl is a book that tries very, very hard to be universal — it’s modeled after Helen Gurley Brown’s Having It All, and it shows in the sudden pivots from memoir to advice at the end of some essays. But because Dunham’s trying so hard to talk about Relatable Life Experiences (getting her period, having a little sister, going to summer camp), she seems to shy away from the very non-universal reasons why we want to read this memoir in the first place. There’s very little about Girls, for example, or Tiny Furniture, or what it’s like when the most prestigious network on TV gives you free rein over a show at 25.
Which is a shame, because the best essays in the book deal with Dunham’s very particular background and her preoccupations as a filmmaker. My personal favorite is her discussion of on-screen nudity, which she combines with a discussion of her mother’s nude self-portraits; it’s by far Dunham’s deepest engagement with her parents’ creative output, and it’s a passionate argument for the cringeworthy sex scenes and TMI revelations that characterize so much of her work, including this book. And there’s “Barry,” which explains the background of That Scene with Adam and Natalia from Season 2 — and why it’s important to depict sex that isn’t just bad, but outright uncomfortable.
Unlike a large chunk of my social circle, I genuinely like Lena Dunham, and I enjoy her brand of humor enough to find Not That Kind of Girl a worthwhile read, whatever its subject matter. Yet I couldn’t help but feel like Dunham’s relentless focus on her childhood and college years — the I’ve-been-through-it-and-so-can-you approach to advice memoirs — sacrifices something in the name of relatability. Maybe her time in the spotlight is too recent to write about; she basically says as much when she swears to name names of condescending Hollywood men once they’re all safely dead. But I wanted to read more about those unnamed director douchebags! Certainly more than I wanted to read about how Dunham wasn’t molested, but it would “explain a lot of things” if she were. (There aren’t a lot of tone-deaf Hannah Horvath moments in the book, but boy do the ones that are there stick out.)
— Alison Herman, Editorial Assistant
Indifference
I have complicated feelings about Lena Dunham, in that I don’t have strong feelings about Lena Dunham, which is perhaps unheard of (especially if you are a woman, or are in your 20s, or are a television critic, or live in NYC, and so on). In both Girls and Tiny Furniture, Dunham does not concern herself with a world that includes me. This is fine, because she is under no obligation to include me, but it also means that I don’t ever have to concern myself with her. So even though Not That Kind of Girl does try hard to be universal — and for most of the book, it really is — it’s still clear that I’m not the target demographic (white women who relate to Girls) for it.
Not That Kind of Girl is a book that’s supposed to feel special, I guess, because of the author behind it, but it’s really just more of the same. I’ve read so many memoirs like this (Tina Fey’s Bossypants, Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, etc.) that it’s impossible for Not That Kind of Girl to stand out. I don’t have to be a huge fan of Dunham to already know most of what she talks about in the book. Even when she’s revealing something brand-new, like specific things she did or or said as a child, it’s still somehow unsurprising. Alison mentioned the two things that stick: Dunham’s college encounter with Barry and how she can’t properly classify whether or not it was consensual, and the chapter where she chronicles the awful things famous men have said to her. Other than that, reading the book was the equivalent of something going in one ear and right out the other.
It’s not that Not That Kind of Girl is bad. It’s just… there. It’s filled with the sort of humor where you think, “I’m supposed to laugh here,” but you don’t actually make a sound. It sometimes reads like above-average blogging, better than your basic personal essay but without any sentences that make me stop and think. It was purely passive reading, plodding along indifferently, knowing that I have to finish it but also knowing I won’t be missing anything if I didn’t. The indifference I have towards the book is the same indifference I have toward Lena Dunham in general: Keep doing whatever you do, and I’ll keep hanging out in the other room.
— Pilot Viruet, Television Editor
Charming Neurosis
Do I have to have capital-f Feelings about Not That Kind of Girl? I will say when it came into the office, I took it home and read it very quickly, partially for work reasons and partially because it was an entertaining essay collection. For what it is — the most “literary-ish” female-celebrity essay collection in recent memory, post-Tina Fey’s funny but slight Bossypants, the Chelsea Handler “I was slutty” empire, and Mindy Kaling’s likable essays that yielded their own card game — it’s good.
Outside of the echo chamber of noise around Girls, I’ve grown to appreciate Dunham’s work — the show can be all over the place (Hannah’s Iowa acceptance came out of left field), but when it hits, it lingers (I still think about Season 2’s “One Man’s Trash”). Dunham is clearly one of the insightful voices of my generation (not the one-and-only, do we even have a the, even though the media treats her as a the), and I’ve appreciated her work more and more as she’s gotten more specific as a writer — the New York Times Magazine piece compared her to Woody Allen, an observation that wasn’t new but remains apt. Our colleague Jason Bailey expanded on Dunham/Allen in this essay.
Dunham’s less of a ha-ha-joke writer; her humor comes more from the absurdity of life, from sly, well-observed scenes. But she appears to share a milieu with Allen, and certainly a variety of New York-relatable neurosis, a familiarity with psychiatrists and the whatever-speak of therapy that people try to sell you so you can deal with being a person. At the end of the day, though, Dunham’s not a nihilist; the secret is that she writes with a lot of love for the world, for herself (which appears to infuriate her sexist, lame critics), and for life, and she’s attuned to the weird little secrets that we all have. She’s interested in what her place in the world is, and is willing to share some of her worst moments with you, the reader. In the right combination, it’s a gift.
Like Girls‘ best moments, Not That Kind of Girl has wonderful high points. Dunham’s essay on why she gets naked in her work is honest and true. She ties in that aspect of her work with early photos by her artist mom, Laurie Simmons, in the ’70s, when she was just a “girl,” and you can see how this family’s habit of looking, really looking in the mirror at themselves influences their artistic ethos. Throughout the book, her portrayal of her father, Carroll Dunham, makes him sound like a really fascinating character and a good father. There’s also another essay about having a girl-crush on a young British playwright (if you sleuth, you’ll figure out it is probably Polly Stenham) and her posh British bohemian life that’s very funny.
“Barry” is a raw essay about sexual assault, and how trauma can exist in a gray area, that’s tough and moving. For younger women, it may be the sort of piece that can open their eyes. “Little Leather Gloves” talks about Dunham’s time right after college working at a high-end children’s clothing boutique in Tribeca and serves as a portrait of the artist taking her first, foal-like steps out into the world. It’s warm and nostalgic.
These essays stuck with me more than the essays regarding Dunham’s childhood (as seen previously in The New Yorker). The low point might be her essay on dieting, which features an endless array of food diaries that grows repetitive. This book strikes a curious balance between performing its candidness and telling universal-ish childhood stories that could just read like awkward family photos, and Dunham’s coy about the really interesting stuff. Growing up as the daughter of New York artists; seeing mumblecore movies and realizing she could make one herself; having your movie premiere and win the big award at SXSW; navigating Hollywood as, what, a size 8/10… all that is elided, and maybe I’m greedy, but I want to know what those experiences were like.
— Elisabeth Donnelly, Nonfiction Editor
Does She Have to Be Relatable?
I’m a 26-year-old professional writer and Brooklyn transplant who is not afraid to admit that she’s purchased infused olive oil from the artisanal shop down the block, yet routinely feels like her personal life is falling apart. I’m supposed to have a concrete opinion on Lena Dunham. But Not That Kind of Girl doesn’t elicit such an obvious response.
I spent much of the book feeling conflicted: to write a book like this is to give power to the young female experience. Broadly, I support that aim. Specifically, I don’t feel that some of what has been written is worth discussing. This is not coming from an anti-feminist place — this is coming from the fact that stories about summer camp and annotated emails to garbage humans are not the best Dunham has to offer. So much of her writing on terrible men makes about as much sense as the pseudo-relationships themselves, so I don’t exactly feel like I “learned” anything. I felt comforted, at times, to see my own mistakes reflected back at me, like when St. Vincent declares plainly on her song “Cheerleader,” “I’ve had good times with some bad guys.” Then again, why does Lena feel like she needs the reader to learn from her experiences instead of just presenting them? Is she justifying them or simply trying to seem wiser than she is? In this way |
GIANTS medical staff will settle on the best rehabilitation plan for the former Docker in the coming days.
Meanwhile key forward Jon Patton will have further assessment throughout the week on his hip.
The recently re-signed 23-year-old spent an extended period on the bench on Sunday but played out the game at the Adelaide Oval and kicked a late goal.
Key defender Aidan Corr is a recovering well from a hand injury and needs to get through training this week to be available for selection.
In further good news, draftee Will Setterfield will return to the field this weekend after being rested from the NEAFL trial against Sydney Uni last weekend.
Brett Deledio, Stephen Coniglio and Matt de Boer remain in the rehab group and are set to return to the field in the coming weeks.RESEARCH by Robert Jackson, from Stanford University in California, and Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia, in Britain, and others from the Global Carbon Project, an analysis group, just published in Nature Climate Change, estimates that the growth of carbon-dioxide emissions around the world will stall in 2015. The main reason the academics have for thinking so is China’s economic slowdown. The drop in that country’s coal consumption means that in 2014 its emissions of the gas grew by only 1.2%—in contrast to an average annual growth rate over the ten previous years of 6.7%. Total CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry around the world grew just 0.6% in 2014. That was down from an average of 2.4% in the prior decade. Delegates to the current UN climate negotiations in Paris may tout this as evidence that economic growth can be uncoupled from increasing emissions, for gross world product last year increased by 2.5%.
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China remains the world’s biggest emitter of CO2. By the authors' estimates, the activities of its people released 9.7 billion tonnes of the stuff—27% of the world’s total—into the air last year. (America was second, unleashing 5.6 billion tonnes.) At the same time, though, more than half of its new energy needs were met using low-carbon sources, including wind, sunlight and nuclear power. Indeed, China invests more in renewable-energy production than America and Japan combined.
According to its pledge for the Paris talks, China aims to ensure its emissions peak by 2030, and decline thereafter. Debate rages over how much the country actually pollutes, however. One study, published in Nature this year, found that Chinese carbon emissions were 14% lower in 2013 than previously estimated. Other research suggested that between 2011 and 2013 they were up to 11% higher. The new report claims to take such discrepancies into account.
Given China’s importance to efforts to reduce the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases, the discrepancies remain worrying. They may, for example, doom its national carbon-trading scheme, which is scheduled for launch in 2017. Moreover, voracious coal-burning may accelerate elsewhere. Poor countries that wish to emulate China’s economic growth are likely to take a similar track. More than 1.2 billion people still lack electricity. Coal remains a cheap way to generate it. Population growth over the coming decades will drive demand further. The UN reckons about 9.7 billion people will be living, breathing, driving and cooking on the planet by 2050—up from 7.3 billion now.
The damage already done to the environment should not be overlooked, either. In 2015 the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million—higher than at any previous point in the past 800,000 years. And this year is likely to be the warmest on record. (The strong Niño climatic event under way is a factor.) It is welcome news that growth in emissions has slowed, and looks set to cease, albeit probably temporarily. But concentrations of CO2 will continue to rise, even if any flatlining is permanent. Emissions must therefore actually decline if the risks of further climate change are to be avoided.(CNN) -- More than 1,300 Palestinians died and about 5,400 others were wounded during Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza, the Web site of the Palestinian Authority's Central Bureau of Statistics said Monday.
A Palestinian man Monday prays in the rubble of his home, destroyed during Israel's offensive in Gaza.
Louay Shabana, head of the agency, said more than 22,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Shabana put the economic destruction at more than $1.9 billion.
The fighting largely stopped Sunday with a cease-fire. Israel has said 13 of its citizens -- including 10 soldiers -- were killed during the offensive, which started December 27.
Israel said its offensive was aimed at stopping Hamas militants from firing rockets into southern Israel.
Gaza is in need of humanitarian, economic, sanitary and social help as a result of the Israeli attacks, Shabana said.
The attacks destroyed public sector and private buildings in Gaza, affecting even the United Nations Relief and Works Agency's facilities and halting economic and social services, the statistics agency said. Watch Palestinians recover bodies from rubble »
Gaza's gross domestic product was slashed by 85 percent during the 22 days of war, and it could take a year for the economy to recover, the agency said in a preliminary report.
About 80 percent of crops in Gaza were destroyed, according to the agency.
"The pervasive sense here among the population is one of overwhelming grief, so many families have been destroyed in so many ways," said John Ging, the top United Nations official in Gaza.
Ging, UNRWA's Gaza director of operations, said the bill could reach "billions of dollars."
Among the dead were 159 children, two of whom died in an UNRWA school that was shelled Saturday, Ging said.
Gaza's main border crossings, which Israel often closed in response to Hamas rocket attacks, were open Monday. Infrastructure repairs were being made, but 400,000 people still had no water, according to Ging.
Streets in some northern Gaza towns were flooded with sewage, and about 50 U.N. facilities were damaged, he said.
More than 170 supply trucks crossed into Gaza on Monday, less than a third of the daily number that crossed in 2005, said John Holmes, U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
Israel tried to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, a senior Israel Defense Forces officer said in a posting Monday on the IDF Web site.
"This was not a war against the Palestinians," he said. "It was an operation of self-defense against Hamas and related terror organizations. Unfortunately, this task was made extremely difficult by Hamas, as they made the choice to use civilians as human shields."
Israel began the offensive in response to rocket fire by Hamas militants after showing eight years of restraint, the officer said.
The operation's goal, he said, "was to improve the security situation in southern Israel, and to facilitate peaceful living for the Israeli civilians living there."
"We asked ourselves how to accomplish this, and the answer was to hit Hamas hard -- to strike the tunnels, the terrorists themselves, and all of their assets -- in order to prevent them from committing war crimes by firing rockets that target our civilian population," the officer said.
He said seven rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel since Sunday's cease-fire declaration.
"We want to give this cease-fire a chance, but if Hamas chooses not to, we will utilize all of our means," he said.
All About Israel • Gaza • HamasAs a genre, “true crime” typically brings to mind classic nonfiction masterworks like “In Cold Blood” (1966) and guilty-pleasure cable television about grisly murders, serial killers and police chases. Public fascination with the genre is nothing new, but it appears to have entered a renaissance with the recent, overwhelming popularity of documentary series like the Netflix-produced “Making A Murderer” (2015) and HBO’s “The Jinx” (2015). All this elevation of true crime to both highbrow and binge-worthy status starts with “Serial” (2014 – present), a “This American Life” spinoff podcast that premiered in fall of 2014.
Hosted by Sarah Koenig and produced by Julie Snyder, “Serial” fascinated listeners with the case of Adnan Syed, a man convicted for the 1999 murder of his former girlfriend Hae Min Lee. The first season of the podcast explored Syed’s case through personal interviews conducted by Koenig and through expert compilation of testimony, investigation and speculation.
“Serial” held the number one podcast spot on iTunes even before its debut and remained there for several weeks, according to an Oct. 9, 2014 New Yorker story. It won the Peabody Award in 2015 and received over 100 million downloads between twelve episodes, pushing podcasts as a medium for storytelling into the mainstream and reigniting a public passion for traditional, serialized true crime with a digital-age twist.
With all the attention and accolades bestowed on the show’s first season, the pressure was on for season two. Although “Serial” had wrapped the story of Syed inconclusively, listeners were promised a new case in 2015. In December 2015, Koenig brought the story of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl that would enthrall the audience for at least another twelve weeks.
Despite that season two’s focus on Bergdahl, an American soldier who was held captive by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Afghanistan for nearly five years, deviates from the podcast’s true crime roots, Koenig and her team have found that Bergdahl’s narrative provides the suspense, mystery, and real-world complexities that initially made the show so popular. Unlike the seemingly simple question of “Did he do it?” that was at the heart of Syed’s case, Bergdahl’s story brings out a web of questions for both Koenig and the audience to consider. Is he a deserter? A Taliban sympathizer? How did he survive in captivity for so long? What does his case say about the U.S. military, about the war in Afghanistan and about the role of an individual in international conflict? As of the season’s fourth episode, these questions are only beginning to be explored.
Unlike the direct communication she had with Syed that provided the basis of “Serial’s” first season, Koenig’s reporting in season two relies on the 25 hours of taped interviews with Bergdahl conducted by journalist turned filmmaker Mark Boal. Boal, who won an Oscar for his script for “The Hurt Locker” (2009) and also wrote “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012), was reluctant to grant “Serial” access to his tapes but eventually trusted Koenig with presenting the full narrative. Although this indirect access comes as a challenge to Koenig, and results in a loss of the intimacy between subject and narrator that made the first season all the more compelling, Koenig is able to compensate with a more comprehensive, analytic approach to reporting. The distance between Bergdahl and Koenig also reduces accusations of bias and allows someone with a greater understanding of military structure to ask Bergdahl questions.
“I had a big learning curve on this one,” Koenig said in an interview with the New York Magazine. “I’m not a war reporter. I’m not a national-security reporter.”
Despite her initial unfamiliarly with the case, it becomes clear that, like any good journalist, Koenig has sought every resource to be as informed as possible, and often notes her own faults in understanding, allowing others to make points she couldn’t make alone.
“One of the exciting things about Sarah [Koenig] is that she lets listeners into her deliberative process,” Boal said in the same New York Magazine interview.
The podcast has switched mid-season to a bi-weekly format, citing narrative developments as a central reason, so eager listeners will have to wait even longer to get the next episode. This change may not help develop or sustain listenership comparable to that of the first season, but the real-time nature of the case adds to the suspense and danger of the story. Bergdahl is currently awaiting court-martial for desertion, and reporters at “Esquire” and other publications have even accused the show of making things worse for him and more challenging for his trial. As the season progresses, Koenig and her team will have to tread carefully and work hard in order to maintain the level of compelling narrative they have established without risking anyone’s safety.Illustration by Victor Juhasz
In another era, we would have seen Congressional hearings on this matter within days, yet a year has passed and...nothing. This type of fraud never grows old.
Take Action! Audit the Fed - Sign the Petition
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By Matt Taibbi
For Rolling Stone
Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs?
Most Americans know about that budget. What they don't know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole galaxy of obscure, acronym-laden bailout programs, it eventually rivaled the "official" budget in size — a huge roaring river of cash flowing out of the Federal Reserve to destinations neither chosen by the president nor reviewed by Congress, but instead handed out by fiat by unelected Fed officials using a seemingly nonsensical and apparently unknowable methodology.
Now, following an act of Congress that has forced the Fed to open its books from the bailout era, this unofficial budget is for the first time becoming at least partially a matter of public record. Staffers in the Senate and the House, whose queries about Fed spending have been rebuffed for nearly a century, are now poring over 21,000 transactions and discovering a host of outrages and lunacies in the "other" budget. It is as though someone sat down and made a list of every individual on earth who actually did not need emergency financial assistance from the United States government, and then handed them the keys to the public treasure. The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loanseach to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. "Our jaws are literally dropping as we're reading this," says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "Every one of these transactions is outrageous."
But if you want to get a true sense of what the "shadow budget" is all about, all you have to do is look closely at the taxpayer money handed over to a single company that goes by a seemingly innocuous name: Waterfall TALF Opportunity. At first glance, Waterfall's haul doesn't seem all that huge — just nine loans totaling some $220 million, made through a Fed bailout program. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, considering that Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches.
Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley's investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income.
The technical name of the program that Mack and Karches took advantage of is TALF, short for Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. But the federal aid they received actually falls under a broader category of bailout initiatives, designed and perfected by Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, called "giving already stinking rich people gobs of money for no fucking reason at all." If you want to learn how the shadow budget works, follow along. This is what welfare for the rich looks like.
Continue reading at Rolling Stone...
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UPDATE - Maxine Waters asked Bernanke about Taibbi's story earlier this week...
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UPDATE - Matt Taibbi discusses the story with CNN's Eliot Spitzer...
John and Christy Mack pictured below.
Background...
How banks and hedge funds will scam the TALF
Why You Should Always Make Laura Blankfein Wait In Line
AUDIT THE FED - SIGN THE PETITIONLast season was an absolute nightmare for Jared Cowen as the 23-year old defenseman struggled with all aspects of the game. His physical presence was lacking, his skating was subpar to say the least, and his positioning was, for lack of a better word, questionable. We all felt badly for Jared Cowen last year, as something was clearly wrong, but sometimes it was just plain hard to watch.
Don’t believe me? Well, here are a few examples:
1. Physical Presence
2. Positioning
3. Skating/Terrible Luck
By The Numbers
Offensively, Jared Cowen wasn’t declining in production whatsoever. He recorded 15 (6,9) points in 68 games last season, similar numbers he put up in his last full season in 2011 when he had 17 (5,12) in 82 games. But putting the puck in the net isn’t Cowen’s game. He’s a stay-at-home defenseman who usually has a solid first pass and good possession numbers, but that wasn’t the case last season.
Cowen’s confidence with the puck was definitely shaky and he struggled because of it. The 6’5 defenseman had a terrible -34 turnover plus/minus (takeaway – giveaway), by far the worst of his young career. Possession wise, he could have someone fooled, but not when you look a little deeper. Cowen had a 50.4 Corsi%, which is a good number, but not for a player who is paired alongside Erik Karlsson, the Corsi king. With Karlsson, Cowen’s Corsi% rises to 53.5, but without him, Cowen’s Corsi% drops to 47.6. Cowen was also 6th on the team’s defense squad with a -3.7 relative Corsi, while Karlsson was 1st with a 10.4.
Not even Erik Karlsson could fix Jared Cowen.
A Good Excuse
On November 17th, 2012, doctors performed surgery on Jared Cowen’s torn labrum in his left hip. The recovery time was expected to be at least 6-8 months, but exactly 5 months later, Cowen played his first game since going under the knife.
At the time, Jared Cowen had accomplished an impressive feat. Returning to play after only 5 months of rehab was miraculous and what was even more admirable was his play in the final games of the regular season and the Senators’ playoff campaign. You couldn’t say a bad word about Cowen as he was exceeding all the expectations the Senators had after drafting him 9th overall in 2009.
As the 2013-14 season got started, it seemed that maybe Cowen had returned from hip surgery too quickly, earlier in the year. He seemed to be missing a stride or two and his confidence was dwindling as he was caught in poor position multiple times each and every game. Contract negotiations also took a hit on Cowen as he was not able to get in a full training camp which further contributed to his diminishing play.
Whether if it was coming back too early from injury or missing out on training camp, Cowen certainly was never ready when the season started.
New Season, New Opportunity, No Excuses
The upcoming season is a fresh start for Cowen. Last season, his surgery may have been in the back of his mind and the fact that he didn’t get a full training camp also probably hurt his play, but this time around there’s no reason for excuses. Cowen has now fully recovered from his hip injury and he will also be at training camp on September 11th to start the 2014-15 season more prepared than ever.
It’s not to say that anyone has lost hope in Cowen, because it seems Bryan Murray is still very confident in his abilities.
“…He wants to be good. He’s going to be good. I can envision him in a couple of years from being a real important player for the organization. He is now, we just need him to take another small step over the balance of the year to help us.” Bryan Murray. Ottawa Sun. Published: Mar. 03, 2014.
Jared Cowen needs to return to the player the Senators want him to be: a strong, well-positioned, hard-to-play-against guy who can be relied on in pressure situations. Last season, he strayed away from his game. He pinched too often, got caught jumping into the play and made poor decisions with the puck. All this can be fixed if Cowen gets his confidence back. No need for him to think about contract negotiations or rehabbing, just play his game.
There’s no doubt that Jared Cowen can be a dominant defensive force as a Senator for years to come. But if he can’t rebound from last year, there’s plenty of young defensemen ready and waiting for their turn.
No excuses.TRENTON — The City of Hoboken has received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's Office regarding Mayor Dawn Zimmer's allegations against top officials in Gov. Chris Christie's administration.
"The City of Hoboken has received a subpoena for documents and is fully cooperating," Zimmer spokesman Juan Melli said.
Zimmer two weeks ago said that Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Community Affairs Commissioner Richard Constable both told her that her city would get Sandy aid if she approved a politically-connected development project in the north end of town.
The project, by the Rockefeller group, was represented by Wolf & Samson -- the firm of Port Authority Chairman David Samson, a close ally to Christie.
The Rockefeller Group dropped Wolf & Samson on Thursday.
• Christie Hoboken scandal: Developer severs ties with law firm connected to governor
• Comple coverage of Hoboken storm funding scandalExplanatory notes are given against some of these dates, but to read about particular battles or political events please go to Bibliography
It is important to remember that heavy censorship of news took place throughout them, and therefore knowledge of many of these events was not available until long after they happened - or until after the wars had ended.
The Battle of Cambrai. An eight mile wide attack with Tanks.
US 'Rainbow' Division (representing every State) arrives at the Western Front under Colonel Douglas MacArthur.
The Battle of Caporetto (In the Italian Alps and lasted into to November) with the Italian retreat.
Lloyd George says"peace can only be negotiated with the German people - not their leaders".
King orders all German Titles to be dropped and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to become Windsor, and Battenburg to become Mountbatten.
330 majority in House of Commons in favour of votes to wives over the age of 30 years.
French Army mutinies and strikes at factories in protest at the war.
250,000 workers in Berlin end strike when promised better rations and a say in running of the Food Councils.
America enters the war on the side of the Allies.
Ramsgate and Broadstairs shelled from the sea.Three US ships sunk without warning by German U Boats. President Wilson calls a Special Congress to debate US relations with Germany.
Commission of Enquiry lays part of the blame for the Dardanelles campaign failure on Lord Kitchener.
Cunard Liner sunk by Germans in the Mediterranean with heavy loss of life.
A brief summary of 1917.
Revolution took Russia out of the war and brought Communism into the world.
French forces mutinied and British influence in strategy became more important. The appalling failure to win the battles of Ypres - known now as Passchendaele - its objective - was to cause great suffering despondency.
1917 saw the Americans enter the war - but to little immediate effect. But by July 1918, 1,200,000 American soldiers were to be in Europe.
Bagdad fell to the Allies in March. In June the famous explosion of 19 enormous mines under the German lines proved a morale booster - as did the seizure by the British and Canadians of Vimy Ridge.
The Italians were forced back to the River Piave by the Germans.
In Cambrai, the British won a spectacular - but unexploited - battle with Churchill's new tanks and this caused the Church Bells to be prematurely rung in London.
Jerusalem fell to the Allies in in December.
The purpose of these pages is to tell the story of Churchill's life - not to give a detailed account of the wars he was involved in, for that is a vast subject.
Month by month factual and photographic calendars of the Ist World War
It is important to remember that heavy censorship of news took place throughout them, and therefore knowledge of many of these events was not available until long after they happened - or until after the wars had ended. Morevover, the experiences of the soldiers were so terrible, that of the the few who returned, none spoke of them for many many years.
Explanatory notes are given against some of these dates, but to read about particular battles or political events please go to BibliographyWant weed? Meadow can bring it to your door.
Editor’ s note: Here are five Bay Area startups worth watching this week.
Weed is becoming a very serious business in the Bay Area.
With recreational marijuana sales becoming legal in January, dispensaries are scrambling to comply with new regulations on the horizon. San Francisco startup Meadow helps dispensaries navigate the complexities of the law so they can focus on their core business: weed.
“November was a wake-up call,” David Hua, the founder of Meadow, said of California voters’ 2016 approval of Proposition 64, which legalized recreational use of cannabis and will be implemented in stages.
Meadow started in 2014 as a way for people to get medical marijuana delivered to their door. Now, three years later, the startup touches nearly every aspect of the cannabis industry: delivery, inventory management and patient intake.
“Having a partner that pays attention to all of the delivery regulations is really helpful so we don’t have to,” said JP Noda, a delivery coordinator for San Francisco’s Apothecarium, one of about 80 dispensaries using Meadow.
With $2.2 million in funding and 10 employees, Meadow is trending on startup database Crunchbase this week because of the recent launch of its loyalty program that was profiled in TechCrunch. With this program, patients can rack up points at dispensaries they regularly visit, and then redeem those points for rewards.
Hua said the pot business combines aspects of several industries: online delivery, pharmaceuticals and — when it comes to needing a nuanced palate — wine. But with all of the excitement, Hua said, he’s taking lessons from other startups that grew too fast, too soon.
“We’re definitely learning from other industries,” he said. “After all, (Silicon Valley) is in our backyard.”
Also trending:
Slyce
What it does: Provides consumer brands with a system to coordinate and approve social media posts by celebrity endorsers.
What happened: Slyce was co-founded by Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry. Curry had a cameo in the season premiere of the HBO show “Ballers” in late July, during which he wore a Slyce T-shirt and dropped the name of the company. Slyce is also in the process of raising a additional $1 million, CEO Bryant Barr said.
Why it matters: Brands are expanding their digital presence and paying celebrities to promote their products. “People want to follow people, not necessarily brands,” Barr said. Slyce software simplifies a process that can otherwise be a jumble of emails with screenshots and links.
Headquarters: Palo Alto
Funding: $1.6 million, according to Barr.
Employees: 8
LoungeBuddy
What it does: A mobile app and website that give travelers pay-as-you-go access to airport lounges around the world.
What happened: LoungeBuddy is releasing a new version of its lounge-management system soon, said co-founder and CEO Tyler Dikman.
Why it matters: The number of airline travelers has been rising steadily for decades. And passengers are already used to paying more for services like meals, checked baggage and extra legroom — why not add lounge access, too?
Headquarters: San Francisco
Funding: Between $5 million and $10 million, according to Dikman, who would not disclose the exact amount. (Crunchbase lists it as $4 million, which may not include the most recent investments.)
Employees: 16
Nimble Collective
What it does: An online animation studio that operates in the cloud.
What happened: The company recently announced training tools for Pixar’s RenderMan 3-D-rendering software. CEO Rex Grignon said the company also got a lot of attention at the Siggraph computer graphics conference this month.
Why it matters: Setting up an animation studio comes with a lot of overhead costs: hardware, high-end workstations, licensing agreements and expensive software. With Nimble Collective’s cloud services, Grignon said, anyone can set up a virtual studio in minutes. (The company did not disclose pricing.)
Headquarters: Mountain View
Funding: $8 million, according to Grignon.
Employees: 28
Stellar
What it does: A nonprofit, open-source blockchain system that allows users to easily transfer money across borders and currencies.
What happened: Stellar is in conversations with high-profile partners in Southeast Asia, according to Chief Technology Officer Jed McCaleb.
Why it matters: The flow of payments works fairly well in countries like the United States. But in developing nations where transferring money is a painful process, blockchain systems like Stellar have the potential to take root more quickly, McCaleb said.
Headquarters: San Francisco
Funding: $3 million, according to McCaleb
Employees: 15
Trisha Thadani and Isha Salian are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com, isalian@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @TrishaThadani
How we pick
the companies
Every week, The Chronicle and Crunchbase, a San Francisco firm that tracks key businesses in technology, analyze private Bay Area companies based on their financial backing, employees and activity on Crunchbase. We feature five that are moving up in the ranks. For more information on the companies: www.crunchbase.comIn addition to confirming the 10 new songs found earlier, Harmonix announced today in a press release the availability of pre-orders for the disc-only version of Rock Band 4.
For the Playstation 4, the disc will retail for the standard US game price of $59.99, and will “support most legacy Rock Band and third party wireless guitars and drums with no additional hardware”.
The Xbox One version of the disc will retail for the slightly higher price of $79.99, because it will come bundled with the Legacy Game Controller Adapter. The adapter description in the press release says that it “supports up to four wireless Rock Band controllers simultaneously as well as many third party wireless instrument controllers for the Xbox 360”. No details are provided as to which third party controllers are supported. Update: Harmonix has released more details about instrument compatibility.
Pre-orders for both disc based versions are set to be available today, at select retailers worldwide.Most non-EU skilled workers will soon need to earn £35k to stay in the UK, and schools fear losing key staff
Teachers sent packing in midst of recruitment crisis – because they earn too little
Kelly Wilcox teaches English in a secondary school in south London. Her students are thriving. She has a boyfriend and a cat and a job she loves. She grew up in Connecticut in the US, but now her life is here. At least that’s what she thought.
Under immigration rules that come into force next month, skilled workers – including teachers – from non-EU countries will need to earn at least £35,000 to remain in the UK permanently.
With a salary of just over £29,000, Wilcox faces having to leave the country - and her beloved pupils - at a time when headteachers are facing a desperate shortage of teachers.
Many schools have had to look overseas for teachers to fill their gaps – to the US, Canada, Australia and beyond. Now they face losing them, with tight budgets making it impossible in most cases to stretch to £35,000 salaries – all in the midst of a domestic recruitment crisis the like of which has not been seen for years.
Shannon Harmon from the Stop35k.org campaign said: “The new rules will impact classrooms up and down the country. The average teacher’s salary in the UK after 10 years is £29,500 according to a 2013 OECD report, significantly short of the required £35,000 threshold. Who will replace these teachers?”
Wilcox, 26, studied English and creative writing at Westminster University before doing a PGCE to train as a teacher. She now teaches English to pupils from years 7 to 12 at Greenshaw high school in Sutton and she’s angry she stands to lose everything she’s worked for. “Teaching is a career that requires heart and soul. I am tired, I spend weekends and holidays marking or writing lessons, but the kids I do it for give me a reason for getting up to go to work at 6am every morning.
“The £35,000 rule undermines my efforts. It suggests I am unnecessary. It demeans me to a number.
“My salary does not reflect my worth or value. It does not reflect the impact I have on students. It only reflects how much I contribute to tax. I don’t see why I should be punished for my salary.”
Another American (who didn’t want to be named), a modern languages teacher at an academy in Berkshire, was equally furious. “I’ve devoted the last three years of my life to building a teaching career in the UK.
“I’m an experienced teacher of 38. If I have to leave the country at this point in my life I would probably have to go back to my parents. I’ve got no savings – I spend 72% of my income on rent and council tax. I really like my school. I would like to stay. It’s incredibly unfair.”
Teacher recruitment ‘a mess’ as every school slugs it out for itself Read more
With a salary of just over £31,000 she is hoping a pay review later this year could bring her up to the £35,000 threshold if she takes on additional responsibilities.
“The issue for me now is all the uncertainty,” she says. “The government is making decisions without clearly thinking through the implications.” It will not only disrupt her life, she says, but that of her school – which like many others is experiencing recruitment difficulties – and her pupils. “I’m angry because of the injustice.”
Teachers of maths, physics and chemistry are exempt under the “shortage occupation list” because of the particularly acute shortages in these subjects, which have been acknowledged by the government.
Headteachers and union leaders argue, however, that there are problems recruiting in many other subjects and some say the salary threshold rule will make it virtually impossible to run schools that are heavily dependent on non-EU migrant teachers.
Vic Goddard, principal of Passmores academy in Essex, regularly recruits from Canada, sending his assistant principal every year to do a tour of Canadian cities to find teachers. He has five teachers from Canada, and others from Australia and South Africa and says the policy is “ridiculous”.
“Potentially I could lose 8%-10% of my teaching staff in a flash. I can’t believe they think they are going to be able to do that and us survive.
“I’m sort of not taking it very seriously at the moment. It would make my school almost impossible to run very quickly. It’s simply unworkable. Lots of schools will be affected. There are shortages in every subject. Maths and science are just a drop in the ocean.
“We’ve got so many other things to worry about – it’s just a ridiculous policy that was based on getting a headline. It’s not about common sense. It’s not about education. It’s a headline grabber.”
Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), is calling on the government urgently to reconsider the policy. “When Theresa May published her statement of intent in February 2012 the teacher recruitment crisis was not as acute as it is now. It seems absurdly counterproductive to force schools to dismiss teachers they’ve trained and invested in, and who are still very much needed, at a time when highly skilled qualified teachers are in great demand.”
The NUT also wants the government to look again at the shortage occupation list. “Currently, only secondary school maths, chemistry and physics teaching is considered a shortage occupation. However, headteachers up and down the country are struggling to fill a variety of teaching posts, not just these three subjects.”
The non-EU workers who’ll be deported for earning less than £35,000 Read more
Courtney says: “Migrant teachers make a significant contribution to the UK. Most of those affected by these proposals are Commonwealth or US citizens. These teachers and their families shouldn’t have their settled lives in the UK destroyed by a government which is now making them pay for the false promises of the past.”
A government spokesman defended the policy, saying that in the past it had been too easy for some sectors to bring in workers from overseas rather than to take the long-term decision to train the domestic workforce in the UK. “These reforms will ensure that employers – including those in the education sector – are able to attract the skilled migrants they need. But we also want them to get better at recruiting and training UK teachers first.”
Such words ring hollow for Wilcox and others like her. “It’s a strange feeling, to face being forced to move back to America,” she says. “I love where I grew up. But my life is not there. My friendships from America are purely Facebook likes and comments. My real relationships are here in London. I just absolutely love it here.
“I always knew I wanted to be a teacher – both my parents are teachers. I love teaching and the school has been so kind to me. I would be devastated if I had to leave.”Gordon Brown today acknowledged a "bad night" for Labour after the party's national share of the vote plummeted to 24% - its lowest level since the 1960s – in his first electoral test as prime minister.
With about two thirds of the results declared, the Conservatives had |
, what your approach is going to be, and what an effective communication protocol looks like is important to ensure you are able to focus on the task at hand rather than providing hourly updates in PPT format. Establish information sharing protocols. Will you be allowed to connect your laptop to their network? Will you be allowed to take logs back to your forensics lab? If you have to carry out disk imaging, how will that be done and will the image be permitted out of their premises so you can load it onto Encase or FTK back in your lab? If no, have they arranged systems with sufficient computing capacity for you to do most of the work onsite? Ask stupid questions. One investigation we were involved in, the IT team had themselves discovered the malware, taken a backup of it and then deleted it. We determined this when we took the server’s image for offline analysis and found suspicious files during the un-delete operation. Upon asking the IT team why they never told us about these malware, the response was – you never asked! So, it is best to ask the stupidest of questions rather than work with any assumptions that send your investigation completely off-track. Build and tear down hypotheses. Document your hypotheses from Day One. And be prepared for all your initial hypotheses to break down and be proven wrong. Do not bring your ego in the picture. In any incident, what you think in the first 72 hours is likely to be proven wrong in the next 72. So maintain a running account of your hypotheses, what assumptions they are built on, where your investigation stands vis-a-vis each one of them, and if you have abandoned them, then what are your reasons for doing so. Again, getting all stakeholders to review your hypotheses and challenge them helps the investigation move along. Build flexibility in your toolkit. You might love doing log analysis on your high-end laptop using Splunk or ELK. But what happens when you land onsite and the client says we can’t give you the logs on your laptop. But you can analyze them on ours. But wait, the system we give you does not have administrator rights, and has very limited Internet access. Not communicating you requirements properly can result in you having to use grep/sed/awk instead of your dream toolkit. There are investigations I have had to analyze gigabytes of logs using Notepad++, the Windows findstr command and Excel! Keep the larger picture in mind. Always ask for the IT asset inventory, IT organizational chart, all possible network diagrams, all vendors involved, list of all connectivity into the compromised system or network. The attack vector could be any system or network connections. You must always keep the larger picture in mind. Keep going back to this larger picture as you move along on your hypotheses. Set client expectations right. There is always the possibility that your investigation might reach a dead-end. Often this happens due to the absence of logs. Be prepared for such an eventuality and explain to the client that this is a distinct possibility. In cases like ransomware or business email compromise, it is best to explain to the client upfront that getting back their data or money may not be remotely possible. Also, in most cybersecurity incidents, attribution is an imaginary goal – you may never get there. Explaining these aspects upfront, reduces a lot of unnecessary heartburn later on.
The way cybersecurity incidents are happening, incident response has now become the norm. No matter which aspect of cybersecurity you specialize in, understanding the kill chain, keeping abreast of various types of fraud, and being able to advise clients properly when there is an incident are non-negotiable skills. Organizations should focus on implementing formal incident management processes, developing incident runbooks, conducting cybersecurity drills and training both the security and IT teams on incident response.
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Review title of Sights Lined Up Great Functionality, Lacking High Quality Image Library
I use this application when I’m going to step away from my $3K OLED tv long enough that I’m concerned with burn-in, but not long enough for me to turn it off and then back on again. In terms of functionality, this app works exactly how you’d expect it to—fluid image rotation and a simple, user-friendly interface to match. The only thing holding it back from 5 stars is some of the image choices that are made. Some pictures are low resolution, not ideal on a 4K tv, and some photographs are below amateur level or just plain unsightly. With an improved image library I’d give it 5 stars.A Fitting Change
Tesla’s name has been tied to electric vehicles (EVs) ever since the company unveiled it’s pioneer product, the Tesla Roadster. But even with the title “Tesla Motors Inc.,” the company has never been shy about their ambitious plans to reach far beyond electric cars. Since it was founded in 2003, Tesla has become so much more. Therefore, it’s fitting that the company moved to officially change their name to Tesla Inc.
Ostensibly, all the company really did was drop a single word from their original name. However, it’s a move that signifies how a brand can stay true to its heritage, and continue to forge a new path towards what Elon Musk called the “solar electric economy” of the future, which he mentioned in the Ostensibly, all the company really did was drop a single word from their original name. However, it’s a move that signifies how a brand can stay true to its heritage, and continue to forge a new path towards what Elon Musk called the “solar electric economy” of the future, which he mentioned in the first half of his Master Plan back in 2006.
When Musk was placed at the helm of the company, Tesla was already reeling from the effects of the financial crisis. But amid cutbacks, layoffs, and missed launch dates, the company was able to secure $40 million that helped Tesla avoid bankruptcy. By 2009, Tesla introduced When Musk was placed at the helm of the company, Tesla was already reeling from the effects of the financial crisis. But amid cutbacks, layoffs, and missed launch dates, the company was able to secure $40 million that helped Tesla avoid bankruptcy. By 2009, Tesla introduced the Model S, their first electric sedan. By mid 2010, Tesla went public for $17 per share.
Towards the end of 2011, Tesla unveiled the Model X prototype, simultaneous with deliveries of the Model S, which finally made it to the market. In 2014, Tesla open-sourced its patents for EVs. Beyond being an unprecedented move from a private, for-profit company, this demonstrated the company’s commitment to their master plan – to make sustainable transport accessible to all.
The Future of Tesla
The construction of The construction of Tesla’s Gigafactory in 2014 marked Tesla’s steady path toward realizing its ultimate vision. Once the factory becomes fully operational (hopefully by 2020), this will allow the company to bring down the cost of their batteries by 30 percent, thus lowering the price of the Model 3. That same year, Tesla announced their semi-autonomous driving system, Autopilot.
2015 saw the arrival of the 2015 saw the arrival of the Model X and Autopilot in the market, but more notably, it was a milestone for the company’s foray outside of car manufacturing. The introduction of the Powerwall and the Powerpack marked Tesla’s first big push into energy.
Tesla
The following year, Tesla’s The following year, Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity reignited talk of where exactly Tesla was headed – but it wasn’t long after that Musk revealed the second half of his masterplan, where he confirmed Tesla’s new objectives. Not only was Tesla set to introduce more affordable EVs, and make self-driving technology a reality, but the company was also going to start building solar roofs to seamlessly integrate with Tesla’s battery storage.
As Musk himself stated in the As Musk himself stated in the second half of his masterplan
The point of all this was, and remains, accelerating the advent of sustainable energy, so that we can imagine far into the future and life is still good. That’s what ‘sustainable’ means. It’s not some silly, hippy thing – it matters for everyone.The Cincinnati Bengals are undefeated and one of the healthiest teams in the NFL, and it's not a coincidence. We take a deep dive into a key schedule change that has helped the team.
Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis and the strength staff have changed the team schedule this year, to much success. (Photo: The Enquirer/Kareem Elgazzar)
There were slow walks through the Cincinnati Bengals' locker room the week of October 12th, but it had very little to do with the swagger earned from a comeback win over the Seattle Seahawks.
No, there was a decided lack of ebullience.
Simply, football hurts. And the Seahawks have rather infamously battered opponents on more than just the scoreboard, a physical team that leaves it mark well after the final whistle.
By the end of the week however, with a trip to Buffalo on the horizon, the Bengals' locker room looked … normal.
Well, as normal as you can look after five games.
The Bengals went into Ralph Wilson Stadium in New York with only defensive back Leon Hall out of action due to injury, and they wore out the banged-up Bills to move to 6-0.
Perhaps more impressive than the unbeaten start for the Bengals is the fact that, according to the Wall Street Journal, they are just the ninth team since 2005 to not make a change to its season-opening 53-man roster through six weeks.
They are one of three teams to have just two players on injured reserve – wide receiver James Wright and linebacker Marquis Flowers. And both were placed on that list before the regular season began. By contrast, Pittsburgh leads the league with 13 players on injured reserve.
Many factors play into the health of a team. Fortune. Physical preparation. Toughness. But the Bengals also believe they are experiencing success due to a change in the weekly schedule, mainly with the workload on Friday and Saturday, instituted by head coach Marvin Lewis in training camp.
“We’re basically finishing up our hardest part of the week 72 hours before we play a game, which we feel good about,” Lewis said. “So the player has an opportunity to really work on his body. We get to go from the physical focus to the mental focus to the personal focus, for him to get his body back to a peak shape, whatever it may be for him, to play his best football on Sunday.”
Now, six weeks into the regular season – with 10 total games on the ledger counting the preseason – the players can say there has been a positive effect on their bodies, and therefore, on the field.
“I can sense I feel better as the week goes on,” guard Kevin Zeitler said. “Saturday, OK, Sunday, OK I finally feel like I’m a person again. Just to start to the cycle over. That’s kind of the best way to describe it. You’re sore as all heck like normal the first couple days after the game, but throughout the week, working, the way we practice, getting the blood flowing and lifts and all the stuff we do, I think it does help promote the recovery.”
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A slow build
One could say this change was four years in the making, following the lockout of 2011 that saw a new collective bargaining agreement alter how often teams could practice and allow contact in those practices.
The Bengals, however, didn’t have to change much in that regard. Lewis said the team was already hitting less often than others before the work stoppage, but he and strength and conditioning coach Chip Morton have been on a quest to truly maximize the hours allowed.
“We look at everything,” Lewis said. “I always look at everything and try to find a way to do something different or better, what can we do to help ourselves? This kind of focuses in on the coaching element and makes every rep count and gives us a better focus. And if we can improve ourselves physically and mentally, then it’s an advantage.”
But one could point to 2013 as to when the league took a drastic step forward in game-week preparation, when the Philadelphia Eagles hired Chip Kelly away from the University of Oregon. He brought in a sports science coordinator to tailor workouts and tracked player movements – and fatigue – with Global Positioning Systems on equipment. Food service was changed, and each Eagle would get custom shakes made for his dietary needs.
Kelly also changed the traditional NFL practice schedule, giving his team Monday off while eliminating practice on Friday. The Eagles would hold just a walkthrough on that day, and then follow it up Saturday with a brisk practice. The Eagles went 10-6 and made the playoffs that year, and are 23-15 under Kelly since.
A year ago, as the Bengals were introducing GPS to their own practices and earmarking $2 million toward upgrading the gym and cafeteria at Paul Brown Stadium, Mike McCarthy and the Green Bay Packers hired a full-time nutritionist (also from Oregon) and changed their schedule. Tuesday would remain an off day, but Friday was also a walkthrough and recovery day - with a sped-up Saturday workout.
Green Bay advanced to the NFC Championship game.
The Bengals' plan for 2015 and what they do within it – while drawing on research and conversations with other officials from around the league – is unique.
The team uses a variety of methods refined by Lewis, Morton and assistant strength and conditioning coach Jeff Friday to better maximize how each player’s body reacts not only to game-day punishment, but also to each day of work between games.
Cincinnati Bengals players like Darqueze Dennard have taken advantage of the team's new schedule to prevent long-lasting muscle injuries. (Photo: The Enquirer/Kareem Elgazzar)
Left tackle Andrew Whitworth says this is the best he’s felt at this point in the season.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I think this is the best, schedule-wise, it’s ever been. I think it’s exceptional. I’ve always been one to kind of question why I do something, what’s the reason for what we do. That’s just kind of how I am, whether it’s working out or studying something. I always like there to be a process and kind of clear-cut, hey, this is why I’m doing something. And, so for me, I really get it. I understand it.”
The team uses traditional recovery methods such as hot and cold tub treatments, or a combination of both called contrasts, as well as a device called NormaTec boots, which improve circulation and reduce soreness in the legs.
Morton and his staff also incorporate a variety of custom stretches and treatment options to facilitate muscle recovery in each individual player. The GPS has also given the Bengals an objective way to measure how intensely a player is working, and has provided data that aided in the schedule design.
“We’re thankful,” linebacker Vinny Rey said. “In the NFL, there are a lot of nicks and injuries and you never know when they can come. That’s why you’re grateful when you’re out there, but you have to control what you can and the coaches are doing a great job with the schedule.”
The result has been a 53-man active roster that, for the most part, has been able to participate in practices on a daily basis. The team has had its fair share of names on the injury report, but has lost only one game from a starter due to injury – safety George Iloka, in Week 4 against Kansas City.
Hall is the only other major contributor to have missed a game due to injury.
The soft-tissue injuries that can sometimes knock a player out for weeks at a time – think groin or hamstring pulls – have yet to do so to the Bengals.
And while the organization recognizes it will take an entire season to truly measure the impact of the schedule change, the Bengals are not only a healthy team thus far, but they are already a measurably faster team in 2015 than they were in 2014.
“I think that’s where you’re seeing a benefit, big time, because guys are getting that flexibility, that recovery more day in and day out than they have in the past so when it comes down to it, you want guys healthy during the season so they can play,” running back Rex Burkhead said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re strong and fast – if they’re injured they can’t do anything.”
A mental sharpness
Training camp was when this program was rolled out, and it required buy-in not only from the players but also from the coaches. This is because in order to change how the players' bodies were treated at the end of the week, it required a change in how much they were coached.
A Friday practice is now nearly entirely mental.
This was the element that required the blindest faith on the coach’s part. The players had to put in the work, to make sure they were progressing.
“I think we’ve done a great job – the players have done a great job – of staying the course,” Lewis said. “They’ve done a great job of moving ahead mentally on Fridays. That’s what I’ve been most pleased with.”
Then, Saturday, Lewis said the plan was to increase the heart rate and re-activate the body.
But the players believe that full mental day, followed by a day of practice, has fine-tuned their knowledge of the week’s game plan. That, coupled with feeling better physically, has led to better performance.
“You look at some of the results, you look at some of the things going on, hey listen, any little bit counts in this league,” offensive lineman Eric Winston said. “There are so small differences of teams, and anything that gives you a little bit of an advantage, you gotta do it. I think whether it’s a placebo or not, the guys feel like they’re ready to go. You know what, sometimes that’s good enough to win in this league.”
A veteran hand
That faith was rewarded, in large part, because of the makeup of the team.
Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Rey Maualuga works individually during training camp to get healthy. He hasn't missed a game this season. (Photo: The Enquirer/Kareem Elgazzar)
“The veteran players have taken the ball and made sure we get what we need and we’re doing it the right way,” Lewis said. “And everybody’s understanding why we’re doing it. So, that part, I’m really pleased with.”
Winston pointed that out immediately as a potential reason for why the change has worked so seamlessly.
“It’s good for a team that’s been here and established as us because you do lose some practice snaps because of it,” he said. “You’re going to get them back in walkthroughs and things but you’re not going to get as many full speed snaps. So you have to have a pretty established team of guys that can weather that, not getting every single snap you might get on a regular week.”
On offense, Andy Dalton has total command of Hue Jackson’s offense. Every key position player is in at least his second year, and this is the fifth year many have spent together.
Defensively, little has changed on that side of the ball as well - in terms of having to work in new faces.
A.J. Hawk was a free-agent acquisition and had to learn the defense, but he worked in this schedule last year with the Packers. He said that if young players see established veterans deviating from the plan, or not participating, they will too.
“You’ve heard older guys say, ‘You don’t know how lucky you have it’ with this, how this is set up,” said Hawk, a 10-year veteran. “It starts with that. Because it’s true. It actually carries over on the field and carries over how you feel, hopefully.”
The long game
Some players, even Lewis himself, have playfully tapped the top of their head when talking about the health of this team through the bye week. In football, many injuries simply cannot be prevented. There is luck involved, and many in the organization feel there is a cyclical element to it.
For instance, while the Packers were one of the least injured teams in 2014 and nearly reached the Super Bowl, they are one of the most injured in 2015, according to ESPN.com. Yet they are also 6-0.
But the point of all this is that in the final weeks of the regular season, but especially in a deep postseason run, the Bengals are not just healthy, but are running as fast and performing as sharply as they were in Week 2.
“I think that’s what we’re finding, what’s that fine line of working out and being able to work really good but then also have enough rest time to be completely 100 percent by the time you get to Sunday,” Lewis said.
He smiled to himself.
“As much as 100 percent is, as the weeks go.”This is quickly becoming the most talked about hobby story of the year, and its sad that is the case. Either way, there are a LOT of questions out there, and I literally cannot wait to see how it all shakes out. I mean, this is as juicy as it gets, Panini and Dak getting caught with their pants down. With that, here are some of the questions that I want to ask and how I might expect they play out.
Who Was Ultimately Responsible – Part 1?
This is really the main question that everyone wants answers to, and without us having a statement from either party, it lets us run wild with the narrative. Who ultimately made the choice to use the auto pen machine? If Dak is responsible, then Panini will dodge a bullet. Of course, we need a statement to confirm, and Im not sure it may come anytime soon. If Panini made the choice, the implications in the hobby will be enormous. The NFLPA might get involved, and it will cast a terrible shadow all over Panini and the way they do business. From my contacts in the industry, they already have a terrible reputation, something that differs very much from the reputation that Dak has cultivated since his time in the spotlight began. Its possible that neither were responsible, and his marketing agent actually made the call. That’s a gray area I havent even thought about yet. Darren Rovell floated this idea in his article, and its not out of the question.
Who Was Ultimately Responsible – Part 2?
Once we figure out who is responsible for this situation, it now comes down to legally who is responsible for the damages. Does the guarantee on the back of the card put Panini at fault if Prescott knowingly deceived them? How does it impact their agreement going forward? Do collectors have legal recourse to file a class action? All of these things depend partly on the above answer to part 1, and some on how the law might be interpreted. Auto pens have been used to sign legally binding documents all over the place in the nation’s history, so I dont think that would put much on the player. Considering how little this likely means to Prescott, we all have to wonder what is going to happen.
How Do Collectors React Long Term?
People on the forums have already found examples of other people using an auto pen to sign cards, which means Panini has done this before and may be responsible for the decision, or others have deceived Panini without being caught. I have to believe every Panini autograph will be studied as a result of this and there will no doubt be others that are discovered.
Here are some alleged auto pen examples from 2014 signed by members of Florida Georgia Line:
If Panini is found to be at fault, I see huge issues with regaining collector trust in the future. Its national news, and if they are the ones behind it, they may not be able to recover in a way that makes it worthwhile for them to try. They may just have to hope that there are a number of people out there who dont see the follow ups and just put it out of their minds.
If Prescott is responsible, that’s a bit of a different story, but still one that begs further questions of general autograph authenticity. This situation shed a light on things that no one wanted to consider. At some point Collectors will form an opinion that everything should be questioned. Look at the way many people think about relics. Panini even had put player worn swatches into cards and labeled them as game used. Flawless had an issue with player worn materials being labeled game used. Collectors formed an opinion and now its hard to look the other way. With autographs being more valuable than relics, it might be the straw that breaks the camels back.
Here is the thing I dont understand. If Panini wises up and eventually does make a statement, this situation is easily fixed. Replace the cards and get the real autographs to the people that are owed. Other fuck ups like in 2014 when Odell Beckham and Teddy Bridgewater were left out of the original shipment of National Treasures seem to be much more of an issue that people seem to have forgotten. Literally thousands of people opened boxes and cases of NT without some of the most valuable cards included. After weeks of questions, the way it was corrected was even worse. They just shipped new pallets of cases to distros, who then sold them to shops and breakers as wave 2. No make good for any of the other impacted people. Complete fucking shit show. Guess what? 2015 and 2016 National Treasures and all other Panini products were still bought and sold as normal after that. No mention of the fact that Panini’s process would surely dictate that they likely had access to the information that these cards never made it in. I just cant even fathom. The Flawless Game Used scandal should have also registered with them and didnt. At what point do people finally give up?
How Will the League React?
This is a big one too, as its clear that the league sees their brand as the most important asset they have. They protect the shield at all costs. With this potentially being a stain on their brand, a licensee like Panini may not be a company they want to continue to do business with, especially if they are found to be responsible. If Prescott is responsible, I doubt much will happen. Simple as that. Although Panini has had their fair share of clusterfucks, the league only cares about one thing as much as their brand image – money.
How Much of Dak’s Autograph Inventory Was Impacted?
From the looks of it, he may have had some issues long term, at least from some of the photos collectors are sharing. Either way, there is no way to tell for sure, and there is no way Panini will likely admit that they have a larger problem on their hands. Im not sure if we will ever get the full scope of the answer here, and I doubt I would want to be transparent if I were Panini.
How Does Panini Fix This?
Im seeing reports on the forums that Beckett is pulling cards that they dont own and shipping them to Panini without providing some reasoning or choice to the people that sent them in for grading. If true, that is quite the twist to this story, considering the goods are not theirs to move. With this in the mix, and a number of other people who likely have redemptions pending, or cards in hand, how will they fix this mess? I have to believe a replacement is all but assured, but I would also hope they find a way to repair brand image a bit and give a bit extra.
What Does This Say About the Hobby?
Sadly, the national media, save Rovell, has reported on this with a very tongue in cheek approach. Someone on the radio reported the story as a funny quip, adding something like, do you sue the contractor who built your house because he used a nail gun instead of a hammer? Not good. First off, Panini’s national brand is unfamiliar to just about everyone outside of the hobby. 99.9% of America likely believes they sell grilled sandwiches. When they get tied to a story like this, it only adds to the negative viewpoint that most already have about this hobby to begin with. It might actually serve Panini to have no national identity, because they are faceless in that respect. Everyone knows Topps, and to a similar extent Donruss. We grew up with them. Panini as a brand name is nobody to just about everyone. Unfortunately, they are serving as quite the negative ambassador.
There are a million more questions to ask, its time we start getting some answers. Start the clock, we wait to feast.Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. (AP)
Republicans continued to distance themselves during television appearances Sunday from former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's comments that President Obama doesn't love America.
"I don't think it helps to question the president's patriotism," Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) said on "Fox News Sunday."
Pence also characterized the comments by Giuliani (R) as something that tapped into frustration with the president.
"The American people are understandably frustrated with a president who lectures us about the crusades," he said.
Former Pennsylvania governor and Department of Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge (R) echoed that sentiment.
"He was expressing a frustration in a way I don't agree," he said on CNN's "State of the Union." "There's enormous frustration with presidential leadership or the lack thereof."
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said that the media were too focused on Giuliani's remarks but that it brought discussion back to national security.
"The reality is that we're losing the war against Islamic fundamentalists around the world," he said. "These people hate us for who we are and who we're not."Chapter 17.
"Elsa? Wake up, wake up, wake up!" I hear between dreams, as I feel someone sitting atop me and shaking my shoulder, obviously trying to wake me up. I crack open one eye, and see it's still dark, so I close it again, with no intention of waking up soon.
"Anna, it's still dark outside. Go back to sleep." I mumble angrily.
"But I can't!" Saying this, she rolls around, so now she's completely lying on top of me. "The sky's awake, so I'm awake, so we have to play!"
"Play? What are you talking about? It's the middle of the night." I ask, as I tiredly turn around and open my eyes, only to see a very naked Anna kneeling in front of me. The darkness in my room does little to conceal her body, and I can only blush and look away in order to not give in to my carnal impulses.
"I said wake up, Elsa."
I open my eyes as I feel someone tickling my sides, and I squirm and desperately try to get away from the attack, while the laughter makes me fully wake up in an instant. In an attempt to end the merciless tickling I'm being victimized by, I impulsively throw up my hands and conjure a blast of cold wind, effectively sending the attacker flying off my bed and landing on the floor. Finally, I'm able to breathe and relax.
Then, I hear a pained grunt and look to see who I just threw off the… sofa? Huh. I guess I wasn't sleeping on my bed. Or my room, for that matter. I'm in the queen's studio, and the one I just blasted away was the queen herself.
"Oh my god! Anna I'm so sorry!" I say, getting up and rushing to help her up. As I do so, I notice she's not wearing the same clothes as yesterday, unlike me, and that instead she's wearing traveling clothes; a simple green dress and a brown cape. I guess she won't be working with me today.
"Don't worry, it's my fault." She says as she dusts off her dress. "I should have known better than to tickle a powerful ice-wielder." She giggles, and I do so too, glad that I didn't hurt her.
"Are you going somewhere?" I ask curious, suppressing a yawn.
"Yes. And you're coming with me." She answers with a mischievous smile. "I think we both earned a little vacation."
"Vacation? Are you crazy?!" I exclaim horrified. "Tomorrow we'll meet with the council, and we both know convincing them to remove your parents outdated laws won't be easy. I need to be ready! What if I missed something, I need…"
"You need to rest." Anna cuts me off, crossing her arms over her chest. "You've been working nonstop for five days straight, and have found every scrap of information you could possibly need to know. Twice." She pauses, taking my shoulders and looking straight into my eyes, oddly making me forget how to breathe for a second. "You even ended up falling asleep here last night! You're too stressed, and I need you to be relaxed and well rested tomorrow." She continues, squishing my shoulders and looking at me with pleading eyes. "Please, Elsa? I promise it'll be fun."
I'd like to say that even Anna's beautiful eyes and inviting smile won't be able to make me forget about my responsibility to work for making a better world for ice-wielders to live in, but… I'm only human. And so, I end up giving in with little to no resistance.
After taking a bath, getting dressed and having a quick breakfast, I meet with Anna at the stables, where a carriage and four guards are waiting for us, including Kristoff unfortunately. Then, it only took a couple of hours to get to our destination; a spot in the forest next to the road in the middle of nowhere. There, Anna tells the guards to wait for us (except Kristoff), takes my hand and starts guiding me through the trees.
During the ride here I tried asking her where we're going, but she refused to tell me, and even now I can't seem to imagine what we are doing in the middle of the forest, where bandits and wolves could be hiding. But I appreciate that it's a secluded place where I can take off my wig as soon as we're away from the guards.
Finally, she comes to a stop and turns to me with excitement clear on her face.
"Close your eyes." She instructs.
"Why?" I ask raising an eyebrow.
"Because I want it to be a surprise." She answers and then proceeds to stare expectantly at me, making it clear she won't move one inch until I close my eyes. I decide to promptly obey, being now accustomed to the queen's sometimes childish behavior (and finding it endearing), and follow her as she takes both my hands and guides me through the forest.
"I'd be careful if I were you." Kristoff says in a teasing tone beside me. "The first time she guided me after putting a blindfold over my eyes, I ended up hitting a pole with my face." He laughs, but Anna tightens her hold on me, obviously not amused.
"I was like fourteen! Okay? And I had to hurry before my father found out we'd left the castle." She protests, and I can totally imagine her pouting at my guard. I smile at that cute image.
"It still doesn't change the fact that it's your fault I can't get a girlfriend. My face is ruined!" Kristoff continues to tease the monarch.
"Hey! Your face was already pretty ruined without my help, thank you very much." Anna retorts, and I can't help laughing at that. I mean, Kristoff isn't exactly ugly, I guess, but I wouldn't say he has a beautiful face. Though maybe that is because I prefer more feminine features. "And besides, the reason you can't get a girlfriend is because you smell like reindeer." Anna continues to tease him, and he only grunts in response.
"That… that still doesn't change the fact that you're terrible at guiding people." He finally decides to answer after a few seconds.
"What are you talking about? Of course I… Ooff." Before she can finish the phrase, she obviously hits something with her back, making me stumble and barely avoid crashing against her, only because she's firmly holding my hands.
"You were saying?" Kristoff says amused as he laughs loudly.
"S-shut up, you pungent reindeer king." Anna answers, embarrassed and amused at the same time. "Now, stay here. I want to be alone with Elsa." At her words, I can't stop a silly little smile from appearing in my lips, and the blood rushing to my cheeks. I know she didn't mean anything romantic by it, but… It doesn't hurt to dream.
After walking a few more feet, however, something changes. The sun hits my skin, and the light filters through my eyelids, and the smell passes from being just the acidic smell of pines to the sweet scent of flowers and herbs. I can also hear something like a river, or a waterfall, and I assume we just walked into a clearing.
That's where Anna stops and releases my hands. I instantly miss the contact, but I'm careful not to give anything away. Then, she steps aside and tells me to open my eyes. I do so, and see… something beautiful. Astounding, even.
It's a small waterfall that lands in a pond that then turns into a creek. The sun reflects on the clear water with such intensity my eyes hurt for a second and I have to squint a bit until I get used to the light. Around it, the clearing is surrounded by beautiful wild flowers of numerous colors and grass of the brightest green, and where the clearing ends, tall pines keep it hidden from the outside world.
For a few moments I don't say anything, just staring at it in awe. It's almost something out of a fairy tale. It's, perhaps, too romantic? I know this is probably just a little outing between friends, but the setting is something I'd consider very appropriate for a date. But… no, it can't be. I shouldn't get my hopes up if I don't want to get hurt.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Anna asks, wearing that characteristic carefree and joyful smile she has most of the time. Only one thought crosses my mind in that moment.
Not as beautiful as you.
"I have to admit, Anna, it really surprised me." I answer instead. "How did you find this place?"
"During one of my many escapes from the castle." She shrugs. "It's the perfect spot for a picnic, don't you think?"
On cue, Kristoff steps in carrying a basket he hadn't been carrying before (I guess he went back to the carriage to retrieve it) and gives it to Anna.
"Thank you, Kristoff." She answers, and then he nods and walks away, probably to hide between the trees again, not before giving me a warning glance that I respond to with an eye-roll.
After that, I help her |
that we understand [he] came forward for the right reasons," Heal said. "I think with Brendon, he said - didn't he - in the trial that he delayed his report on the basis that he was reluctant to incriminate a friend. And I think what was happening in 2008 and now, today - it is a different environment."
The ICC also acknowledged Cairns' acquittal. "The ICC notes the decision of the jury finding Mr Chris Cairns not guilty and confirms its utmost respect for the process that has been followed," it said in a statement. "The ICC and its [anti-corruption unit] will continue to work closely with and provide all possible support to players in order that the fight against corruption can be tackled effectively and collectively."
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.While the team is waiting on Honda to produce an upgraded specification power unit over the next few weeks, McLaren has been pursuing an aggressive development programme to lift its chassis performance too.
New parts – including several specifications of rear wings – were tried out on the final day of this week's Bahrain test with a view to introduction at the Russian Grand Prix.
But although McLaren knows that it has little hope of overcoming its horsepower deficit, Boullier says the worst thing it can do is sit back and wait until Honda gets its house in order first.
Asked how important it was the team kept it upgrade push on, Boullier said: "First of all because racing is in our DNA, but second because if we just give up then everything collapses. So we can't collapse.
"We are responsible for the chassis performance, so we have to make sure that we have a good chassis and that we develop it.
"Plus we need to prepare also the coming years because there will be at least two or three years of stability in the regulations. So all this platform we are building now for the future.
"We are professional and racing, and you can't just stop racing because one of your components doesn't work."
Honda response
Honda's F1 chief Yusuke Hasegawa returned to Japan immediately after the Bahrain GP to oversee progress of its engine developments on the company's dynos.
And although changes may not appear for several races, Boullier said that Honda was aware that things had to change quickly.
"If they were relaxed something would be wrong," he said. "They are very conscious about what's going on, I think.
"The concerns are the same that we may have in Europe, even if the culture is different. I think it's just the... It's racing questions: how to do it and how to get faster?
"They have tried many things. They are working very hard, but you just have to find the key to unlock the potential of this. They need to work on dynos to break through from this lack of performance."While the future of Google’s mobile Nexus line is in doubt, there is nothing to suggest that it’s tablets will be going anywhere. It has been revealed that HTC is making the next Google nexus tablet featuring Nvidia’s powerful Tegra K1 processor.
The 8.9 Inch tablet is codenamed the HTC Voltanis but will likely be released as the Nexus 9. Android Police managed to get its hands on leaked specifications, featuring a 1440p display and Nvidia’s recently released Tegra K1 processor, which you may know of from the project Logan demo’s.
According to Android Police, the tablet will feature HTC’s popular unibody, aluminum design too.
Here’s the full list of specifications:
8.9″ Display at 2048×1440 (281ppi)
NVIDIA Logan 64-bit processor (Tegra K1)
2GB RAM
16/32GB internal storage
8MP OIS main camera, 3MP front facing camera
Aluminum zero-gap construction
Stereo front-facing speakers
8.91″x5.98″x0.31″ body (that’s 22.63×15.19×0.79cm)
418g (or 427g with LTE) (that’s 14.74/15.1 ounces)
Here’s a quick look at the Tegra K1’s GPU demo:
The tablet’s new build resembles the iPad Mini, moving away from the slimmer Nexus 7 design. Voltanis is due to release in Q4 of this year and won’t be revealed at Google I/O, which takes place soon. The Nexus 9 will be a premium tablet, much like the Nexus 10 was, so expect it to cost about as much.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: HTC have done a lot to prove themselves since the release of the HTC One. If the Nexus 9 does in-fact contain a Tegra K1 processor then this will be a truly powerful tablet. Do you guys like the sound of HTC’s Nexus tablet? What do you guys think of the Project Logan demo?
Source: Android PoliceThere is no other film quite like "Nine Muses Of Star Empire."
Director Hark Joon Lee spent a year following the K-pop girl group Nine Muses around with cameras and acting as their manager, the latter being a requirement for participation, from their record label Star Empire.
For festival and premiere-goers lucky enough to view the film, or anyone who caught the abridged version back in 2013 on BBC World, (Lee is still pursuing international distribution) the film offers a inside look at an entertainment industry known for its secrecy, showing the blood, sweat and tears that it takes to get a K-pop group off the ground.
On Thursday evening, following the second-ever US screening of "Nine Muses Of Star Empire" for a crowd of 50 people at The Korea Society in New York City, Lee discussed why he made the documentary, what it was like being a K-pop manager and why a recent reunion with Nine Muses left him feeling depressed, in a public question-and-answer session and an exclusive one-on-one interview with KpopStarz.
In addition to encouraging several aspiring filmmakers in the crowd in whatever they were working on, Lee revealed his initial motivation behind "Nine Muses of Star Empire."
Since completing his first documentary, "Across Land, Across Sea," about North Korean defectors, the director had been looking for a subject that was a bit lighter. But it was his experience attempting to get quotes out of another K-pop act in his job as a reporter at the newspaper Chosun Ilbo (Korea Daily) that led him directly to the subject.
"Their answers were answers that came like they were coming from a textbook," Lee said.
"I was actually surprised by this, because I wasn't like that in my teens or early 20s. I wasn't like that at all. And so I was asking myself 'is really this the truth? Is this all that's going on? Or, is there something else behind this?' So, I really wanted to see if this was just some sort of robotic response or if there was a different story behind it."
So he made it his mission to find out what was behind those canned responses stars gave.
"I wanted to see the inner workings of the K-pop industry," Lee said. "At first I wondered if it would actually be an impossible endeavor."
Star Empire was the fifth record label Lee approached with the idea of making a documentary about an up-and-coming girl group on the condition of unlimited access.
The other four turned him down.
"I wanted to capture the moments behind the curtain, the candid moments," said the documentarian.
Yet once the cameras started rolling, even Lee, who initially imagined "Nine Muses of Star Empire" as a lighthearted view of the travails of showbiz, was surprised how badly the members of Nine Muses were feeling, with at least a dozen scenes in the film involving a band member crying.
Through it all, there was one band member who stood out in particular to the director for her struggles as an artist.
"I especially identified a lot with Sera in the film," Lee said. "She strives so hard and she wants to become the best, but then she suffers. And even though she suffers, she just can't break away from the industry at all."
Though he did his best to stay neutral, Lee's affection for Sera during his time managing Nine Muses was apparently impossible for him to conceal.
"Sera was my favorite member of the group, but as their manager I couldn't discriminate," Lee explained.
"So, if Sera wanted watermelon, I was getting it for the whole group of 12 girls [the Nine Muses and their three backup singers]. I liked Sera because she was like me, kind of shy. I thought I had kept the secret [that I favored her] well. But after editing the film I went to see them and everyone knew I had been favoring her."
Lee has kept in touch with the members of Nine Muses, although a recent meeting with the group, whose popularity has grown significantly since the director documented their debut in 2010, left him cold.
"I felt they had really become celebrities and they were actually giving me very textbook answers," Lee said. "There was a great distance between us."
But by then he had a notion of why their comments were so tightly controlled.
"I think record companies want to make the perfect star, stars that have no flaws," Lee said. "And I feel that the people producing K-pop bands, they want to produce this flawless star image. That's a unique thing in K-pop."
Though several scenes in "Nine Muses of Star Empire," document the band members being pushed to the limits of physical exhaustion, the director claims to have come out of the process actually having more sympathy for the band's management.
"When I first started filming I thought that all of the managers were absolutely evil and the girls were good," Lee said.
"But once I [got further into the project], I realized it's not such a black and white issue. Most of the managers have invested their whole life savings on this project. So there is a reason they are so harsh."
Yet, he admits some of the record label executives, particularly Star Empire CEO Shin Ju Hak, have their eccentricities.
"The CEO had this really strong superstition that the group had to be nine girls," Lee said. "He was reading in Greek mythology that Zeus had nine daughters, so he specifically thought this group had to have nine people."
According to the director, Shin has always had a clear concept of what Nine Muses should be.
"He did a nationwide search and the qualifications were, as you can see in the film, they had to be tall, they had to be a good singers and also good dancers," he said.
"For the CEO, it wasn't so much a matter of who becomes a member, but I think he had a grand vision of what he wanted to produce and he wanted to fill in those holes [in the band] with models, singers or dancers."
For Lee, who has plans to screen the documentary at several more international film festivals this year, the connection he formed with the band members over the 12 months they spent together was more personal.
As his last act as manager, Lee told Nine Muses that he would always be their number one fan.
"I told them 'whenever you are performing, I will watch you guys and I won't judge you like other people, because I know how hard you work,'" he said. "And that's how I left it with them as their manager."
Translator: Estelle LeeJude Law won critical acclaim for his starring role in the hit TV series The Young Pope, but now his real-life counterpart is getting in on the act – Pope Francis has appeared in a feature film.
The 80-year-old Argentinian pontiff plays himself in the movie, which is called Beyond the Sun.
The producers claim that it is the first time in the history of the Roman Catholic Church that a Pope has agreed to play a cameo role in a film.
The religious-themed movie, in which four young children from different cultures try to follow the teachings of Christ, will be launched at the Cannes Film Festival, which starts on May 17.
Not only is the Pope in the film – he inspired it.
The Holy Father reportedly asked producers to come up with a film aimed at young people that could communicate the message of the Gospels.
“Our excitement and gratitude toward His Holiness, Pope Francis, participating in this film is beyond words,” said Andrea Iervolino, one of the co-founders of AMBI Pictures, the company which made the film. “This is not just a movie for us, it’s a message, and who better to have on your side to deliver an important societal and spiritual message than the Pope. We are honoured and inspired by the level of collaboration from the Vatican.”
The religious-themed film will be a lot less controversial than The Young Pope, in which Jude Law plays the first American pontiff. Credit: Gianni Fiorito/Sky
Mr Iervolino, a committed Catholic, said he had been impressed by the Pope’s acting abilities. “He showed himself to be a very special Pope. You can understand why people love him so much,” he told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.
“The story aims to encourage people to live the word of Jesus, to live a better life, and to make good choices.”
Profits from the venture will be donated to two charities in Argentina that are close to the Pope’s heart - El Alemendro and Los Hogares de Cristo, which help disadvantaged children. Much of the film, described as a family adventure, was shot in Argentina.
The movie promises to be a good deal less controversial than The Young Pope. In the HBO drama, Jude Law plays Lenny Belardo, who becomes the first American Pope at the age of 47.
Elected as Pius XIII, he is a chain-smoking militant conservative with a strong streak of narcissism. The series was created and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, who won an Oscar for his film The Great Beauty or La Grande Bellezza.FBIanon Thread 1 and 2 a guest Oct 25th, 2016 211,087 Never a guest211,087Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 57.25 KB FBIanon Thread #1 >>79480356 02 July 2016 A: I am a person with intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Clinton case. I will answer as many questions as I can without giving too much away. ------ Q: Will the Hillary get pregnant again? A: Hopefully not. ------ Q: Why are you on 4chan on a Friday night? A: Sent home, awaiting word about the shitstorm Lynch just caused. ------ Q: Will she be indicted? A: There is intense pressure for us not to do so. I am posting of near anonymity and enough plausible deniability to evade prosecution, as we have all been given gag orders. There is enough for her and the entire government to be brought down. People do not realize how enormous this whole situation actually is. Whether she will be or not depends on how much info about others involved gets out, and there are a lot of people involved. ------ Q: What reason have we to believe you? A: None. It's better that way. ------ Q: What are they going to talk to her about tomorrow? A: Legal is asking preliminary questions about whether or not she has been coached (she has) and setting up the general line of questioning. I am a high level analyst though, so my job is only to look at her records. ------ Q: "People do not realize how enormous this whole situation actually is" Can you elaborate on that? A: The real point of interest is the Clinton Foundation, not the e-mail server. We received the server from Benghazi, then from the server we found data on the Clinton Foundation. Then we realized the situation is much worse than previously thought. ------ Q: "the entire government to be brought down" I very much doubt this. A: She had SAP level programs on her server, which if made public, would literally cause an uprising and possibly foreign declaration of war. ------ Q: Let me guess "it's real deep guys I swear! I just can't tell you about it because it's secret!" You're a liar, friend. A: Believe what you will. ------ Q: "I am a person with intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Clinton case." How long before you tragically shoot yourself in the back of the head from at least three feet away from two different angles, or suffer from an ulcer that decapitates you with a knife? Because people with dirt on the Clintons have a shocking tendency to jump off tall buildings and board faulty aircraft. A: We are all worried about that. ------ Q: Would you support me killing her if you fail? I don't trust you, so I am preparing myself to take her out if need be. A: Killing Hillary would not cause this problem to go away. The problem is with the Clinton Foundation as I mentioned, which you should just imgine as a massive spider web of connections and money laundering implicating hundreds of high-level people. Though I do not have a high opinion of Hillary, she is just a piece - albeit a big piece - of this massive shitstorm. ------ Q: Do you think the DOJ will protect Hillary like Holder did for Petraeus? A: The DOJ is most likely looking to save itself. Find everyone involved in the Clinton Foundation, from its donors to its Board of Directors, and imagine they are all implicated. ------ Q: You don't agree that a message has to be sent by the people to protect the sanctity of the position? I do prefer the peaceful way, to be honest. But it's the constant fear you're going to fuck it up that grips me. A: My opinion is the entire government is guilty of treason, which is why Hillary's death would not cease the investigation or prevent further scandals. Many, many people are involved. ------ Q: Will Comey resign if there is enough evidence to indict but is forced not to indict? Was Lynch saying that she will accept any recommendation from the FBI really means she knows they are not going to indict? A: There already is enough to indict. Comey has been trying to stall because he does not want to face the Clinton machine, as well as the rest of Washington D.C. But this case would explode into a million other cases if fully brought to light, and then we would be one agency competing against the entire government and a hoard of other interests. It is a very tense and uncomfortable position. What Lynch is saying is she will accept whatever they do and make her determination as she will. Nothing about her responsibilities has changed, she is simply trying to keep her hide intact. ------ Q: If you don't prosecute, what with her blatantly admitting to breaking four laws on the Rose Garden, what message will that send to the public? A: We have no power to prosecute, we simply hand over the data to the DOJ for them to prosecute. And we do not have the authority to hand over all of the data because of its sensitivity. And some of the data will lead into other cases of corruption. ------ Q: Pretty sure the judge just said she would follow your recommendation without question today... A: Making a recommendation is not the same as actually prosecuting. We only say, "Here is the data, you need to get XYZ" and then the DOJ acts. ------ Q: Do you ever fear for your life? A: Yes. ------ Q: What are the chances of an indictment before the election? A: Before the Clinton-Lynch meeting, I would have said 0%. Now it looks more likely because the public now sees the Clintons trying to cover their asses. More questions will add pressure for the investigation to continue. ------ Q: Will we really see mass resignations and leaks if nothing happens? Or is it all just bluster and hearsay? A: Foreign powers are in possession of some of the documents we have analyzed, because they were hacked from the Clinton server. Trump has some files as well, and likely plans to leak them and use them to his advantage soon. The leaks will have to be made in a non-transparent fashion. ------ Q: I'm aware, but if you recommend to prosecute, she said she would. If you don't, public trust will be eroded at this point. Too much is out in the open. A: If we recommend, we literally hand over documentation implying the entire government is involved in treason at the highest levels and everyone is about to duck and cover, as well as some sensitive details of SAPs which would obliterate national security. ------ Q: And what happens when Putin releases all the emails? And all the information he's dug up from them? A: I am not sure, but some of my war strategy buddies are estimating a high probability that Russia will leak all the info they have out to the world, since Clinton wants to go to war with them and they have no desire to be in conflict with the US. ------ Q: "If we recommend, we literally hand over documentation implying the entire government is involved in treason at the highest levels and everyone is about to duck and cover, as well as some sensitive details of SAPs which would obliterate national security." Most people have suspected this for a while. What do you think will happen if you don't recommend? Not just at home, but what will other nations do with the information that is already out there? A: If we do not recommend, it will look like a cover-up and Trump will use the perception to bolster his message. I did work in PsyOps once, and Trump's use of confirmation bias is legendary. ------ Q: Answer this: Is Clinton a commie, yes or no? A: No. ------ Q: How long until we know whether or not you are going to recommend? A: Impossible to determine at this point. We could do it tomorrow if we wanted. There are too many political players involved. ------ Q: What's the deal with Bill Clinton's health? Just old age or something else? A: Bill Clinton will likely die this year. ------ Q: So can you give an estimate to let me know when you guys will make your decision? It's gotta happen soon, because if you don't prosecute, you are potentially, giving the keys to the white house to the most corrupt politican ever. A: Impossible to say. The entire government is corrupt. No one is clean, not even Trump. ------ Q: In the near future, there will be several books, and a movie by Dinesh D'Souza coming out and they claim they will bring her down with this leaks. Will these have any affect on whether she's indicted? A: They will only have an effect on public opinion, which will help her get indicted. But I assure you, Dinesh D'Souza has nothing on her. The only person coming close is Jerome Corsi. He is putting the pieces together (loosely). ------ Q: Tell me the dirt on Trump. A: Trump has donated to the Clinton Foundation in the past, though for fairly innocuous things like building permits and such. He is smart, so his tracks are covered well. But if any prosecutor wants to go very in-depth Trump would be brought on bribery charges. He could easily get out of them, but he would be charged nonetheless. ------ Q: What do you think of this, "Sources say that the investigation will conclude shortly" meme? A: Mainstream media is shit. Who cares what they say. They are attempting to distract by putting the focus on Hillary's emails and not the Foundation. ------ Q: So why are you hesitating? If you recommend to prosecute, you will at least have the perception of being trustworthy to the US public. If you don't, a lot of people are going to know the jig is up, and the US has lost all shred of integrity. Ditto for other countries. Why are you guys even debating letting the cancer spread? Why are you considering allowing the corruption to spread to you? A: Your moral inclinations may look good on the internet, but in real life the situation is complicated. You cannot possibly ask the entire government to prosecute itself. Lynch has also given to the Foundation, and has many ties to many people she should not. Remember that Bill appointed her. She is a great prosecutor, but she did not get where she is by simply being good at her job. ------ Q: How do we fix this? and be we i mean you guys lmao A: We have our hands tied. My message to you and everyone on this board is do not get distracted by Clinton's e-mails. Focus on the Foundation. All of the nightmarish truth is there. The e-mails will pale in comparison. ------ Q: In Trump's case, isn't that just an instance of the hazing/initiation into the elite by providing them with the ability to blackmail him if he goes off reservation? A: I do not know Trump's record, but from the case he definitely knew to limit his exposure and make it only look like a donation. ------ Q: Would a Trump presidency better for shit like this? I assume that he would allow you to prosecute her? A: If Trump wins, Hillary will be prosecuted. I have heard rumors Christie will be his AG, and Michael Flynn will be his VP pick. ------ Q: Give a specific example of large scale corruption or collusion. A: Saudi Arabia visits and donations to the Clinton Foundation. Russian Uranium fiasco. Hillary and the Israel lobby, the Council on Foreign Relations. AIPAC. The list is endless. ------ Q: Why bother, then? If you can tell that your boss and your boss's boss are afraid to do their jobs, what's the point? Why not half ass it, enjoy a fat government paycheck, and cover your own ass when it inevitably falls apart? A: My bosses have the benefit of being in the limelight. Their disappearances of silences would be accompanied by questions. Mine would not. ------ Q: Stop LARPing and give us something to work with, some good concrete examples. A: I am providing as much as I can. ------ Q: If this isn't all some fanfiction, then this is a massive bomb that the FBI needs to carefully handle if they choose to recommend to prosecute. A: Correct. ------ Q: How deep is Obama involved in all of this? A: Impeachment-level involved. ------ Q: Does she kill people? A: People have a way of dying around her. ------ Q: Trump has files, what the fuck? (non-FBIanon reply to above) A1: Must be how he's made so many predictions about Brussels and the like; he has bought special access into what's really going on with the global war on terror. A: Trump has very good people advising and leaking to him. ------ Q: We know. And by not prosecuting, you are giving these countries leverage over the US. This is the option you are discussing when you discuss not prosecuting, and you know it. In order to not cause an upheaval lasting months or years by cutting out the cancer, you are discussing letting the US die quietly. (different anon) Q2: Fuck you for not doing your duty to the people, you jaded amoral fucks. You've blown what little trust I had left that there were still decent patriots left in the government. You fuckers are gonna let the biggest, most corrupt cunt take the highest office in the land. You think that won't bring this country down? Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. A: I will put it to you this way: You have three choices: A) Turn over all of the information to the DOJ, make public a recommendation, the truth comes out, the entire world realizes how much the US is meddling in foreign affairs, and we go to war. The civilian population realizes how much foreign money influences our governent, and a civil war begins. B) You cherry-pick the data to implicate the people already in the eye of the public opinion, so the chips fall on the heads of a select few and the whole system does not crash. C) You do nothing and watch the unstable political climate to gauge how you will respond. I am confident if Trump wins she will be going to jail. ------ Q: If the FBI doesn't recommend to indict, what kind of reaction should we expect from within the FBI? Will anyone resign? A: Comey will likely resign in any case. The FBI is being very quiet for a reason, most of us want to keep our jobs. ------ Q: Is Snowden tied up in all this somehow? A: Snowden has nothing to do with any of this. ------ Q: Is this election a clever ploy by Obama to have a VP of his choosing become the president? Indict Hillary, and the VP takes over. And Trump might be a threat to this plan, hence all these attacks. A: Possibly. I don't know for sure. ------ (pasted an image "fbi playbook on hillary.png") Q: Some autist has already said as much. (non-FBIanon response to above) Q2: How accurate is this copypasta, OP? Spot-on analysis? Or fanfiction-tier? A: Obama and Hillary do hate each other. Hillary hates black people and Obama dislikes recklessness. As far as the investigation, some details are correct. As to the outcome, no one knows. ------ Q: How many of us are on the FBI watchlist? A: Truthfully, not many. The FBI is rather fond of /pol/. We study more than we investigate. ------ Q: I still don't get how snuffing her doesn't end the existential investigation crisis. A: The problem is with the entire government. Hillary is one component of that government. ------ Q: Dinesh D'souza's new movie will address the Clinton Foundation. Right? A: Most likely. ------ Q: At bare minimum, you need to do B. If you can't at least make examples of people, the existence of the FBI is pointless. Start with the most corrupt, like Clinton (and, I presume Feinstein), and each year, choose 3-5 new people with any level of power to indict. Do this until people start retiring. Don't RICO the entire federal government. You have the option to do it slowly, so do it slowly. A: But if we do it slowly, people like you will get mad that we are not working fast enough. ------ Q: Can you tell us more about the SAPs and were the classified information sent via those compromised too? Also is Obama tied to Clinton Foundation in any way? A: All I can tell you about the SAPs is that Hillary had them, and she did not have proper authority to have any of them. They were leaked to her by someone, and she did sell them to overseas donors. Possessing them alone makes her guilty of treason. Obama is loosely tied to the Clinton Foundation, but much more tied in with the same people who donate to the Clinton Foundation. ------ Q: "A) Turn over all of the information to the DOJ, make public a recommendation, the truth comes out, the entire world realizes how much the US is meddling in foreign affairs and we go to war. The civilian population realizes how much foreign money influences our governent, and a civil war begins." So we can expect them not only fucking around really hard in the middle east but elsewhere too? I assume Obama also has considerable influence on the EU and tries to guide them to war with Russia (or at least Hillary does). How much is George Soros involved in all this? A: Russian borders, Ukraine, everywhere NATO is, the South China Sea, the Phillipines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Africa. Soros is at the heart of all of this. ------ Q: "A) Turn over all of the information to the DOJ, make public a recommendation, the truth comes out, the entire world realizes how much the US is meddling in foreign affairs and we go to war. The civilian population realizes how much foreign money influences our governent, and a civil war begins." Sounds good to me. Man the fuck up and let slip the dogs of war. If you're as deep as you claim to be then you know that this is necessary to clean out the filth in our governments. There are no other options left other than bloodshed. Will you stand by and watch as the world falls into the grips of tyrants? Or will you fight for freedom? Those are the only questions you need to ask yourself at this point. A: If it comes down to it, I would fight. But most of us are of the opinion that Hillary will not be president, and having Trump in office makes our job that much easier. But right now we have to carefully wade through this mud. ------ Q: Why did Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch meet on the plane? A: As I stated before, Bill Clinton likely wanted Loretta Lynch to focus on the email server and shy away from prosecuting the foundation. ------ Q: Could the release of this information cause a civil war in the USA? Leak it. Do it. The day of the rope is nigh. A: Yes. ------ Q: So that means she will try to assassinate Corsi. What happens if she succeeds? A: We will go to war with Russia and possibly China if she wins. ------ Q: I'm not advocating for truth for truth's sake. Option B is the only acceptable scenario, and it needs to be done so that Trump can sweep in and clear the entire establishment of corruption. That is what you are being given the chance to do. If you fail on this, you doom us to a second Rome. Everyone already knows and suspects option A. The patriots in the deep state need to hang this shit over Washington's head and force them to do the right thing. A: We are working on option B. ------ Q: What can I do? A: Post about Hillary everywhere you can. Focus on the Clinton Foundation. Do not let her email server be the sole focus of media attention. Follow the Clinton Foundation. Her emails are a small bite compared to the Clinton Foundation. ------ Q: "Mainstream media is shit. Who cares what they say. They are attempting to distract by putting the focus on Hillary's emails and not the Foundation." To be honest, assuming it's not all a ruse, this would be a good opportunity for us to fire up our Twitters and start asking some hard questions about the Clinton Foundation publicly. The more pressure, the better. The last thing I want is for everhting to go back to normal for these people. A: You should be doing this immediately. ------ Q: What? /pol/ is liked by the FBI? Elaborate please? A: /pol/ is an amalgamation of minds from various geographic and demographic factions. We study very intensely the ideas which emanate and gain promimence on this board, as well as which ideas other organizations try to promote which ultimately get defeated (JIDF, for example, is highly unsuccessful as making /pol/ pro-Israel). And most of us just enjoy the posts in general. We like to see how close to the truth everyone is. And we occasionally let our true nature slip. ------ Q: Can the FBI pay me to shitpost? A: No. ------ Q: Didn't Obama push to have the case postponed until 2018 as well? A: There is talk of it. I do not know where the order came from. ------ Q: "Obama and Hillary do hate each other. Hillary hates black people..." What the fuck man, keep that shit quiet. You'll gain her votes here by saying that. A: Blacks are violent and generally impulsive, but they are not all bad. And they can be, for lack of a better term domesticated. Thomas Sowell has made note of this. ------ Q: George Soros involved in this? A: He is the kingpin. ------ Q: Any hard evidence Hillary sold weapons and favors from the State Department for cash to our enemies? A: Weapons, favors, intelligence, and people. ------ (pasted IFTYS.png) Q: "Bill Clinton will likely die this year." And here's why. A: More likely of natural causes. ------ Q: Why not go big? Is Obama actually secretly Osama with his beard shaven? A: Obama is a liberal atheist who is willingly associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Stephen Coughlin's book, while not totally accurate, does shine light in the right direction. ------ Q: From what you're saying, there's no easy way of actually keeping the lid on this. It sounds like it's reached too many eyes and ears now, and is only going to reach more. Whether you want it or not, I think you FBI guys need to go full hog on this. We're talking about the assured death of the republic if you don't, rather than the maybe-death of it if you do. A: Canada has no business telling us how to run intel. Trudeau makes you all look like fools, and already his intel departments are coming to us for help doing fuck everything. ------ Q: Do you think Trump is a plant by Clinton to try and assure her a victory? Or was that theory all nonsense? A: Trump is not a Clinton plant. He belives they are disgusting animals. ------ Q: What did the Clinton Foundation do? Please elaborate. A: Sold influence, intel, favors, and people to anyone willing to pay. ------ Q: See, and this is the problem with Washington today. You swear to defend the Constitution, which means protecting the liberties that it guarantees the American people. But here the deep state is, contemplating allowing the outright subversion and corruption of the government because "muh existing order of things". If the corruption is as bad as you claim, then the half of these Senators and Congressmen and possibly even the President have subverted American democracy. If they are indeed traitors, then you would have an obligation go take care of it. I don't care how it's done. The American military is one of the few I'd trust to transition us until we can elect new leaders. A: If leaking data en mass destroys my country, we betray the country. If we do nothing, we betray the country. I am not disagreeing with you. I am saying the situation is more complicated when you are inside, and you do not have the breadth of info that I have that would make your eyes fall out of your skull if you know what all was going on. ------ Q: Is it time to buy a gun? A: Yes. ------ Q: What does SAP stand for? A: Special Access Programs. ------ Q: Did you just name the Jew? A: The Nose knows. ------ Q: So, given that there is a claimed risk of external and internal war if the intent of the government treason is revealed, was getting caught part of their plan? A: They are not big guys. ------ Q: With Bernie- around the time Clinton clinched the delegates, he had a meeting with Obama and came out smiling. Anything suspicious about that given what you are privy to? A: Bernie is staying in hoping Clinton will be indicted or forced to recuse herself from the race. We cannot know what will happen atm. ------ Q: Do we have any real reason to believe this person guys? I've been lurking |
the canons were concerned with slavery only in ecclesiastical contexts: slaves were not permitted to marry or to be ordained as clergy.
Slavery in the Byzantine Empire Edit
Slavery in the Crusader states Edit
In the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in 1099, at most 120,000 Franks ruled over 350,000 Muslims, Jews, and native Eastern Christians.[68] Following the initial invasion and conquest, sometimes accompanied by massacres or expulsions of Jews and Muslims, a peaceable co-existence between followers of the three religions prevailed.[69] The Crusader states inherited many slaves. To this may have been added some Muslims taken as captives of war. The Kingdom's largest city, Acre, had a large slave market; however, the vast majority of Muslims and Jews remained free. The laws of Jerusalem declared that former Muslim slaves, if genuine converts to Christianity, must be freed.[70] In 1120, the Council of Nablus forbade sexual relations between crusaders and their female Muslim slaves:[71] if a man raped his own slave, he would be castrated, but if he raped someone else's slave, he would be castrated and exiled from the kingdom.[71] But Benjamin Z. Kedar argued that the canons of the Council of Nablus were in force in the 12th century but had fallen out of use by the thirteenth. Marwan Nader questions this and suggests that the canons may not have applied to the whole kingdom at all times.[72] No Christian, whether Western or Eastern, was permitted by law to be sold into slavery, but this fate was as common for Muslim prisoners of war as it was for Christian prisoners taken by the Muslims. The 13th-century Assizes of Jerusalem dealt more with fugitive slaves and the punishments ascribed to them, the prohibition of slaves testifying in court, and manumission of slaves, which could be accomplished, for example, through a will, or by conversion to Christianity. Conversion was apparently used as an excuse to escape slavery by Muslims who would then continue to practise Islam; crusader lords often refused to allow them to convert, and Pope Gregory IX, contrary to both the laws of Jerusalem and the canon laws that he himself was partially responsible for compiling, allowed for Muslim slaves to remain enslaved even if they had converted.
Slavery in Muslim Iberia Edit
Main article: Arab slave trade An early economic pillar of the Islamic empire in Iberia (Al-Andalus) during the eighth century was the slave trade. Forming relations between the Umayyads, Khārijites and ‘Abbāsids, the flow of trafficked people from the main routes of the Sahara towards Al-Andalus [73] served as a highly lucrative trade configuration. The archaeological evidence of human trafficking and proliferation of early trade in this case follows numismatics and materiality of text [74]. This monetary structure of consistent gold influx proved to be a tenet in the development of Islamic commerce [75]. In this regard, the slave trade outperformed and was the most commercially successful venture for maximizing capital [76]. This major change in the form of numismatics serves as a paradigm shift from the previous Visigothic economic arrangement. Additionally, it demonstrates profound change from one regional entity to another, the direct transfer of people and pure coinage from one religiously similar semi-autonomous province to another. The medieval Iberian Peninsula was the scene of almost constant warfare among Muslims and Christians (though not always aligned by religion). Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus to ravage the Christian Iberian kingdoms, bringing back booty and people. For example, in a raid on Lisbon in 1189 the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, and his governor of Córdoba took 3,000 Christian slaves in a subsequent attack upon Silves in 1191; an offensive by Alfonso VIII of Castile in 1182 brought him over two-thousand Muslim slaves.[77]
Slavery in Christian Iberia Edit
Contrary to suppositions of historians such as Marc Bloch, slavery thrived as an institution in medieval Christian Iberia.[citation needed] Slavery existed in the region under the Romans, and continued to do so under the Visigoths. From the fifth to the early 8th century, large portions of the Iberian Peninsula were ruled by Christian Visigothic Kingdoms, whose rulers worked to codify human bondage. In the 7th century, King Chindasuinth issued the Visigothic Code (Liber Iudiciorum), to which subsequent Visigothic kings added new legislation. Although the Visigothic Kingdom collapsed in the early 8th century, portions of the Visigothic Code were still observed in parts of Spain in the following centuries. The Code, with its pronounced and frequent attention to the legal status of slaves, reveals the continuation of slavery as an institution in post-Roman Spain. The Code regulated the social conditions, behavior, and punishments of slaves in early medieval Spain. The marriage of slaves and free or freed people was prohibited. Book III, title II, iii ("Where a Freeborn Woman Marries the Slave of Another or a Freeborn Man the Female Slave of Another") stipulates that if a free woman marries another person's slave, the couple is to be separated and given 100 lashes. Furthermore, if the woman refuses to leave the slave, then she becomes the property of the slave's master. Likewise, any children born to the couple would follow the father's condition and be slaves.[78] Unlike Roman law, in which only slaves were liable to corporal punishment,[citation needed] under Visigothic law, people of any social status were subject to corporal punishment. However, the physical punishment, typically beatings, administered to slaves was consistently harsher than that administered to freed or free people. Slaves could also be compelled to give testimony under torture. For example, slaves could be tortured to reveal the adultery of their masters, and it was illegal to free a slave for fear of what he or she might reveal under torture.[79] Slaves' greater liability to physical punishment and judicial torture suggests their inferior social status in the eyes of Visigothic lawmakers. Slavery remained persistent in Christian Iberia after the Umayyad invasions in the 8th century, and the Visigothic law codes continued to control slave ownership. However, as William Phillips notes, medieval Iberia should not be thought of as a slave society, but rather as a society that owned slaves.[80] Slaves accounted for a relatively small percentage of the population, and did not make up a significant portion of the labor pool. Furthermore, while the existence of slavery continued from the earlier period, the use of slaves in post-Visigothic Christian Iberia differed from early periods. Ian Wood has suggests that, under the Visigoths, the majority of the slave population lived and worked on rural estates.[81] After the Muslim invasions, slave owners (especially in the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia) moved away from using slaves as field laborers or in work gangs, and did not press slaves into military service.[82] Slaves tended to be owned singly rather than in large groups. There appear to have been many more female than male slaves, and they were most often used as domestic servants, or to supplement free labor.[83][84] In this respect, slave institutions in Aragon, especially, closely resembled those of other Mediterranean Christian kingdoms in France and Italy.[85][86] In the kingdoms of León and Castile, slavery followed the Visigothic model more closely than in the littoral kingdoms. Slaves in León and Castile were more likely to be employed as field laborers, supplanting free labor to support an aristocratic estate society.[87] These trends in slave populations and use changed in the wake of the Black Death in 1348, which significantly increased the need for slaves across the whole of the peninsula.[88] Christians were not the only slaveholders in Christian Iberia. Both Jews and Muslims living under Christian rule owned slaves, though more commonly in Aragon and Valencia than in Castile.[89][90] After the conquest of Valencia in 1245, the Kingdom of Aragon prohibited the possession of Christian slaves by Jews, though they were still permitted to hold Muslim or pagan slaves.[91] The main role of Iberian Jews in the slave trade came as facilitators: Jews acted as slave brokers and agents of transfer between the Christian and Muslim kingdoms.[92] This role caused some degree of fear among Christian populations. A letter from Pope Gregory XI to the Bishop of Cordoba in 1239 addressed rumors that the Jews were involved in kidnapping and selling Christian women and children into slavery while their husbands were away fighting the Muslims.[92] Despite these worries, the primary role of Jewish slave traders lay in facilitating the exchange of captives between Muslim and Christian rulers, one of the primary threads of economic and political connectivity between Christian and Muslim Iberia.[93][92][94] In the early period after the fall of the Visigothic kingdom in the 8th century, slaves primarily came into Christian Iberia through trade with the Muslim kingdoms of the south.[95] Most were Eastern European, captured in battles and raids, with the heavy majority being Slavs.[96] However, the ethnic composition of slaves in Christian Iberia shifted over the course of the Middle Ages. Slaveholders in the Christian kingdoms gradually moved away from owning Christians, in accordance with Church proscriptions. In the middle of the medieval period most slaves in Christian Iberia were Muslim, either captured in battle with the Islamic states from the southern part of the peninsula, or taken from the eastern Mediterranean and imported into Iberia by merchants from cities such as Genoa.[97] The Christian kingdoms of Iberia frequently traded their Muslim captives back across the border for payments of money or kind. Indeed, historian James Broadman writes that this type of redemption offered the best chance for captives and slaves to regain their freedom.[98] The sale of Muslim captives, either back to the Islamic southern states or to third-party slave brokers, supplied one of the means by which Aragon and Castile financed the Reconquista. Battles and sieges provided large numbers of captives; after the siege of Almeria in 1147, sources report that Alfonso VII of León sent almost 10,000 of the city's Muslim women and children to Genoa to be sold into slavery as partial repayment of Genoese assistance in the campaign.[99][100] Towards the end of the Reconquista, however, this source of slaves became increasingly exhausted. Muslim rulers were increasingly unable to pay ransoms, and the Christian capture of large centers of population in the south made wholesale enslavement of Muslim populations impractical.[101] The loss of an Iberian Muslim source of slaves further encouraged Christians to look to other sources of manpower. Beginning with the first Portuguese slave raid in sub-Saharan Africa in 1411, the focus of slave importation began to shift from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic World, and the racial composition of slaves in Christian Iberia began to include an increasing number of black Africans.[102][103] Between 1489 and 1497 almost 2,100 black slaves were shipped from Portugal to Valencia.[104][105] By the end of the 15th century, Spain held the largest population of black Africans in Europe, with a small, but growing community of black ex-slaves.[106] In the mid 16th century Spain imported up to 2,000 black African slaves annually through Portugal, and by 1565 most of Seville's 6,327 slaves (out of a total population of 85,538) were black Africans.[106][107]
Slavery in Moldavia and Wallachia Edit
Slavery in the Medieval Near East Edit
The ancient and medieval Near East includes modern day Turkey, the Levant and Egypt, with strong connections to the rest of the north African coastline. All of these areas were ruled by either the Byzantines or the Persians at the beginning of late antiquity. Pre-existing Byzantine (i.e. Roman) and Persian institutions of slavery may have influenced the development of institutions of slavery in Islamic law and jurisprudence. [110] Likewise, some scholars have argued for the influence of Rabbinic tradition on the development of Islamic legal thought. [111] Whatever the relationship between these different legal traditions, many similarities exist between the practice of Islamic slavery in the early Middle Ages and the practices of early medieval Byzantines and western Europeans. The status of freed slaves under Islamic rule, who continued to owe services to their former masters, bears a strong similarity to ancient Roman and Greek institutions. However, the practice of slavery in the early medieval Near East also grew out of slavery practices in currency among pre-Islamic Arabs.[112] Like the Old and New Testaments and Greek and Roman law codes, the Quran takes the institution of slavery for granted, though it urges kindness toward slaves and eventual manumission, especially for slaves who convert to Islam.[113] In early Middle Ages, many slaves in Islamic society served as such for only a short period of time—perhaps an average of seven years.[114] Like their European counterparts, early medieval Islamic slave traders preferred slaves who were not co-religionists and hence focused on "pagans" from inner Asia, Europe, and especially from sub-Saharan Africa.[115] The practice of manumission may have contributed to the integration of former slaves into the wider society. However, under sharia law, conversion to Islam did not necessitate manumission.[116] Slaves were employed in heavy labor as well as in domestic contexts. Because of Quranic sanction of concubinage,[117] early Islamic traders, in contrast to Byzantine and early modern slave traders, imported large numbers of female slaves.[118] The very earliest Islamic states did not create corps of slave soldiers (a practice familiar from later contexts) but did integrate freedmen into armies, which may have contributed to the rapid expansion of early Islamic conquest.[119] By the 9th century, use of slaves in Islamic armies, particularly Turks in cavalry units and Africans in infantry units, was a relatively common practice.[120][121] In Egypt, Ahmad ibn Tulun imported thousands of black slaves to wrestle independence from the Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq in 868.[122] The Ikhshidid dynasty used black slave units to liberate itself from Abbasid rule after the Abbasids destroyed ibn Tulun's autonomous empire in 935.[123] Black professional soldiers were most associated with the Fatimid dynasty, which incorporated more professional black soldiers than the previous two dynasties.[123] It was the Fatimids who first incorporated black professional slave soldiers into the cavalry, despite massive opposition from Central Asian Turkish Mamluks, who saw the African contingent as a threat to their role as the leading military unit in the Egyptian army.[123] In the later half of the Middle Ages, the expansion of Islamic rule further into the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and Arabian Peninsula established the Saharan-Indian Ocean slave trade.[124] This network was a large market for African slaves, transporting approximately four million African slaves from its 7th century inception to its 20th century demise. [125] Ironically, the consolidation of borders in the Islamic Near East changed the face of the slave trade.[126] A rigid Islamic code, coupled with crystallizing frontiers, favored slave purchase and tribute over capture as lucrative slave avenues. [126] Even the sources of slaves shifted from the Fertile Crescent and Central Asia to Indochina and the Byzantine Empire.[127] Patterns of preference for slaves in the Near East, as well as patterns of use, continued into the later Middle Ages with only slight changes. Slaves were employed in many activities, including agriculture, industry, the military, and domestic labor. Women were prioritized over men, and usually served in the domestic sphere as menials, concubines, or wives.[128] Domestic and commercial slaves were mostly better off than their agricultural counterparts, either becoming family members or business partners rather than condemned to a grueling life in a chain gang. There are references to gangs of slaves, mostly African, put to work in drainage projects in Iraq, salt and gold mines in the Sahara, and sugar and cotton plantations in North Africa and Spain. References to this latter type of slavery are rare, however.[128] Eunuchs were the most prized and sought-after type of slave. The most fortunate slaves found employment in politics or the military. In the Ottoman Empire, the Devşrime system groomed young slave boys for civil or military service.[129] Young Christian boys were uprooted from their conquered villages periodically as a levy, and were employed in government, entertainment, or the army, depending on their talents.[126] Slaves attained great success from this program, some winning the post of Grand Vizier to the Sultan and others positions in the Janissaries.[130] It is a bit of a misnomer to classify these men as "slaves", because in the Ottoman Empire, they were referred to as kul, or, slaves "of the Gate", or Sultanate.[131] While not slaves per se under Islamic law, these Devşrime alumni remained under the Sultan's discretion. The Islamic Near East extensively relied upon professional slave soldiers, and was known for having them compose the core of armies.[126] The institution was conceived out of political predicaments and reflected the attitudes of the time, and was not indicative of political decline or financial bankruptcy.[123] Slave units were desired because of their unadulterated loyalty to the ruler, since they were imported and therefore could not threaten the throne with local loyalties or alliances.
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire Edit
Slavery in Poland Edit
Slavery in Russia Edit
Slavery in Scandinavia Edit
Main article: Thrall The laws from 12th and 13th centuries describe the legal status of two categories. According to the Norwegian Gulating code (in about 1160), domestic slaves could not, unlike foreign slaves, be sold out of the country. This and other laws defined slaves as their master's property at the same level as cattle. It also described a procedure for giving a slave their freedom. A freed slave did not have full legal status; for example, the punishment for killing a former slave was low. A former slave's son also had a low status, but higher than that of his parents. The Norwegian law code from 1274, Landslov (Land's law), does not mention slaves, but former slaves. Thus it seems like slavery was abolished in Norway by this time. In Sweden, slavery was abolished in 1343.
Slavery in the British Isles Edit
Main article: Slavery in the British Isles British Wales and Gaelic Ireland and Scotland were among the last areas of Christian Europe to give up their institution of slavery. Under Gaelic custom, prisoners of war were routinely taken as slaves. During the period that slavery was disappearing across most of western Europe, it was reaching its height in the British Isles: the Viking invasions and the subsequent warring between Scandinavians and the natives, the number of captives taken as slaves drastically increased. The Irish church was vehemently opposed to slavery and blamed the 1169 Norman invasion on divine punishment for the practice, along with local acceptance of polygyny and divorce.
Serfdom versus slavery Edit
In considering how serfdom evolved from slavery, historians who study the divide between slavery and serfdom encounter several issues of historiography and methodology. Some historians believe that slavery transitioned into serfdom (a view that has only been around for the last 200 years), though there is disagreement among them regarding how rapid this transition was.[148] Pierre Bonnassie, a medieval historian, thought that the chattel slavery of the ancient world ceased to exist in the Europe of the 10th century and was followed by feudal serfdom.[149] Jean-Pierre Devroey thinks that the shift from slavery to serfdom was gradual as well in some parts of the continent.[150] Other areas, though, did not have what he calls "western-style serfdom" after the end of slavery, such as the rural areas of the Byzantine Empire, Iceland, and Scandinavia.[151] Complicating this issue is that regions in Europe often had both serfs and slaves simultaneously. In northwestern Europe, a transition from slavery to serfdom happened by the 12th century. The Catholic Church promoted the transformation by giving the example. Enslavement of fellow Catholics was prohibited in 992 and manumission was declared to be a pious act. However it remained legal to enslave people of other religions and dogmas.[152] Generally speaking, regarding how slaves differed from serfs, the underpinnings of slavery and serfdom are debated as well. Dominique Barthélemy, among others, has questioned the very premises for neatly distinguishing serfdom from slavery, arguing that a binary classification masks the many shades of servitude.[153] Of particular interest to historians is the role of serfdom and slavery within the state, and the implications that held for both serf and slave. Some think that slavery was the exclusion of people from the public sphere and its institutions, whereas serfdom was a complex form of dependency that usually lacked a codified basis in the legal system.[154] Wendy Davies argues that serfs, like slaves, also became excluded from the public judicial system and that judicial matters were attended to in the private courts of their respective lords.[155] Despite the scholarly disagreement, it is possible to piece together a general picture of slavery and serfdom. Slaves typically owned no property, and were in fact the property of their masters. Slaves worked full-time for their masters and operated under a negative incentive structure; in other words, failure to work resulted in physical punishment.[156] Serfs held plots of land, which was essentially a form of "payment" that the lord offered in exchange for the serf's service.[157] Serfs worked part-time for the masters and part-time for themselves and had opportunities to accumulate personal wealth that often did not exist for the slave.[158] Slaves were generally imported from foreign countries or continents, brought to Europe via the slave trade. Serfs were typically indigenous Europeans and were not subject to the same involuntary movements as slaves. Serfs worked in family units, whereas the concept of family was generally murkier for slaves.[159] At any given moment, a slave's family could be torn apart via trade, and masters often used this threat to coerce compliant behavior from the slave.[160] The end of serfdom is also debated, with Georges Duby pointing to the early 12th century as a rough end point for "serfdom in the strict sense of the term".[161] Other historians dispute this assertion, citing discussions and the mention of serfdom as an institution during later dates (such as in 13th century England, or in Central Europe, where the rise of serfdom coincided with its decline in Western Europe). There are several approaches to get a time span for the transition, and lexicography is one such method. There is supposedly a clear shift in diction when referencing those who were either slaves or serfs at approximately 1000, though there is not a consensus on how significant this shift is, or if it even exists.[162] In addition, numismatists shed light on the decline of serfdom. There is a widespread theory that the introduction of currency hastened the decline of serfdom because it was preferable to pay for labor rather than depend on feudal obligations. Some historians argue that landlords began selling serfs their land – and hence, their freedom – during periods of economic inflation across Europe.[163] Other historians argue that the end of slavery came from the royalty, who gave serfs freedom through edicts and legislation in an attempt to broaden their tax base.[164] The absence of serfdom in some parts of medieval Europe raises several questions. Devroey thinks it is because slavery was not born out of economic structures in these areas, but was rather a societal practice.[151] Heinrich Fichtenau points out that in Central Europe, there was not a labor market strong enough for slavery to become a necessity.[165]
Justifications for slavery Edit
See also Edit
References Edit
Further reading EditWinter Health Chinese Food and Recipe
Chinese yam
Chinese yam is an ornamental vine that is native to Asia and also grows in North America. Another name for Chinese yam is cinnamon vine. It is also called shan yao. Chinese yam is used in Chinese herbal medicine. It is traditionally used to treat disorders related to the stomach, spleen, lungs, and kidneys.
Recipe: Pork bone soup with Chinese yam and red dates
There are many benefits using bones in soups, namely that they contain calcium ions, which is easily absorbed by the body. For people who are lactose-intolerant, using bones in soup is a good way to get more calcium into the body and also good for people recovering from an illness.
Ingredients
75g fresh Chinese yam
6-8 red dates
300g pork ribs
3-5 pieces ginger
4 cups water
Salt
Directions
1. Peel the Chinese yam and cut into small chunks
2. Wash and parboil the pork ribs
3. Wash the red dates and remove the piths
4. Boil water in a kettle
5. Place the red dates, ribs, ginger into the slow cooker and add the boiling water
Lamb
• Mutton is energy tonic in winter. It can improve blood circulation and warm up internal region.
• Mutton promotes Yang Qi, tonifying the kidney.
• There is a saying “Eating mutton is better than that of Ginseng in winter”.
• Mutton contains less cholesterol than that of beef and pork.
• Mutton’s liver is good to our eyes.
Who shouldn’t eat?
People who are suffering fever, edema, hectic fever, malaria, toothache, etc.
Hepatitis patients don’t eat. Mutton has powerful warm energy. Excessive intake will aggravate the symptoms.
When should eat?
Don’t eat in summer. Better eat in winter.
Recipe: Stewed Radish Mutton
Ingredients
400g Lamb belly
200g Radish
20g Leek
5g garlic
5 g ginger
1 whole nutmeg
3 star anise
3 g whole cloves
3g cinnamon bark
3g spring onion
3g shallots
½ teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon Chinese wine
½ teaspoon white pepper
3g preserved bean curd
3g fermented Red bean curd
1 tablespoon chili oil
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
Directions
1. Cut leeks into sections and radish into large cubes
2. In a hot dry pan, sauté ginger, and nutmeg, anise, cloves and cinnamon until fragrant
3. Add sugar, lamb, a cup of boiling water and cook with lid on for about 10 minutes. Reserve lamb and broth for later use.
4. In a hot pan with oil, sauté garlic, shallot until fragrant
5. Add lamb, radish, lamb broth, and remaining ingredients into the pot
6. Cook for another 15 minutes until lamb is tender
7. Garnish with spring onion and serve hot
If your too busy to make homemade Chinese food, you can try Chinese restaurants in New York. Looking forward to Chinese Restaurant You Must Go next week!The Cleveland Indians are on a 8 game winning streak overall while also holding a 11 game home victory streak. The hashtag #WINdians has become a popular rally cry on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to celebrate the late inning heroics of this years Wahoo Warriors.
The last few weeks have reminded many Indians fans of the magical teams in the mid to late 1990's which featured some of the greatest players of the generation, including 3 members of the 500 home run club (Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez and Eddie Murray). Below we present you a trip back to your childhood in northeast Ohio with The 9 Reasons You Know You Grew Up A 90's Cleveland Indians Fan.
9. You still call this place 'The Jake' [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="533" caption="The Jake"] [/caption] 8. You defended Albert Belle when he got caught corking his bat... [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="350" caption="Right 'F*cking' HERE"] [/caption] 7. Then you called him Joey and cursed the day he was born a year later [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="329" caption="Joeeeey, JOOOOOOOeeeeyyyy"] [/caption] 6. Unthinkable double-plays became your expectation [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="635" caption="Omar to Robby!"] [/caption] 5. 9th inning leads were guaranteed victories [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="453" caption="Joe Table"] [/caption] 4. Two of the best home run hitters ever batted #6 and #7 in your lineup [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="626" caption="Jim and Manny"] [/caption] 3. You considered Cleveland the city of Brotherly Love [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="716" caption="Alomar BROS"] [/caption] 2. Legendary pitchers said "WOW" [embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgyrGsw6aMg[/embed] And finally... 1. Stealing home from 2nd base was possible
Your browser does not support iframes.Image caption Mr Yanagida's resignation comes at a bad time for the prime minister
Japan's justice minister says he is resigning after causing outrage for joking about how easy his job was.
Minoru Yanagida said the only two phrases he had to remember in parliament were: "I won't comment on individual cases," and "I'm acting in accordance with the law and the evidence."
Opposition conservatives said he deserved to be fired for the gaffe.
The move may make it harder for Japan to pass a key budget, analysts say.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan gave Mr Yanagida a severe warning for the remarks, which were made earlier this month during a private gathering in his home constituency in Hiroshima Prefecture.
Falling support
Mr Yanagida announced his resignation at a press conference in Tokyo on Monday morning.
The opposition had called his comments an insult to the legislature, and was preparing a censure motion against him.
Plenty of Japanese politicians have been felled by gaffes before, says the BBC's Roland Buerk in Toyko, including a tourism minister who resigned just four days into his job for saying the Japanese did not like foreigners.
But the latest resignation comes at a bad time for the prime minister, adds our correspondent.
There is widespread public discontent with the struggling economy.
Falling support for the centre-left government has complicated efforts to enact the crucial $61bn (£38bn) stimulus package, which the government hopes will stimulate the economy.
Support for Mr Kan has also been undermined by criticism of his handling of territorial rows with China and Russia.Magento 2 Demo Store
November 18, 2015
I’ve set up a Magento 2 demo store with sample data for everyone to use and get a feel for at magento2.franciskim.co
The Magento 2 Demo is currently offline.
Feel free to contact me and I can set up a demo.
The login details are as follows for admin:
http://magento2.franciskim.co/admin_1fbgkh/
Username: demo
Password: demo1234
I’ve made it reset every hour, so feel free to do what you like – even deface it if you feel like. I like the new admin interface (my last Magento 2 installation was wayyyy back in the days where most of the backend UI was… I believe, beige) – but I am seeing some CSS bugs with the rem positioning on the mass selector – might do a pull request.
Anyway, I’ve said enough – enjoy the Magento 2 demo! 🙂Pierre Curie (;[1] French: [kyʁi]; 15 May 1859 – 19 April 1906) was a French physicist, a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity and radioactivity. In 1903, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, and Henri Becquerel, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel".[2]
Early life [ edit ]
Born in Paris on 15 May 1859, Pierre Curie was the son of Eugene Curie (28 August 1827 – 25 February 1910), a doctor of French Huguenot Protestant origin from Alsatia, and Sophie-Claire Depouilly Curie (15 January 1832 – 27 September 1897). He was educated by his father and in his early teens showed a strong aptitude for mathematics and geometry. When he was 16, he earned his math degree.[clarification needed] By the age of 18, he had completed the equivalent of a higher degree, but did not proceed immediately to a doctorate due to lack of money. Instead he worked as a laboratory instructor.[3] When Pierre Curie was preparing for his bachelor of science degree, he worked in the laboratory of Jean-Gustave Bourbouze in the Faculty of Science.[4]
In 1880 Pierre and his older brother Jacques (1856–1941) demonstrated that an electric potential was generated when crystals were compressed, i.e. piezoelectricity.[5] To aid this work they invented the piezoelectric quartz electrometer.[6] The following year they demonstrated the reverse effect: that crystals could be made to deform when subject to an electric field.[5] Almost all digital electronic circuits now rely on this in the form of crystal oscillators.[7] In subsequent work on magnetism Pierre Curie defined the Curie scale.[8] This work also involved delicate equipment - balances, electrometers, etc.[9]
Pierre Curie was introduced to Maria Skłodowska by their friend, physicist Józef Wierusz-Kowalski.[10] Curie took her into his laboratory as his student. His admiration for her grew when he realized that she would not inhibit his research. He began to regard Skłodowska as his muse.[11] She refused his initial proposal, but finally agreed to marry him on 26 July 1895.[3][12]
It would be a beautiful thing, a thing I dare not hope, if we could spend our life near each other, hypnotized by our dreams: your patriotic dream, our humanitarian dream, and our scientific dream. [Pierre Curie to Maria Skłodowska][3]:117
The Curies had a happy, affectionate marriage, and they were known for their devotion to each other.[13]
Research [ edit ]
Propriétés magnétiques des corps à diverses temperatures
(Curie's dissertation, 1895) (Curie's dissertation, 1895)
Prior to his famous doctoral studies on magnetism, he designed and perfected an extremely sensitive torsion balance for measuring magnetic coefficients. Variations on this equipment were commonly used by future workers in that area. Pierre Curie studied ferromagnetism, paramagnetism, and diamagnetism for his doctoral thesis, and discovered the effect of temperature on paramagnetism which is now known as Curie's law. The material constant in Curie's law is known as the Curie constant. He also discovered that ferromagnetic substances exhibited a critical temperature transition, above which the substances lost their ferromagnetic behavior. This is now known as the Curie temperature. The Curie temperature is used to study plate tectonics, treat hypothermia, measure caffeine, and to understand extraterrestrial magnetic fields.[14]
Pierre Curie formulated what is now known as the Curie Dissymmetry Principle: a physical effect cannot have a dissymmetry absent from its efficient cause.[15][16] For example, a random mixture of sand in zero gravity has no dissymmetry (it is isotropic). Introduce a gravitational field, and there is a dissymmetry because of the direction of the field. Then the sand grains can'self-sort' with the density increasing with depth. But this new arrangement, with the directional arrangement of sand grains, actually reflects the dissymmetry of the gravitational field that causes the separation.
Curie worked with his wife in isolating polonium and radium. They were the first to use the term "radioactivity", and were pioneers in its study. Their work, including Marie Curie's celebrated doctoral work, made use of a sensitive piezoelectric electrometer constructed by Pierre and his brother Jacques Curie.[17] Pierre Curie's 1898 publication with his wife Mme. Curie and also with M. G. Bémont[18] for their discovery of radium and polonium was honored by a Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award from the Division of History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society presented to the ESPCI ParisTech (officially the École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la Ville de Paris) in 2015.[19][20]
Curie and one of his students, Albert Laborde, made the first discovery of nuclear energy, by identifying the continuous emission of heat from radium particles.[21] Curie also investigated the radiation emissions of radioactive substances, and through the use of magnetic fields was able to show that some of the emissions were positively charged, some were negative and some were neutral. These correspond to alpha, beta and gamma radiation.[22]
The curie is a unit of radioactivity (3.7 × 1010 decays per second or 37 gigabecquerels) originally named in honor of Curie by the Radiology Congress in 1910, after his death. Subsequently, there has been some controversy over whether the naming was in honor of Pierre, Marie, or both.[23]
Spiritualism [ edit ]
In the late nineteenth century, Pierre Curie was investigating the mysteries of ordinary magnetism when he became aware of the spiritualist experiments of other European scientists, such as Charles Richet and Camille Flammarion. Pierre Curie initially thought systematic investigation into the paranormal could help with some unanswered questions about magnetism.[24]:65 He wrote to his fiancée Marie: "I must admit that those spiritual phenomena intensely interest me. I think in them are questions that deal with physics."[24]:66 Pierre Curie's notebooks from this period show he |
U.S. in 2012, according to FBI statistics.
Under the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, police generally need a warrant before they can conduct a search. The warrant itself must be based on "probable cause," evidence that a crime has been committed. But in the early 1970s, the Supreme Court carved out exceptions for officers dealing with people they have arrested.
Several justices expressed concern about applying rules written 40 years ago to a rapidly evolving technology.
"How do we determine what the new expectation of privacy is?" Justice Samuel Alito asked.
Justice Department lawyer Michael Dreeben repeatedly warned the court about restricting officers when they seize a phone by invoking technological advances in encryption that might render the device impregnable if police don't act quickly. If officers are forced to get a warrant and the phone's protection is activated, Dreeben said, "It may be months or years or never before officers can break through that encryption."
But lawyer Jeffrey Fisher, representing a San Diego gang member, urged the court to regard cellphones generally as extensions of the home, where privacy protections are greatest,
In the two cases, David Leon Riley of San Diego carried a Samsung smartphone, while Brima Wurie of Boston had a less advanced flip phone.
Prosecutors used video and photographs found on Riley's smartphone to persuade a jury to convict him of attempted murder and other charges. Officers who arrested Wurie on suspicion of selling crack cocaine checked the call log on his flip phone and used that information to determine where he lived. When they searched Wurie's home, armed with a warrant, they found crack cocaine, marijuana, a gun and ammunition.
The justices expressed varying levels of sophistication about cellphones. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Kagan and Alito seemed most comfortable talking about the technology. They are, perhaps not coincidentally, the four youngest justices.
On the other hand, 75-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer, who is given to self-deprecation on the bench, gamely tried to engage the Justice Department's Dreeben in a discussion about encryption technology. "I don't know what kind of phone you have, Justice Breyer," Dreeben said.
Breyer replied: "I don't either because I can never get into it because of the password."
Decisions in Riley v. California, 13-132, and U.S. v. Wurie, 13-212, are expected by late June.On Nov. 1, Rowena Diaz’s two sons are visiting the cemetery for the first time.
Her eldest, aged six, could hardly wait that he started a countdown: “Mama, ilang days na lang pupuntahan na natin si Papa sa sementeryo (Mama, how many days till we visit Papa in the cemetery)?”
A month ago, the boy saw for himself the lifeless body of his 36-year-old father, Ervee Bugarin, blood-soaked in a dimly lit alley in Balic Balic in Sampaloc, Manila, a neighborhood that has seen a spate of drug-related killings by unknown gunmen.
Bugarin, who surrendered to police a year ago, wasn’t spared, and now lies at the severely congested Manila North Cemetery. The sons he left behind join the list of children orphaned in the war on drugs, where the death toll has reached 3,967 in October, most of them fathers and breadwinners like Bugarin.
In the ongoing drug war, it is the children who suffer the most, say human rights groups as they launched on Oct. 30 the music video, “Hayaan Mo Ako” (Let Me Be), during an intimate gathering of artists, rights defenders and victims’ families at the Most Holy Trinity Parish in Balic Balic.
The four-minute video, produced by the nonprofit League of Authors of Public Interest Songs, features Pinoy rock musician Dong Abay, baring his full-body tattoos as if imitating a drug addict pleading for enough chances to “dream, cultivate hope and fight for something.”
The song in the video speaks about the yearnings for a normal life – a life filled with love, dreams, hope and even trials. “Let us age and be ripe through time,” the final notes of the song, sung by little voices, fade out in contrast to a faceless body of a child.
The music video was the highlight of the event entitled “Gunita” (Remembrance), where artists also remembered drug war victims through songs, spoken word poetry and a play, all of which condemn the senseless killings and abandonment of the youth in the drug war.
Rowena Diaz, who lost the father of her children to an alleged drug-related killing, sheds a tear as she watches a music video. (Photo by Arianne Christian Tapao)
The Philippine Association of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA) said 63 minors have been killed in the government’s war on drugs since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power in July last year. The list includes student Kian Delos Santos, 17, whose death caused a national uproar when a camera got a snippet of two men holding him moments before his death on Aug. 16. (See Outrage at Kian’s wake: Lawmakers, rights activists denounce Duterte’s war on drugs)
“We do not agree with the killings. They should be stopped. We keep on reminding everyone that human beings have human rights,” Rosemarie Trajano, PAHRA secretary-general, said.
The drug war, she says, does not discriminate between children being killed or orphaned.
“Those who aren’t victims of killings have the same yearning: a good life. That they grow up free, they grow up happy,” she said.
Diaz, lulling her sons to sleep on her lap as the video played, couldn’t help but tear up.
The widow said the message resonates with her, believing that those who have been lured into drugs, like the father of her children, are not given the chance to take on new lives.
Parish priest Enrico Aldobiso, talking about drug addicts who underwent rehabilitation in their community, likened them to souls that have been restored from death.
Yet, for those who were deprived of second chances, the priest said there is nothing wrong with expressing rage. “Umalis man ang pamahalaan na ito, hindi natin kakalimutan at sisingilin natin sila (The administration may change, but we will never forget, and we will hold them accountable).”
With a clenched fist, parish priest Enrico Aldobiso says there’s nothing wrong with being outraged when remembering those wronged and left behind by the drug war. (Photo by Arianne Christian Tapao)
With its leaders actively condemning the drug war, the church has become one of the few sanctuaries in the Philippines for families of those who suffered summary killings. (See Rights groups say no to violence and martial law)
The Most Holy Trinity Parish established its own human rights ministry just last May to focus on helping them more.
The children from the parish themselves know stories of the killings in Balic Balic by heart. At a stage play during the event, the parish youth ministry portrayed stories of three families that shared the same tragic ending: children grieving their dead fathers felled by bullets from masked gunmen.
“Hate na hate ko ang drugs, suportado ko nga ang pangulo noong sinabi niya na lahat ng droga, lahat ng adik mawawala (I really hate drugs, I even supported the president when he said drugs and addicts will be eliminated),” cried a teen who played a parish volunteer in his soliloquy.
“Pero hindi sa ganoong paraan. Sa patayin? Patayan ang paraan (But not in this way. Is killing the answer)?” he added. “Ganito ba talaga? Ganito na ba ang bansa natin (Is this how we will do it? Is this how our country has become)?”
Members of the Most Holy Trinity Parish’s youth ministry in Balic Balic, Sampaloc call for an end to the war on drugs through a stage play on three cases of extrajudicial killings in their neighborhood. (Photo by Maria Feona Imperial)
Diaz believes Bugarin will find no justice in his death, as it had been in his lifetime.
“With so many killed? I don’t think we can expect (justice). Has anything come out from the earlier killings? We don’t see any news of any case being solved, do we)?” she said in Filipino.
When Bugarin voluntarily surrendered last year, heeding the call of the administration, they all thought he would undergo rehabilitation as promised. Instead, the police took a photo of him “like a criminal.” Nobody had any idea it was only a matter of time before his death would come, Diaz said.
“It’s like you gave up your life to them. You surrendered your life to them. And it’s up to them when to kill you,” she added.
A stay-at-home mother, Diaz has little clue on how to make ends meet for her two boys. After Bugarin was buried on Oct. 7, she struggled to find a cheaper rent space in Quezon City, but does not know where to go from there.
Even then, life was never easy for the family, as they once had to live inside jeepneys for eight months.
Diaz often finds herself asking if she can go through life without Bugarin. But for her sons, she has to. "I tell myself that I can because I’m the only one left. I am all my sons have left.”
At the end of the event, the group lighted candles in the shape of a man killed in a crime scene, mimicking the real-life outcome of anti-illegal drug operations. (Photo by Maria Feona Imperial)Canadian coach Lisa Thomaidis is certain that her team didn't see the best Cuba has to offer.
Kia Nurse scored 14 points to lead Canada to a 92-43 victory over Cuba on Thursday and finish the FIBA Americas women's basketball championship round robin with a perfect record.
"We can't kid ourselves. That was not Cuba's best performance. It is not indicative or how strong their team really is," Thomaidis said.
"We are all very aware of how these tournaments work. It doesn't matter if you win or lose by two or 25, you move on."
Miranda Ayim and Natalie Achonwa chipped in with 12 points apiece for the Canadians (4-0). Canada is attempting to secure a berth in next year's Rio Olympics by either winning the event outright or finishing second to Brazil, which has an automatic placing in the Olympics as the host nation.
"It felt great to be able to do that in front of our home crowd, with it sold out," Ayim said. "The points on the scoreboard sometimes say something different than it feels on the court. We just wanted to play our best game and show our next opponent what is coming for them."
It was Canada's 13th consecutive victory on home soil, a run which includes its impressive gold medal win over the United States at the recent Pan American Games in Toronto.
The Canadians entered the FIBA Americas tourney ranked third in the Americas and 10th in the world, while Cuba is fourth in the zone and 13th globally.
Canada got off to a rapid 9-2 lead and were able to hang on for a 21-13 advantage at the end of the first quarter.
The Canadians clamped down on defence in the second, allowing only six points to the Cubans while stretching their lead to 42-19 at the half. They continued to control the game from there, leading 63-30 heading into the fourth quarter.
Ayim said that nothing can be taken away from her own team's performance.
"You really want to peak at the right time and that is exactly what we are doing," she said. "It started at Pan Ams where we got better each game and it feels like we are playing our best basketball now when it counts."
There has been a long history between the two teams lately, with Canada most recently coming away with a 71-68 victory over the Cubans at the Pan Am Games.
The two teams also played each other twice at the last FIBA Americas in Mexico in 2013 where the Canadians beat Cuba 53-40 in the preliminary round finale to win their group. The Cubans bounced back to defeat Canada 79-71 in the gold medal game three days later.
Anisleidy Galindo had 12 points for Cuba, which fell to 3-1 in the round robin and will now have to face the top team from the other pool in Saturday's semifinals.
Canada will face the loser of the Argentina-Brazil matchup, played after the Canada-Cuba game on Thursday night, in the other semifinal.Campaign group More United – said to have 70,000 members – supported new Lib Dem MP Sarah Olney, who beat Zac Goldsmith
A campaign group led by the historian Dan Snow has crowdfunded £160,000 in two weeks to support progressive, internationalist and pro-EU parliamentary candidates.
The group, More United, was launched after the referendum to support those seeking office who support five principles, including seeking the closest relationship with the EU or rejoining “if that becomes necessary and possible”.
Its name takes inspiration from the maiden speech by the murdered Labour MP Jo Cox, who said people are far more united and have more in common than that which divides us.
However the group, co-founded by the former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, is preparing to back candidates from all political parties that stand up for its aims.
The Crowdfunder platform said the effort was the most successful political campaign to raise money on the site to date, with more than 4,000 backers.
Organisers said More United has about 70,000 members, more than 80% of whom have never been a member of a political party or done any political campaigning.
The first candidate supported by the group was Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrat who beat Zac Goldsmith in the Richmond byelection this month. Goldsmith, who backed Brexit, resigned as a Conservative to fight a byelection as an independent in protest at the government’s Heathrow policy.
More United said it is aiming to raise £250,000 within the next fortnight, so it can back candidates across the country in byelections.
Snow said he believed More United was an answer for people who are desperate to know what can be done to counter political extremism. “We can organise, raise money, fund progressive candidates, in short, stand up for what we believe,” he said. “Let’s turn our country, once again, into a stronghold for progressive values.
“In Britain, and around the world, politics is being hijacked by extreme views which we believe are not representative of millions of people in this country. It is time for More United, as a tolerant, outward-looking movement, to give people more influence over politics to build a more positive, more united future for Britain.”Gov. Jay Inslee has long advocated reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. But the state Legislature adjourned this month without taking the kind of major climate action desired by Inslee and his environmentalist allies.
Even before Gov. Jay Inslee took office two-and-a-half years ago, some environmentalists were trumpeting him as “the greenest governor” in the country.
In the run-up to the 2015 legislative session, Inslee — who’d built a reputation as a green-energy evangelist during his 15 years in Congress — seemed ready to live up to the title.
The first-term Democrat crossed the state on a “climate tour” to publicize risks to shellfish growers, farmers and forests. He scolded anyone remaining passive in the fight against global warming as “lethal to the prospects of our grandchildren.”
In December, Inslee proposed an ambitious set of policies to cut greenhouse gases, anchored by a California-like cap-and-trade system that would impose what amounted to a new tax on carbon emissions by refineries, fuel distributors and other industries. He also floated a new rule requiring cleaner-burning fuels to cut tailpipe pollution.
But after more than six months and three special sessions, the Legislature adjourned without taking the kind of major climate action desired by Inslee and his environmentalist allies. Even some smaller asks were rejected, such as closure of an oil-refinery tax break.
“This was a session where oil won and the public lost,” said Cliff Traisman, state lobbyist for Washington Conservation Voters and the Washington Environmental Council. “We didn’t get really any meaningful gain in terms of policy.”
That leaves Washington lagging in some ways behind other West Coast states and provinces that have enacted carbon pricing and clean-fuel regulations. And it’s led the Inslee administration to regroup and consider whether to take further action through executive order, a 2016 ballot initiative — or both.
In a news conference, Inslee blamed the Republican-controlled state Senate, which included the top legislative recipients of oil and gas industry political donations.
But the reality is more complicated, as Inslee’s signature cap-and-trade bill never even made it out of the Democratic-majority House due to concerns from some rural and moderate Democrats.
“I think that means there is not a lot of support for his big tax on energy,” said state Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, a leading critic of the governor’s climate agenda.
Late in the game, Inslee himself made a choice drawing criticism from some environmentalists.
He pushed ahead with a highway-expanding $16 billion transportation package, accepting a “poison pill” provision that could hinder his administration’s plans to enact a new clean-fuels regulation.
The Republican-backed provision would divert hundreds of millions of dollars away from transit, bicycling and walking projects if the Inslee administration tries to enact the cleaner fuels rule, known as a low-carbon fuel standard, by executive order.
Signing the transportation package in a ceremony Wednesday afternoon, Inslee noted his opposition to the clean-fuels language, but said he was opting to sign the bills “for the greater good of our state.”
House Transportation Committee Chair Rep. Judy Clibborn, D-Mercer Island, who helped negotiate the transportation deal, said she was pleasantly surprised by Inslee’s decision. “I actually think it was a really brave thing. It made it possible for us to go forward,” she said.
But Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, D-Burien, who chairs the House Environment Committee, was not happy with the trade-off. “I think it’s an embarrassment for Washington that we have fallen behind our neighbors on this,” he said.
California, British Columbia and Oregon have enacted low-carbon fuel standards. And Oregon Gov. Kate Brown this year essentially made the opposite choice from Inslee — resisting efforts to repeal that state’s clean-fuels law even though it led to the demise of a roads and transit package.
Pressure from lobbyists
Business groups heavily lobbied for the transportation package, funded by an 11.9-cent gas-tax increase. Inslee noted it had been a top priority of his since taking office.
Patrick Mazza, an organizer with climate-action group 350 Seattle, which opposed the transportation deal, said despite Inslee’s climate views, he also was under immense pressure to make a deal.
“All politicians are weather vanes, even the best of them. And the wind was blowing way harder from the business and shipping interests, from the labor interests who want those jobs, and from Sound Transit,” Mazza said.
The transportation package authorized Sound Transit to ask area voters for a $15 billion light-rail expansion. Republicans initially had only offered partial funding.
Ericksen, who voted against the gas-tax package, argues Inslee outplayed Republicans on the transportation deal.
He said Inslee used the threat of a clean-fuel rule — which he believes was a tenuous proposition that would have faced legal challenges — to win full Sound Transit authorization.
“He was able to use a weak hand and trade it for Sound Transit funding. That was the brilliant part,” Ericksen said.
Despite the poison-pill regulation, Inslee’s office has signaled he is still considering moving ahead on a low-carbon fuel standard. While that would trigger a shift in transit money, Inslee and his allies could gamble on a fight to restore the funding in a subsequent legislative session.
Inslee aides said given the divided Legislature, he never expected his climate agenda to pass intact this year. “The governor is an optimist but he is a realist,” Jamie Smith, an Inslee spokeswoman, said in an email.
As for that “greenest governor” contest? Inslee’s aides have long pointed out he has not used the phrase. “The greenest governor thing means nothing to us,” Smith emailed.
Washington not on track to meet climate targets
Smith also pointed to some wins on the governor’s environmental agenda.
Among them: Lawmakers budgeted $40 million for the state’s Clean Energy Fund, which finances budding green technologies. Republicans initially proposed no money for the fund. The Legislature also extended tax incentives for electric cars, funded a low-income weatherization program and ocean acidification research.
However, without a cap-and-trade system or other significant carbon-reducing measures, Washington is unlikely to hit greenhouse-gas targets in state law. The Legislature in 2008 set a goal of cutting emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, 25 percent below that by 2035, and to half of 1990 levels by 2050.
Chris Davis, a senior climate adviser to Inslee, said in an email the state may get close to the 2020 targets with existing policies, but “it’s by no means assured and our best data suggest that we are far from on track to meet the 2035 and 2050 limits.”
Meanwhile, Inslee has signaled the emissions goals in state law are not steep enough.
Agenda stalled
Even as his cap-and-trade agenda stalled in the Legislature, Inslee in May signed on to a new international climate pact spearheaded by California Gov. Jerry Brown. The nonbinding “Under2MOU” calls for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 80 to 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
A lawsuit against the state by a group of young climate activists contends Inslee could bypass the Legislature and impose such limits by executive order. But Inslee aides have said that’s not a realistic option.
Environmentalist groups blame fierce lobbying by the oil industry for creating fear among Republicans and some more conservative Democrats that a cap-and-trade system or low-carbon fuel standard would lead to big spikes in gas and energy prices.
Business and oil-industry groups have followed the same playbook up and down the West Coast, backing new organizations with names that sound like consumer or environmentalist groups to push back against climate regulations. In Washington, the Washington Climate Collaborative emerged in December to oppose Inslee’s climate proposals.
“This is not easy stuff. There is very well-funded opposition,” said Adrienne Alvord, California and Western states director for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based environmental think tank, tallied $3 million in lobbying and political donations directed at Washington politics last year by the oil, gas, and coal industries.
Frank Holmes, regional director for the Western States Petroleum Association, rejected the notion the oil industry is halting climate proposals by itself.
“I don’t think that the oil industry is any more influential than any other sector,” said Holmes. “There is a lot of concern with businesses across the board of increasing costs of these programs.”
Environmentalist forces have also spent heavily in the state. Last year, California billionaire and climate activist Tom Steyer dropped $1 million here in an unsuccessful effort to give Democrats control of the state Senate.
Todd Myers, environmental director with the conservative Washington Policy Center, said Inslee “keeps choosing the most partisan approach” and has only himself to blame for the lack of progress on climate policy.
Myers favors a revenue-neutral carbon tax of the sort in place in Vancouver, B.C. That system gives back carbon-tax proceeds to the public in the form of other tax cuts. Inslee’s cap-and-trade plan would have raised $1 billion a year for the state budget.
Greenhouse effect
Inslee has continued to insist Washington will lock arms with other West Coast states on a united greenhouse-gas policy.
In his post-session news conference, Inslee said absent “personnel changes” in the Senate, a cap-and-trade ballot initiative may be the solution. Fitzgibbon, the House environment chair, agreed.
“I think initiative has always been a path that made sense on this issue,” he said.
As the Legislature wound down a third special session this month, Inslee traveled to Toronto to deliver a speech at the Climate Summit of the Americas. There, he didn’t mention his legislative setbacks but warned of the dire threats of climate change and said Washington state still intends to put a price on carbon emissions.
Inslee traced studies on global warming to scientists’ examination of the climate of Venus and its “runaway greenhouse effect.”
He noted some Washington-based space companies are now looking at exploration and settlement of Mars.
“Colonizing Mars is great if it’s a choice, but not if it’s a necessity,” Inslee said.St. Patrick’s Day at San Diego Breweries
When in San Diego during the weekend of St. Paddy’s Day, there is no need to waste any time on cheap macro green beer when one can enjoy a pint of local craft beer fresh from the tank. So put on the one green shirt you own and head out to one of San Diego’s local breweries to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day!
Please remember to be safe and drink responsibly. Always have a designated driver.
St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations
Alpine Beer Company
Don’t wait to start celebrating St. Patrick’s Day!
Dates: March 15-17, 2013
Hours: Specials start after 5:00 PM. Sunday Extended Hours – Kitchen: 9:00 PM, Pub: 10:00 PM.
Location: 2363 Alpine Blvd, Alpine, California 91901
Overview: Beginning at 5:00 pm Friday night, we’ll start serving our St. Patty’s Day Weekend Special: Smoked Corned Beef, with Cabbage and Mashed Potatoes, and finished with a White Wine Cream Sauce, for $14.95. Start off with the appetizer Shepherd’s Pie Balls, $9.95, and for Dessert, try the Irish Car Bomb Mousse, only $7.95. Also, on Saturday and Sunday, during the day, our Pub will be serving Smoked Corned Beef on Rye Sandwiches, with Swiss Cheese, Sauerkraut, and Captain Stout Beer Mustard, and a choice of sides, for $9.95. There will also be Barrel-Aged Odin’s Raven Beer Floats, while they last, for $7.95. Remember – Wear Green. Drink Red. (Or some other non-green color!) Have a Happy and SAFE St. Patrick’s Day!
Aztec Brewing Company / 7 Nations Brewing Company
Pint of Gold
Date: March 16, 2013
Hours: 2:00 to 4:00 PM
Location: 2330 La Mirada Dr Ste 300, Vista CA 92081
Cost: $24 in advance, $26 day of the event
Overview: Put on your Irish Dancing Shoes and come on by Aztec for a delicious Irish Style Beer & Food Pairing. Four full courses paired with 1/2 pints of Aztec Brews.
Belching Beaver Brewery
St. Patrick’s Day Celebration at the Beaver!
Date: March 15-17, 2013
Location: 980 Park Center Drive, Suite A, Vista, California 92081
Overview: Once again it is that wonderful time of the year, St. Patrick’s Day. Come down to our tasting room and help us chase out the snakes and celebrate. Starting Friday, March 15th, we will be pouring $3 pints of Green Me So Honey…wait, GREEN?!? Yes, green honey ale will flow like shamrocks in a meadows wind. But do hurry, there will only be a limited amount of this special release.
ChukAlek Independent Brewers
Saint Patrick’s Day!
Date: March 17, 2013
Location: 2330 Main Street, Suite C, Ramona, California 92065
Overview: Bisher’s corned beef sandwiches and Green Weiss pints
Green Flash Brewing Co.
Greensky Bluegrass & Green Flash Tap Takeover
Dates: March. 17, 2013
Hours: Doors: 7:30 PM. Show: 8:00 PM.
Location: Porters Pub, UC San Diego
Cost: Buffet – $10, Concert – $18-$20
Overview: Join us at Porters Pub for a Tap Takeover and ‘Keep the Glass’ special at Porters Pub. Party down St. Patrick’s Day with Greensky Bluegrass and The Ryan Montbleau Band at Porter’s Pub, UC San Diego. Greensky Bluegrass is among the emerging twangy upbeat string bands, and joining them is the Ryan Montbleau Band with their deep jazzy blues sound with a hint of rock. St. Paddy’s Day – All you can eat buffet menu: Corned Beef & Cabbage, Mashed Potatoes – with parsley & garlic (to make it green), Guinness Cheese Soup, Salad, and Macaroni & Cheese. Advance tickets at The UCSD Box Office
Helm’s Brewing Co.
Green Beer all weekend long
Location: 5640 Kearny Mesa Road Unit C/N, San Diego, California 92111
Hillcrest Brewing Company
Saint Patrick’s Day
Date: March 17, 2013
Location: 1458 University Avenue, San Diego, CA
Overview: Get lucky with Mo’s Universe this St. Patrick’s Day! Join us at Hillcrest Brewing Company for $7 Crotch Rocket Irish Red Bottles adorned with a St. Patty’s Hat! Or ask for a Green Beer from your favorite beer-tender or server! Enjoy $3 Pizza by the Slices from 12:00 to 4:00 PM! And don’t forget “Hoppy Hour!” from 4:00 to 6:00 PM featuring $2 OFF beers, growlers, flights and wine!
Mike Hess Brewing
St. FACrick’s Day
Date: March 15, 2013
Hours: 2:00 to 8:00 PM
Location: 7955 Silverton Ave #1201, San Diego, California 92126
Overview: Get your green on and head to Hess Brewing Miramar for your annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration. Hess Brewing proudly announces the return of Fors Hiberneia, our Oatmeal Stout, along with a full tap list; Ranchwood BBQ providing brisket and Irish sausages, and So Cal Vibes providing the entertainment. Prize for best Leprechaun costume! As always, never a cover, kids and dogs welcome. Hess Brewing is a family friendly brewery!
La Jolla Brewhouse
St. Patrick’s Day
Date: March 17, 2013
Hours: Doors open at 11:00 AM
Location: 7536 Fay Avenue, La Jolla, CA 92037
Overview: Drink Specials All Day – $3 Green Beer, $4 Guinness, $5 Black and Tans and $3 Irish Whiskey. Irish Food Specials – Corned Beef and Cabbage, Irish Stew with Guinness, Corned Beef Sandwiches, and Bailey’s Cheese Cake. Irish Beads, lucky charms and green beer.
Mission Brewery
St. Patrick’s Day Celebration
Date: March 16, 2013
Hours: Starts at 1:00 PM
Location: 1441 L Street, San Diego, California 92101
Overview: Kick off your St. Patrick’s Day celebration at Mission! Craft brew and Irish catering from Devilicious! Sláinte!! Green Lager pints for $3
Monkey Paw Pub & Brewery
St. Patrick’s Dat with the Downs Family Irish Stout
Date: March 17, 2013
Time: Starts at 2:00 PM
Overview: Erin Go Brah! I think that’s what the Irish say for Good Luck! We’ll have our Downs Family Irish Stout, Reuben Cheesestakes and Fried oysters for everyone to indulge in! A cask of Mint Chocolate Downs Family Irish Stout hits the lines at 2:00 PM.
Mother Earth Brew Co.
St. Patty’s Green Beer Early Bird
Dates: March 16-17, 2013
Location: 206 Main Street, Vista, CA 92084
Overview: We will be opening our doors early on the weekend of St. Patty’s. Saturday, Main St will be hosting the St. Patrick’s Day parade and the Tap House will be pouring those green pints starting at 10:00 AM, so get those drinking pants on. Sunday we will open at 11:00 AM. Don’t get caught without your green!
Oceanside Ale Works
St. Patrick’s Day Party
Date: March 17, 2013
Location: 1800 Ord Way, Oceanside, California 92056
Overview: OAW is throwing the best St. Patrick’s Day Party in San Diego! Come on down and enjoy some free Corned Beef, Cabbage and Potatoes as well as our awesome offer of a T-Shirt, Glass & Fill for $20. So don’t get caught waiting in line or fighting the crowd at some “Irish” pub. Come out to OAW your neighborhood watering hole.
Prohibition Brewing Company
St. Patrick’s Day Weekend Celebration!
Dates: March 16-17, 2013
Hours: Saturday – 11:00 AM to 11:00 PM. Sunday – 11:00 Am to 10:00 PM.
Location: 2004 E. Vista Way, Vista, CA 92084
Overview: We will be celebrating both Saturday and Sunday because we want to have corned beef and cabbage for more than just one day! Don’t you? Come hang out have some fun and enjoy the holiday weekend with good food, good brews and good friends!
Oggi’s Mission Valley
St. Patrick’s Day Specials
Date: March 16-17, 2013
Location: 2245 Fenton Parkway #101, San Diego, California 92108
Overview: Join us for St. Patrick’s Weekend for Green Beer and Jameson’s Specials!
Poor House Brewing
Our Practice Days are Over
Date: March 17, 2013
Hours: 11:30 AM to Close
Location: 4494 30th Street, San Diego, CA 92116
Overview: You’ve been practicing all year and the time is finally here! $4 Green Beers. Special Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza.
Thorn Street Brewery
St. Patty’s Day – Green Beer n Motherland grinds…
Date: March 17, 2013
Hours: 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Location: 3176 Thorn St, San Diego, CA 92104
Overview: Come by for a festive day of Drinkin’ with your favorite Irish friends – ‘There is no day so dull or dismal that not an occasion for rejoicing. Eat, drink, laugh, and be Irish! Celebrate today!’ Not So Fast – serving up the food. Thorn St. Brewery – da beer.
> Check out West Coaster SD for a full list of San Diego Breweries
Bonus St. Patrick’s Weekend Beer Event
Epic Beer Festival – San Diego
Dates: March 15-16, 2013
Hours: Friday – 7:00 to 10:00 PM. Saturday – 1:00 to 4:00 PM and 7:00 to 10:00 PM
Cost: $40. Designated Driver – $15.
Location: San Diego Convention Center – 111 West Harbor Drive, San Diego, CA 92101
Overview: The Inaugural Epic Beer Festival – San Diego will feature 80+ craft breweries and over 200 beers to sample.
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EmailU.S. Marine in Zaranj, Nimroz province, December 30, 2011. (Photo: Cpl. Bryan Nygaard / U.S. Marine Corps) I do not want to appear disrespectful or ungrateful, but should we meet on the street one day, do say “Hello,” or “Fine day” or other such nicety, but please do not thank me for “my service” as a United States Marine. I make this request because my service, as you refer to it, was basically, either to train to become a killer or to actually kill people and blow shit up.
Now, that is not something for which a person should be proud nor thanked. In fact, it is regrettable, and for me a source of guilt and shame, something I will have to live with for the rest of my life, as the past cannot ever be undone. So, when you thank me for my service, it disturbs me … a lot. First off, it brings to mind my wasted youth and lost innocence, and the horrible and unnecessary deaths of good friends and comrades. Second, it reminds me of my responsibility and culpability for the pain and suffering I caused innocent people, again something I would rather forget, but cannot. Third, it reinforces my belief that you have absolutely no idea about the nature and reality of the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, because if you did, you would understand that thanks are inappropriate. Fourth, it reminds me that many of those who feel the need to offer thanks were apathetic about – or even supportive of – the war, while they refuse to participate themselves or did little or nothing to end it. And lastly, I have to admit that I doubt the sincerity of these expressions of supposed gratitude, as “Thank you for your service” is just something to say not because you care about what I did or sacrificed, but only to demonstrate your supposed good character, or patriotism and/or “support” for members of the military and veterans.
In making this request not to be thanked for my service, I am, of course, expressing only my opinion, and, perhaps, my idiosyncrasy, and I make no claim to be speaking for other veterans. I would wager, however, that many, perhaps even most, who have experienced the horror of war and have the courage and presence of mind to think about and evaluate what the war they served in was truly about would understand and probably concur with this request. Those veterans, however, who may not agree, who cling to the mythology of heroism, glory, honor and nobility of war, do so in large measure from fear that acknowledging war’s reality would somehow diminish their sacrifice and the sacrifices of those whose lives were lost. Perhaps understandably, they view such sacrifices and loss as difficult enough to live with when they had value and purpose, and as intolerable if they were misguided and unnecessary. To these |
public accommodations, including businesses such as Masterpiece Cakeshop, from refusing service based on factors such as race, sex, marital status or sexual orientation. Mullins and Craig filed complaints with the Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD) contending that Masterpiece had violated this law. Earlier this year, the CCRD ruled that Phillips illegally discriminated against Mullins and Craig. Today’s decision from Judge Robert N. Spencer of the Colorado Office of Administrative Courts affirms that finding. “While we all agree that religious freedom is important, no one’s religious beliefs make it acceptable to break the law by discriminating against prospective customers,” said Amanda C. Goad, staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project. “No one is asking Masterpiece’s owner to change his beliefs, but treating gay people differently because of who they are is discrimination plain and simple.”
The release also notes that the bakery owners have said they would provide a cake for the “marriage” of two dogs, but they’ve turned away other same-sex couples before this lawsuit. Think Progress has some excerpts from the opinion. And the opinion can be read in full here.
Oregon marriage equality campaign collects... Pennsylvania governor seeks appellate court...Image: Supplied
Census night is tomorrow. This year's Census will be the first one to retain name and address information from respondents. If you're still against filling out the lengthy and probing survey due to privacy concerns, you may be able to get away with leaving key information out without being slapped a hefty fine. Here's how.
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Census 2016 has been marred with controversy since it was revealed that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will be retaining the name and address of participants for up to four years. Privacy experts and critics have lambasted the move, forcing the Prime Minister to come out to reassure the public that personally identifiable data will be kept safe.
But the question is: How much do you trust the Government? For some, not much at all. Based on events in recent history, you don't have to be wearing tinfoil hats to mistrust the Government and there are a lot of people who are uncomfortable attaching their names to their Census responses. The ABS has also had a number of data breaches in the past.
Given the Census is compulsory for anybody that is in Australia on August 9, if you don't complete the survey, or if you provide false information, you could be fined.
But according to Western Australia Census director David Weymouth, if you complete the survey and don't provide your name, you won't be fined. ABC Drive Perth radio host Jane Marwick spoke to him late last week about this:
Marwic: "If everything is filled out correctly, except the name, will I be fined?" Weymouth: "I think the bottom line answer to that is no."
Yes, I know this was only the Western Australia Census director saying this, but why would the situation be any different in other states?
You might not be able to get away with this on the online version of Census (assuming you can’t progress on the digital form unless you fill in your name) but there's still time to get your hands on the paper version.
You can either:
A) Call up the Census hotline to request a paper form, or
B) Call up the Census hotline to find out where your nearest dedicated form pick-up location
If you're worried you won't get a Census paper form in time and that you'll cop a fine if you don't do it all by tomorrow night; don't panic. According to the ABS Census and Statistical Network Division general manager Chris Libreri, while it is preferred that the forms are all filled out by August 9, realistically, people have until September 23 to complete it.
He told News.com.au:
"No one has ever been fined for being late with their Census form, the fines are only if you eyes-open refuse to a Census collector."
Overall, completing the Census is a good thing considering the information that is collected will be used to provide the Government guidance for future policies and funding decisions. Just don't put your name on it.
Will you be completing the Census tomorrow night? Let us know in the comments.
More On Census 2016:Bishop Giovanni D'Ercole
As the death toll from the earthquake which struck central Italy early this morning continues to rise, Bishop Giovanni D'Ercole of Ascoli Piceno traveled the short 40 km to Pescara del Tronto to be with the hundreds of people affected by the disaster.
Speaking to Vatican Radio this morning, Bishop D'Ercole said the scene was very distressing.
"When I arrived at the break of day, I saw a destroyed village, screams, death... We are truly in a desperate situation and unfortunately this is not the only area affected, because others are also in this situation."
He said there were still many areas unreached by rescue personnel.
"There are several people who are not responding to telephone calls. I went to bless the bodies of two children buried under the rubble."
"A certain part of the diocese is suffering. I think, however..., that the area worst hit is the part near Rieti, that is, between Amatrice, Accumoli, Pescara del Tronto, Arquata, and near Force."
Pope Francis cancelled the catechism portion of his Wednesday General Audience and led pilgrims in praying the Rosary for the victims of the earthquake. See: www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=30774
Tags: Ascoli Piceno, Bishop Giovanni D'Ercole, earthquake, ItalyAfter fierce backlash from state party leaders, Massachusetts Democrats are moving to formally kill a provocative proposal for the state committee to declare opposition to Israeli settlements in the West Bank without specifically mentioning Palestinian violence.
A party subcommittee voted over the weekend to recommend that the full Democratic State Committee table the resolution at a meeting on April 29.
The resolution, which was offered by Carol Coakley of Millis, an 18-year member of the Democratic State Committee, would put the state party on record “that Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank are obstacles to peace.”
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It calls on the state’s 11-member congressional delegation — all Democrats — “to clearly express their opposition to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, in pursuit of a negotiated peace.”
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Top leaders, including former state and national party chairman Steve Grossman, said the resolution was starkly unbalanced and could lead to an exodus from the party.
And a powerful local Jewish group, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, said “by offering a one-dimensional response to a multidimensional problem, the resolution is a failed opportunity to offer constructive guidance on how to achieve peace.”
But after the news of the subcommittee’s vote was released Monday, the blowback is now coming from advocates who have tried to move the resolution forward for months and feel unfairly thwarted.
Cole Harrison, executive director of Massachusetts Peace Action and a Democratic activist, said he thinks it’s “unfortunate the committee would want to avoid a vote on this important question, especially after they’ve postponed it several times before.”
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Harrison said it shows the state committee is ducking its responsibilities and expressed hope it will reconsider and take a vote on the Coakley measure Saturday.
“Why bother with the Democratic Party if it’s not going to take up hard issues?” he asked acidly in an interview.
Others echoed his view.
“It makes us sad and frustrated that there are forces in the Democratic Party that want to kill this amendment,” said Richard Colbath-Hess, a leader of the Cambridge-based Palestine Advocacy Project. “This amendment is not a radical departure from what the last five presidents of the United States have supported — ending settlement construction.”
Coakley, for her part, had a shorter take: “Too bad.”
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Yet Coakley, who works part-time for Massachusetts Peace Action, expressed hope that her resolution might live to see another day.
Grossman, for his part, said he is pleased with the subcommittee’s move.
“I believe the subcommittee acted wisely because they saw the resolution as deeply divisive,” Grossman said Monday. “The Democratic Party and its activists need to be unified to fight the Trump agenda that threatens our progressive tradition.”
Also happy with the subcommittee’s move was James Segel, a former state representative and aide to Barney Frank, who had offered alternative language to the resolution he felt was more balanced.
“This is an issue that has eluded world leaders for 50 years, so for the Democratic State Committee to get involved in it takes a lot of hubris in the first place,” Segel said Monday. “But if they do, people should study it and have been there.”
He said for the state committee “to stay out of it is smart.”
The subcommittee recommended that the full state committee take actions on four resolutions, approving two and tabling two, including the Israel one.
The full state committee will take an up-or-down vote on that recommendation, but won’t be able to pull out individual resolutions — the one on Israel, for instance — for debate and a vote, according to state party chairman Gus Bickford.
He said he will encourage the committee to accept the subcommittee’s recommendation. If it does, Bickford said, in effect that means the Coakley resolution “will not be accepted and the state committee has said we’re not going to support it.”
In a brief interview, Bickford expressed eagerness for the party to engage on other issues, saying he “absolutely” thinks state Democrats should be focused on matters closer to home than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We’ve had interference in our past election by the Russians, we’ve got a president who lies every day, and we’ve got a governor who doesn’t seem to be standing up to a right-wing agenda,” he told the Globe.
The proposed resolution is primarily about Israeli settlements. But the debate about it comes as the so-called boycott, divestment, and sanctions, or BDS, movement against Israel has gained ground on college campuses and in certain parts of the Democratic Party.
Proponents of that movement say they hope BDS, inspired by the historical effort to pressure the South African government to end apartheid, will push Israel to obey international law and yield control of occupied territory.
Opponents say BDS is an effort to undermine Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state, and that it unfairly places responsibility solely on Israel for a complex conflict.
Joshua Miller can be reached at joshua.miller@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jm_bos and subscribe to his weekday e-mail update on politics at bostonglobe.com/politicalhappyhour.Add More Quick Actions
Double Tap Action
Per Fingerprint Action
Xposed Implementation (Done)
Code: 0.9.1: Update translations 0.9.0 (Beta): Add auto retry blacklist
Add force non-Xposed mode switch
Add licences dialog
Add matters need attention 0.8.0: Try to fix the abnormal power consumption in Xposed mode
Add quick action: Launch app or shortcut 0.7.6: Fix for the garbled of Spanish
Optimize the opening speed of the interface
Optimize the memory use of the service 0.7.4[17/11/2016]: Fix for Xposed mode does not work on many devices
Shorten timeout method: Some fix 0.7.3[15/11/2016]: Shorten timeout method: Fix for unable to restart scanning after screen on 0.7.2[15/11/2016]: Shorten timeout method: Fix for crash on Nougat 0.7.1[15/11/2016]: Fix for AccessibilityService state detection problem 0.7.0[15/11/2016]: Add new screen off method: Shorten time out (Does not cause the fingerprint to unlock does not work, do not need root access) 0.6.0/0.6.1[13/11/2016]: Add Xposed implementation 0.5.0[29/10/2016]: Add fast swipe event detection (The idea comes from [email protected] )
) Add more quick actions (Go back, Show recent apps, Show power menu, Toggle split screen, Expand quick settings) 0.4.0[21/10/2016]: Auto restart scanning after interface switching
Add action "Toggle Notifications Panel"
Increases the speed of simulating press on power button 0.3.1 [15/10/2016] : Run background service in another process (For less memory use)
Only request the Device Admin if necessary
Try to fix the problem which it can only take effect once on some devices 0.3.0 [14/10/2016] : Change app name to Fingerprint Quick Action
Users can select between 3 quick actions (Sleep, Home, Expend Notifications Panel)
Try to fix open SettingActivity after screen on 0.9.0 (Beta):0.8.0:0.7.6:0.7.4[17/11/2016]:0.7.3[15/11/2016]:0.7.2[15/11/2016]:0.7.1[15/11/2016]:0.7.0[15/11/2016]:0.6.0/0.6.1[13/11/2016]:0.5.0[29/10/2016]:0.4.0[21/10/2016]:0.3.1 [15/10/2016] :0.3.0 [14/10/2016] :
Perform quick actions via tap/swipe on fingerprint sensor.Demo video by @ Andromjb (App version 0.4.0) ( Original post [YOUTUBE]yV_9GD5e1BA[/YOUTUBE]At the beginning, I just want to develop a simple app to sleep my device via tap fingerprint sensor. But for more users to be convenient, I decide to add more features.Google Pixel has a feature that expand/collapse notification panel via swipe fingerprint sensor, However detect swipe on fingerprint sensor requires hardware support, so I thought of an alternative to clicking/swiping on the Fingerprint Sensor to toggle notification panel.Fingerprint Quick Action use Accessibility to detect interface switching and perform some quick actions, so you need to turn on the application's accessibility features so that it can work properly.Fingerprint Quick Action use DevicePolicyManager API to sleep your device by default, however, in many ROMs, it will result in Smart Lock and fingerprint to unlock doesn't work, by my test, it is only works properly on MIUI ROMs. So the app provide another way to sleep your device, that is simulating a power button press, this method requires Root Access.When other apps using the fingerprint sensor, Fingerprint to Unlock will be temporarily disabled until you switch to another interface.I can only provide English (may not be accurate) and Chinese, if you wish to correct the existing language errors or provide new language translations, commit to source code. If you are not familiar to github, you can also contact me via email to help me translate it.The donation has been suspended, the project will soon offer in-app purchases, the unfinished donation will be returned, please support me with in-app purchases. And the donators that completed donation will receive a redemption code.Identifying the direction of the slide and long press events requires hardware support that can not be done with the application alone.A murder investigation has been launched after a 52-year-old woman and her 21-year-old nephew were shot dead in north London on Thursday morning.
Paramedics from the London ambulance service called police to a road in East Finchley at 6.25am after responding to reports of two people with gunshot wounds.
An LAS spokesperson said: “We sent three ambulance crews, an advanced paramedic and an incident response officer to the scene. We also dispatched London’s air ambulance.”
Both victims were pronounced dead at the scene, Scotland Yard said. Police said there were no other injuries. Detectives from the Metropolitan police’s homicide and major crime command are investigating. There have been no arrests and police are appealing for witnesses.
On Thursday afternoon, several dozen grieving relatives, friends and members of the wider Congolese community gathered by a police cordon on Elmshurst Crescent, a quiet council estate, to pay their respects to the people killed, who were named locally as Anny Basala Ekofo, a mother of nine, and Bervil Ekofo.
Francine Ekofo said she understood that her brother had been asleep when he was shot. Her aunt was shot when she answered the door to the killers, she said, adding that it was a case of mistaken identity.
“Apparently one of the family members was looking for somewhere to stay for the next few nights, because he knew something was going to happen,” she said, adding that this person had then disappeared. “A couple of days after that, this happened.”
Francine Ekofo said her brother, a second-year psychology student at the University of West London, had never been in trouble, “not even in school”. Bervil Ekofo’s mother, Maymie Botanba, was also among the mourners by the cordon. “Where’s my son? Where’s my Bervil? Where’s my best friend,” she cried.
A family friend among the mourners, who preferred not to be named, said Bervil Ekofo had been visiting his aunt and cousins when he was killed. The rest of the family were at the police station on Thursday, answering questions, she said. It is unclear how many people were at the property at the time.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The scene in East Finchley, where family members and friends gathered throughout the afternoon. Photograph: Damien Gayle for the Guardian
“Bervil was not the target. Bervil just came to see them and unfortunately that’s what happened, but I really don’t know the rest,” she said. Many other family members were at home at the time, she said, most of whom had been taken to the police station, although others may have been in hospital. “Bervil’s dad, he’s in pieces, he can’t even talk,” she added.
Catherine Moffitt, 56, a neighbour, described what she saw just before 6.30am. “About 12 cars were down this morning, about two ambulances, police running down the road with their blue gloves on. Some people did hear gunshots, but I didn’t,” she said.
“I thought we were under siege, I really did. This has never happened down this road, it’s a lovely, little, quiet estate.”
Throughout the day, mourners sat or stood near the cordon, talking, crying and comforting one another. Another family friend, who gave his name as Dominic, said Anny Basala Ekofo would have been getting ready to go shopping at the market, as she did every Thursday.
Esperance Luhymber, 50, said Anny Basala Ekofo, who had seven sons and two daughters, came to live in Britain 26 years ago. “She was a very, very nice lady,” she said. “Calm, doesn’t talk too much.”
At 3pm, news spread among those assembled that the coroner had arrived to take away the bodies of the victims. They gathered at the edge of the cordon as the plain, black van pulled up to the entrance to the block.
Before officials could begin their work, Anny Basala Ekofo’s sister and Botanba rushed through the cordon to try to get closer to their loved ones, only to be intercepted by police.
“Basala, Basala, wake up,” cried her sister. More family members came forward to comfort them as officers formed a line to prevent the mourners from advancing any further.
The crowd stayed to watch as the bodies were taken from the block. Asked why they remained, Bridget Lita, 50, who grew up in the same village as Anny Basala Ekofo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said: “It’s our culture. To us, she’s our sister.”One feature of prototype railroads that isn't often modeled is Superelevation. A track is said to be superelevated when one rail is higher than the other through a curve. Raising one rail tilts the train as it passes over, banking it into the turn much like an airplane. This allows the train to transit the curve at higher speeds and greater comfort than possible without superelevation.
Prototype railroads compute the amount of superelevation for a given curve from the speed the will be used through the curve. One equation that provides the superelevation in inches from the speed in miles per hour is:
Height = 4 * Speed * Speed / RadiusInFeet
For a 4000' radius curve expected to maintain 60 mph traffic, this results in a superelevation of 3.6 inches. And it's not uncommon to see a superelevation of 3-4 inches on an American prototype track. The US Federal Railway Administration limits superelevation to 6 inches. Faster trains in Europe sometimes augment superelevation with an active suspension that further tilts each railroad car up to 7 degrees.
Now, a model layout has no real need for superelevation; there simply is not enough mass for it to have a noticeable dynamic effect. However, we can nicely model the prototype by keeping our superelevation consistent with the use of the track. A main line designed to support high-speed traffic could be superelevated by 4 scale inches as a matter of standard on the model. Branch lines could be superelevated only 2-3 scale inches, depending on their usage. Yard and industrial track is generally not superelevated.
4 inches is about 0.045 inches in height on an HO scale layout and 0.025 on an N scale layout. One convenient way to introduce superelevation in your layout is to cut small plastic spacers of the proper thickness and place them under the ties on the outside of curves. Sheet styrene is available in.005,.010,.020,.040 and other thickness values. Use one or more pieces of styrene to achieve the desired superelevation.
Superelevation and Easements
Just as we would not feel comfortable if we were in a car and suddenly jerked into a tight circle, we would not want to have superelevation suddenly lift one side of the train. The prototype introduces the superelevation evenly along the easement for the curve. The two work hand-in-hand to gradually tilt the car as it gradually eases into a tighter turn.
Since an easement changes the radius linearly along its length, it is correct to introduce the superelevation linearly also. The effect is one of an increasing radius and an increasing height changing together. It feels right to the passengers, and properly balances the extreme forces found on the prototype.
After you locate an easement on your layout, mark its ends so you'll know where the are when it comes time to lay track. Then, as you lay the track around the curve, gradually increase the height of the outside rail through the easement by adding pieces of styrene under the ties. Space the styrene pads regularly and increase their thickness an equal amount each pad until you reach the maximum superelevation at the end of the easement. When you apply ballast, the pads will disappear and the superelevated track will look just like the realroads.
Try superelevation on your layout. The trains look great as they tilt into the curves. It's satisfying to watch, and satisfying to know you've modeled yet another aspect of railroading properly.ANN ARBOR—Female mice exposed to Bisphenol A through their mother’s diet during gestation and lactation were found to be hyperactive, exhibit spontaneous activity and had leaner body mass than those not exposed to the chemical, researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health have discovered.
BPA is a chemical most commonly found in the lining of food cans and cash register receipts. It once was in many hard plastic bottles, including baby bottles, but many companies have removed it as concerns about exposure have come to light in recent years.
These latest findings from U-M researchers seem to contradict previous studies on BPA that found the chemical to be a factor in obesity. But Dana Dolinoy, the John G. Searle Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and senior/corresponding author of the study, says research shows that many factors impact how the body reacts to the chemical.
“Our hypothesis going into this study was that BPA would act as an obesogenic agent. And there is some preliminary evidence that it does,” Dolinoy said. “But there are differences in exposure, duration and when you actually measure the individual.
“Recent evidence in humans only looks at one time point. What we’re really interested in is BPA exposure during early development, and how that affects health throughout life. So those are two very different questions.”
The researchers exposed mothers to three different levels of BPA in the diet then followed the offspring through adulthood at three, six and nine months of age. The average lifespan of a mouse is two years, so by three months they are young adults.
“We looked at several different metabolic phenotypes, including spontaneous activity, food intake, energy expenditure and body composition. I think the most striking result we saw was the increased activity in these animals,” said Olivia Anderson, doctoral student in environmental health sciences and lead author on the paper published online in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.
“There are several things we need to look at in evaluating studies investigating BPA as an obesogen, such as composition of the diet. Not all these diets are similar throughout these studies. Some may have high-fat diets. Some may have diets with different protein levels. Then there is the difference in exposure timing and doses of exposure of BPA. It’s important to dig a little deeper and actually look at the mechanism that BPA is acting upon.”
As to why only females exhibited the excessive activity and lean bodies, Dolinoy says it bears more study, but because BPA is known to impact estrogen and thyroid hormone, most likely it is affecting these natural hormones in the females.
Dolinoy’s lab is dedicated to the study of environmental epigenetics and nutrition—learning about how exposure to chemical, nutritional and behavioral factors alters gene expression and impacts health and disease.
In December, she and colleagues released a study that found BPA in human fetal liver tissue, demonstrating that there is considerable exposure to the chemical during pregnancy. That research also found that the BPA in fetuses was in a form not eliminated from the body, unlike previous studies that showed adult humans metabolize and rid their bodies of the chemical.
Her work is supported by the U-M Formative Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Center (UM-CEHC) and the U-M Michigan Nutrition and Obesity Research Center (MNORC). MNORC receives funding from the National Institutes of Health, and UM-CEHC from the NIH and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“The work that Olivia Anderson carried out in Dr. Dolinoy’s lab is really at the heart of some of the most pressing questions we’re trying to solve right now, and their work was a great fit for both centers because it asks and answers questions that are right at the intersection of how toxicants effect health, particularly related to obesity,” said Karen Peterson, professor of environmental health sciences at the U-M School of Public Health, director of the CEHC and associate director of MNORC.
Dolinoy also was awarded a five-year National Institutes of Health Outstanding New Environmental Scientist Award in 2009 for the epigenetics research and the American Society of Nutrition’s Norman Kretchmer Memorial Award in Nutrition and Development in 2011.
Related Links:****UPDATE - John Lott confirms the call-up. Everyone get ready for the heat.
Rumours are flying about today that Henderson Alvarez has been called up to the Blue Jays. Lider en Deportes is a newspaper in Venezuela and is reporting that Alvarez is being called up to start at home against the Angels on Friday.
We have heard rumblings that this may have been coming for a bit, and I would like to see a source a little closer to the Jays report the call up but there does seem to be a Justin Jackson tweet about the call up as well so maybe this is actually legit? UPDATE: Dave Gershman says he is waiting for the press release but it looks like it is going to happen.
I know Alvarez has been lighting up the radar gun this year in the minors, but I am honestly unsure of the massive rush all of a sudden to get this guy to the big leagues. Keith Law in his recent chat indicated that while he liked Alvarez as a prospect but that he isn't missing a lot of bats at the moment. To me it seems like when the reports came out that this guy hit 100 on the gun that all of sudden everyone wanted him to move up. While I am excited as the next guy to see another prospect I have to wonder if this the right step in his development (Then again who the heck am I to judge).
Alvarez has spent most of the year in AA New Hampshire and has put up good numbers with an 8-4 record 2.86 ERA in 15 games (14 starts) 88 innings total. 66/17 K/BB with a.245 opposing batting average.
So what do you think? Excited to see Alvarez?It is humbling to see protesters in Kiev's Independence Square prepared to lay down their lives for freedoms we take for granted. At its simplest, the Ukraine tragedy is a fight for democratic rights at the frontier of autocracy. It is like Beijing's Tiananmen massacre or Caracas's Altamira Square. In the sound of their gunfire, there is the echo of so many through history who fought against oppression: "Freedom or death!"
But Ukraine is also different because it is suffering the rival magnetic pulls of Russia and the European Union. For Russia, the dynastic suzerain of much of Ukraine since 1686, Ukrainian independence is seen as a historic humiliation. Some 17% of the population – thanks to Stalin's gift of the Crimea – are Russian speakers who look to Moscow.
For most Ukrainians, though, the deal with the EU, so peremptorily ditched by President Yanukovych for $15bn of Russian aid, is symbolic of national independence and democratic freedom. From the Orange revolution to today's protests, Ukrainian nationalism sees the EU as its defence.
This is the EU's soft power at work, as it has been in every other central and eastern European state in transition from communism. From Poland through the Baltic states and now to Croatia, EU membership has been the rite of passage that certifies the dark days are over.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was the defining political event of a generation. Twenty eight members of the EU – and rising – says this is a club people still want to join. Even the euro-area, despite its well-advertised problems, continues to attract new members: now up to 18 with last year's Latvian accession.
In any other part of the world, some countries as poor as those in central and eastern Europe would have succumbed to Putinism or worse. At best, they might have the appearance of democracy but not its reality of peaceful change of government. But EU membership has thrown a blanket of democratic stability, personal rights and the rule of law over what had been a region notorious for their absence.
Historically, Europe was as prone to the military "men on horseback" as Latin America or Asia. Whether Marshal Pilsudski in Poland or Admiral Horthy in Hungary, there was scant democratic tradition. Poland was poorer than Argentina or Mexico when it signed its Europe agreement in 1994, but is now richer than either and is a vibrant democracy and a leading member of the European family.
That is testament to the example and power of the EU. In an earlier EU enlargement, the same effect was seen in Spain, Portugal and Greece, all dictatorships within living memory. In the aftermath of Franco's death, Spanish generals were invited to Brussels for lessons from their Nato colleagues in how they had to take instruction from elected politicians.
Of course, this marvel did not always work. The former Yugoslavia is a warning of what can happen with excessive EU caution, disunity and lack of generosity. The old ethnic tensions were aggravated by the early recognition by Germany of Slovenia and Croatia as successor states. But when the EU tries, it has proved to be a remarkable douser of old-time nationalist populism.
Vladimir Meciar, the Slovak prime minister who forced the secession of his state from Czechoslovakia, had to put up with a barrage of EU criticism about his attempts to remove the civil rights of the 450,000 Hungarian-speaking population. Slovakia's EU membership would have been blocked had he won the 2002 election, and it is hard to imagine an elected Hungarian government withstanding the pressure to intervene to protect the Hungarian minority in its neighbour. We could have had another Bosnia.
On a continent where the patchwork of language, ethnic and religious groups defied the best attempts to draw rational boundaries in 1919, a fact too easily forgotten by the sea-defined English, the guarantees of both the EU and the European convention on human rights are the only modern and democratic means of drawing the bile from populist resentments. What was once achieved only by Habsburg or Ottoman repression is now achieved by EU-led consent.
The EU is essential for member states who want to project their influence on a global stage, whether in trade talks or climate change. It has its unfinished business, not least internally now with the euro. But it has also proved a miraculous pacifier of a continent traditionally riven by conflict: not just between Germany and France, but across so many smaller linguistic, ethnic and religious divisions.
England and then Britain was involved in every major continental conflict from Tudor times, defending our trading interests and attempting to avoid continental domination by a single power that could close our markets. Generation after generation, we spent blood and treasure. The EU offers the first convincing evidence that the cycle of death and loss has ended.
When we cast our votes in May's European elections, and when we attempt to put a price on every cost and benefit of the EU like the nation of shopkeepers Napoleon once derisively called us, spare a small thought for the EU's advantages that are priceless. The protesters of Kiev are proving that they still matter.
• Chris Huhne responds to readers' comments in the discussion thread belowNeymar is staying put at Barcelona. This was confirmed by Wagner Ribeiro on Brazil's 'GloboEsporte' in response to speculation in England of a potential move to Manchester United.
"There's no truth in it. He has three more years left on his contract. The English press love spreading rumours. Barcelona have never thought of selling Neymar and he is very happy there", said the agent of the Brazilian star, absent in recent weeks after having contracted mumps.
British newspaper 'The Sun' claimed in its Saturday edition that "secret conversations" had taken place and that Neymar could be the sale of the summer after Manchester United's failed attempts to sign Thomas Müller and Gareth Bale.
After recovering from his illness, the Brazilian trained on Saturday in Luis Enrique's training session. Everything indicates that he will be in perfect condition for the match against Atlético after the international break.Photo credit: hctraktor.org
When will Evgeny Kuznetsov sign on the dotted line and bring his hockey skills to Washington? Over the last three years we have been treated to many versions of Kuzya’s answer to this question, sometimes just a few hours apart. Lately, everybody– including Zhenya himself– seems to have settled on the consensus opinion: the upcoming season will Kuznetsov’s last in Chelyabinsk. The only remaining question was whether Kuznetsov would join the Caps organization in the spring of 2014 after Traktor’s season ends or if fans in Washington would have to wait until next fall for him to put on a red sweater.
Not so fast.
As Team Russia concluded their tour of Olympic facilities in Sochi, the players did their best to give non-controversial answers to rather bland questions from the media. And then Kuzya re-opened the Should I Stay Or Should I Go? debate during an interview with the TEAM RUSSIA-2014 portal.
For this season you are a Traktor player, right? My contract with Traktor is valid for another year, and then my dream is to make it to the NHL. Try myself there. I think it would be wrong for me to stay in Russia after the 2013-14 season. I will think about what to do next. Maybe there will be offers from other teams. Now Traktor started negotiations about a new contract. It is already being discussed. If I were to stay in Russia, it would be for five years or so on a new contract. What position is Washington taking regarding you? They have been trying for two years to convince me to come. Every year I tell them [I’ll come] tomorrow. Next time I probably will not say that. I really want to go play in the NHL. During the Worlds there was information regarding your transfer to Dynamo Moscow. Nobody from Dynamo approached me. No one talked to me about this. But nobody asked Nichushkin either. Maybe there were some conversations about me, because the information did come from somewhere. Had I received such offer, I would definitely give it a thought. I am a civilized person, I can talk. I would talk with the family and the team. And such transfer could happen, why not? Traktor could have been very happy to sell me in order to make money. Life is unpredictable, you always have to make choices.
So basically, Kuznetsov thinks it would be wrong to stay in Russia– unless of course it’s on a new long-term deal! And the next time the Caps reach out to him, he promises not to tell them to call back later. Maybe.
As Kuzya observes, life is unpredictable. But if there is anything we can predict with certainty, it is that this saga won’t end until Kuznetsov and the Capitals have an entry-level contract signed. Or even better, maybe someone will give the youngster some good advice and tell him that his words actually mean things.
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PinterestDesign submitted by Peter from the UK.
Peter says: I was trying to think of a very simple and intuitive way of showing the time with essential a digital “one handed analogue” type of time telling format. The easiest way it seemed to do this is to have a |
- and 30-card mini-expansions (such as Munchkin Clowns and Munchkin Cheats) would not be reprinted, but we've now made that a hard policy for all of them, with very rare exceptions, if any. We've also realized that we put too much energy over the last several years into Munchkin game accessories, so we'll be backing away from those in favor of games and expansions. We won't stop doing them entirely, but we will be a lot more choosy about them moving forward, and you'll see most of them designed for general Munchkin games instead of specific genres.
Looking at the games themselves, we're going to stress our top sellers and let the rest go out of print. Without giving a complete list, I can say that of the lines published before 2010, we're planning to keep Munchkin, Star Munchkin, and Munchkin Cthulhu available, possibly one or two others. We're also going to be less afraid of games that will be printed once and once only: Munchkin Shakespeare is a recent example. With the exception of Munchkin and Munchkin Deluxe, however, even the titles that are staying in our catalog may have a delay of a few months between printings if that's what works for our schedule.
As for the tuckbox expansions, we plan to keep the numbered expansions for the original Munchkin game (such as Munchkin 6.5 – Terrible Tombs and Munchkin 9 – Jurassic Snark) in print, and that's as far as I'm able to commit right now. While sales of many of the core games have declined, the sales of their expansions, including fairly recent ones such as Munchkin Apocalypse 2 – Sheep Impact and Star Munchkin 3 – Diplomatic Impunity) has plummeted – even at our minimum order from our printer, we'd be getting a multi-year supply of almost all of them, and right now that's just not a good investment for us. We don't plan to stop making new expansions for new core games, but it's very likely that those will be "one and done." The larger-format expansions, such as Game Changers and Holiday Surprise, are almost certainly going away for good – in fact, we expect those two titles to sell out at our Atlanta warehouse well before the end of the year. If you've been holding off getting them, don't.
This may sound dire, but it really isn't. It's a deliberate shift in policy toward a more flexible catalog, without the constraint of keeping all of our Munchkin games and expansions on shelves all the time. Just like partnering with great companies such as USAopoly, IDW Games, and SlugFest Games, it's part of our plan to keep offering our fans new Munchkin games for the foreseeable future.
-- Andrew Hackard
A Trio Of Third-Party Announcements
I wanted to take a break from Munchkin Starfinder previews to talk about three other companies who announced Munchkin games this month. It's going to be a good year!
We've pointed at Munchkin: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from IDW Games in this space already, but I wanted to congratulate them on a very successful Kickstarter. They ended up with 3,353 backers and a total pledge of $146,647, which is fantastic for a project with no stretch goals and exactly one add-on. Alain and I have been looking over the files as they've come in and we could not be more delighted. I can't wait for y'all to see the results in a few months.
from IDW Games in this space already, but I wanted to congratulate them on a very successful Kickstarter. They ended up with 3,353 backers and a total pledge of $146,647, which is fantastic for a project with no stretch goals and exactly one add-on. Alain and I have been looking over the files as they've come in and we could not be more delighted. I can't wait for y'all to see the results in a few months. Last week, USAopoly announced Munchkin Harry Potter, their first Deluxe-style game. We've been working closely with them on this one and it's going to be a real treat for everyone in the Potterverse. (And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that it blends very well with Munchkin Spell Skool...) That article talks about some other Harry Potter-themed games USAopoly will be coming out with, so definitely go read it!
, their first Deluxe-style game. We've been working closely with them on this one and it's going to be a real treat for everyone in the Potterverse. (And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that it blends well with...) That article talks about some other Harry Potter-themed games USAopoly will be coming out with, so definitely go read it! On Friday, SlugFest Games launched their Kickstarter for The Red Dragon Inn: Munchkin, bringing Spyke and Flower into the tavern for their special brand of hijinks in a two-player expansion that is also a playable game. Better yet, for an extra $10, you can also get Munchkin: The Red Dragon Inn, a 29-card Munchkin expansion that brings your favorite foes and loot (and, let's be honest, DRINKS) from The Red Dragon Inn into Munchkin itself. It even comes with a special promo Prize card for The Red Dragon Inn games. The Kickstarter ends on April 7, so don't forget to pledge, or you'll have to wait for the games to hit shelves this fall.
We're very excited to be working with three great companies this year and bringing you some games we're proud of. We certainly haven't forgotten our own Munchkin projects, including three that we just sent to print late last week. I can't talk about them yet, but as soon as I can, I'll definitely mention them here! And there are still more surprises on the horizon...
-- Andrew Hackard
Munchkin Starfinder Preview: Solarian
The Solarian is one of the most intriguing new classes in the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Solarians have captured little motes of light that let them control energy or even gravity. For Munchkin Starfinder, we emulated this with an ability that sometimes gives you a combat bonus and sometimes makes it easier to Run Away. The Solarian's second ability lets you refresh your hand if you really need to get some new cards. (As before, click the thumbnail to see a bigger version of this card.)
We've reached the halfway point in our series of Munchkin Starfinder previews. Keep checking Munchkin News every Monday morning for more previews and other news from the world of Munchkin!
-- Andrew Hackard
Munchkin Starfinder Preview: Shirren
In the world of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, the Swarm are a fearsome alien force that nearly destroyed all the other races. However, one group, the Shirren, defected and helped change the tide of the conflict.
In Munchkin Starfinder, we've adopted the Swarm as a group of nasty monsters who can gang up on the poor munchkins. Luckily, the Shirren know how they work and get bonuses to fight them. And because of their hive-mind heritage, Shirren also get away from losing fights more easily. Click the picture to see a bigger bug!
Catch up on all the Munchkin Starfinder previews in the Munchkin News archive, and check back next Monday to see what's new for Munchkin!
-- Andrew Hackard
The Good, The Bad, And The Munchkin Rides Into The Sunset
With the exception of a few stray copies at a warehouse here and there, and whatever stock is currently on store shelves, The Good, the Bad, and the Munchkin has gone out of print. We do not currently have plans for another printing, so if you don't have a copy and you see one somewhere, grab it.
We're still relatively stocked up on Beating a Dead Horse, but that could change at any time, so... maybe don't sleep on that one, either.
-- Andrew Hackard
Munchkin Starfinder Preview: Kasatha
This week, we're looking at one of the most intriguing new races from the Starfinder Roleplaying Game: the Kasatha. With a limited precognitive ability and four arms, Kasatha make a really fun Race in Munchkin Starfinder... and one of my favorite ability name pairs in the entire Munchkin line. Click the picture to expand the card.
We'll be back with more Munchkin Starfinder previews soon!
-- Andrew Hackard
Munchkin Starfinder Preview: Envoy
Next in our series of Munchkin Starfinder previews is one of my favorite new Classes, the Envoy. Half diplomat, half troubleshooter, the Envoys of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game are the people you turn to when you need to broker a deal and you can't go through normal channels. The Munchkin Starfinder version is unpredictable and elusive: she can use discarded one-shots and can get herself out of trouble if that still isn't enough to win the fight. (Click the picture to see a larger version.)
We'll be posting more Starfinder previews in Munchkin News, so check back here every Monday for all the latest from the world of Munchkin!
-- Andrew Hackard
Munchkin Starfinder Preview: Vesk
In the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, the Vesk are a race of fearsome reptilian warriors reknowned for their toughness and belligerent attitude. Sounds perfect for Munchkin!
The Munchkin Starfinder Vesk is a master of armor and gets a bonus for choosing not to Run Away from a losing battle. (Click the picture to make the card bigger.)
Keep watching for more previews of Munchkin Starfinder Classes and Races!
-- Andrew Hackard
Today Is The Day!
The Munchkin Collectible Card Game is scheduled to start shipping from our primary warehouse to our distributors today. Stores should start seeing them in a couple of weeks.
We are SO excited to finally have this game heading out to you guys who made it possible. Remember to go to munchkinccg.game for news, strategy articles, and loads of other information. We're still loading things up on the site in preparation for the launch, so check back frequently!
When you want to discuss the game with other fans, check out Zapped & Squished, the unofficial fan page on Facebook, or the official Munchkin Collectible Card Game section on our forums.
-- Andrew Hackard
Munchkin Starfinder Preview: Operative
Over the next few months, we're going to be showing you previews of the new Classes and Races from Munchkin Starfinder, leading up to when we send it to our Kickstarter backers in May. Our first preview is our take on a fun new class in the Starfinder Roleplaying Game: the Operative! In Munchkin Starfinder, the Operative can use his intelligence-gathering prowess to select a card from the discards rather than an unknown face-down card... and he even has a chance to make cards played against him work for him instead! Truly, the Operative can be a devious enemy. (Click the picture to see it larger.)
Keep watching Munchkin News for more Munchkin Starfinder previews and for lots of other great news coming up in the months to come.
-- Andrew Hackard
Reminder: Munchkin Collectible Card Game Store Events This Weekend!
As we announced a couple of weeks ago, we're sending the team out to stores across North America to give you loyal fans an early look at the Munchkin Collectible Card Game before it goes on sale in about a month. Many of these events are already filling up, so call or swing by your Friendly Local Game Store to reserve a seat... or just come by and watch!
And while you're there, be sure to preorder some starters and boosters – as Phil said, we're probably not going to have enough booster packs in the initial shipment to cover demand. And we were afraid we had OVERprinted! We already have two reprints in process, so the shortage shouldn't be too severe or long-lasting, but we'd hate for any loyal fans to get deprived. Preorder! Preorder!
-- Andrew Hackard
A Hodgepodge Of News
See you next week, by which time I should be over this horrible cold.
-- Andrew Hackard
Munchkin Starfinder Preorders Are About To Close!
This is the last week for those of you who missed the Munchkin Starfinder Kickstarter to hop on BackerKit and preorder the game or supersize to the I Want It All! complete collection. We'll be closing preorders at the end of this week, and we're printing a lot of the components in limited quantities, so this is your best chance at getting all the Munchkin Starfinder stuff you want at reasonable prices.
-- Andrew Hackard
Happy New Year!
It's 2018 and we are super excited to show you everything that's coming!
But not today, because we're all at home sleeping off our New Year's Eve indulgences. (For example, I spent all weekend playing board games and card games and roleplaying games with great friends. I'm tired.)
Keep watching Munchkin News and the Daily Illuminator for announcements about Munchkin and the upcoming Munchkin Collectible Card Game. (It's really happening! next month! I'm not panicking, I'm NOT PANICKING...)
-- Andrew Hackard
Merry Munchkin Christmas!
Those of you who celebrate Christmas are probably spending today with loved ones, in peace and harmony.
Once that's all done, why not bust out a game of Munchkin Christmas Lite and enjoy some old-fashioned monster-thwacking and friendly backstabbing? Remember, once Santa leaves gifts under the tree, no backsies!
However you celebrate, you have our fond wishes for a happy holiday season and our thanks for your part in Munchkin's continued success. We'll see everyone in a week to kick off 2018.
-- Andrew Hackard
Last Week For Warehouse 23 Orders!
This is the last week that we're open in 2017, so make sure to head to Warehouse 23 right now for your last-minute Munchkin needs. Once the doors close at the end of this week, we won't be shipping out anything else until January! To be totally safe, make sure to get all your orders in by Wednesday night.
Thursday is our annual end-of-year game day. Check out our Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to find out what everyone's playing!
-- Andrew Hackard
Munchkin Starfinder Blasts Off!
We've sent our printer everything for the Munchkin Starfinder project, funded on Kickstarter by almost 1,300 of you loyal Munchkin fans. Our editorial and production teams worked very hard over the last couple of months to put everything together and I know you'll be pleased with the results. Special thanks to the team over at Paizo Inc. for being great to work with, as always, and double-special thanks to Howard Tayler for killing his drawing arm getting all the art done.
If everything goes well, we expect to start shipping games to Kickstarter backers in May. If you want to be in that early group, it's not too late to preorder the game and some swag – or just grab the I Want It All! box and you'll get everything, including the special Space Goblins expansion that is only in that package!
Munchkin Starfinder won't be in stores until later in 2018, and some of the extras will be in very limited supply, so preordering is really the best way to make sure your Munchkin Starfinder collection is complete. Don't wait too long; we're closing preorders very soon.
-- Andrew Hackard
Collectible Card Game Preorder Special
There has been a lot of buzz about the upcoming Munchkin Collectible Card Game. We're happy to offer something to everyone who is afraid they'll forget to order the game when it launches in February, for people who want to let their loved ones know what is coming, or for people who just like placing one order and getting a whole lot of cards. The Munchkin Collectible Card Game Preorder Special on Warehouse 23 includes one copy of each starter and 12 randomized boosters, and as soon as you finalize your order, we'll drop a greeting card in the mail for you or some other lucky recipient. One click and you get almost 400 cards... you can't beat that!
This preorder special is only available for a limited time, and once the greeting cards run out, they're gone for good, so don't wait until you hear reindeer... order now!
(In case you didn't know, Warehouse 23 has lots of other great Munchkin swag, too, like promo cards and bookmarks. Browse the aisles of our virtual warehouse!)
-- Andrew Hackard
Everyone here had a relaxing Thanksgiving break and we're back in the office, working hard to send all the pieces of Munchkin Starfinder to print.
We have some other things in the works, including a major announcement later this week, so keep your eye on our Twitter and Facebook pages for up-to-the-minute information about Munchkin and Steve Jackson Games.
-- Andrew Hackard
PAX Unplugged Wrap-Up
Depending on when you read this, the PAX team may not be home yet; they're flying back on Monday, tired and happy.
(And yes, those pronouns mean that I did not end up going to PAX Unplugged this year. I got a horrible cold the weekend before the show and missed Monday and Tuesday, and I have enough work piled up that I really couldn't justify being out of the office two MORE days. If I'm being totally honest, I wasn't feeling well enough to travel anyway. All of you who would have been sharing my germs, you're welcome.)
From what our team tells me, it was a great show, especially for the first time; we're looking forward to returning next year (and hopefully NOT having to split our staff between PAX and BGGcon). Many games were played and we got to chat with a lot of folks without having to compete with LOUD VIDEO GAME BOOTHS.
It's going to be a short week for us, since Thanksgiving is this Thursday and the office will be closed for the holiday from Wednesday afternoon until next Monday. And then we hit the home stretch, with lots of things that have to go to print before the end of December. Keep your eyes on Munchkin News and the Daily Illuminator for all the updates.
-- Andrew Hackard
PAX Acoustic!
... I am told the real title is PAX Unplugged. I apologize for the error.
SJ Games will be there all weekend, showing off a wide range of games, including several unreleased games. Eager to try out the Munchkin Collectible Card Game? We have several events over the weekend; check in at Tabletop HQ to reserve a slot and let Randy show you how to play. Have tough hands? We'll be showing off Super Kitty Bug Slap! (It's not Munchkin, but it's cute and super fun!) We'll be getting cultured with Munchkin Shakespeare demos. And I just may have a text-only prototype of Munchkin Starfinder for a few lucky fans to try out...
We're pleased to partner once again with the team from The Compleat Strategist. They sell the games so we can focus on telling you about them.
Hope to see lots of y'all in just a few days!
-- Andrew Hackard
Munchkin Starfinder Kickstarter Wrapup
Thank you to all the 1,299 backers who pledged a total of $84,326 on Kickstarter to help bring Munchkin Starfinder to store shelves in 2018. We've been very happy to work with our friends at Paizo again on this project and we know they are as excited as we are about what's coming.
In case you missed it, here's what the "I Want It All" backers will be receiving:
A sturdy box (with a rule!) that doubles as a shipping carton for everything below
Munchkin Starfinder, a 168-card standalone game bringing the Starfinder Roleplaying Game into the Munchkin fold (with Star Munchkin card backs and a new design for the faces)
, a 168-card standalone game bringing the into the fold (with card backs and a new design for the faces) Munchkin Starfinder 2 – Far Out, a 56-card expansion
, a 56-card expansion Munchkin Starfinder Hero Pack, a 15-card expansion with one extra copy of each new Class and Race, plus an extra Super Munchkin and Half-Breed
, a 15-card expansion with one extra copy of each new Class and Race, plus an extra and Munchkin Starfinder Space Goblins [title not final], a 15-card expansion focusing on everyone's favorite diminutive space explorers, exclusively in the I Want It All box
[title not final], a 15-card expansion focusing on everyone's favorite diminutive space explorers, in the box Munchkin Starfinder The Swarm [title not final], a 15-card expansion giving you more implacable alien foes to fight
[title not final], a 15-card expansion giving you more implacable alien foes to fight Munchkin Starfinder Drift Dice, a pack of six dice and four new cards that use them
, a pack of six dice and four new cards that use them Munchkin Starfinder Credsticks, a pack of six metal coins and four new cards that use them
, a pack of six metal coins and four new cards that use them Munchkin Starfinder Star Field, a level-tracking board and four new cards
, a level-tracking board and four new cards Munchkin Starfinder Kill-O-Meter, a combat tracker and four new cards
, a combat tracker and four new cards Munchkin Starfinder blank card pack (five Doors and five Treasures)
blank card pack (five Doors and five Treasures) A Munchkin Starfinder poster, two new Munchkin Starfinder bookmarks, a digital Skittermander mask, and a digital Christmas card
poster, two new bookmarks, a digital Skittermander mask, and a digital Christmas card And two more Munchkin Starfinder cards only in the I Want It All box!
We'll be opening up BackerKit in a couple of weeks for backers to finalize their orders and for anyone to preorder the game or add more swag to their pledges. You can even order one of the special I Want It All boxes and get everything listed above. Watch the Daily Illuminator or the Munchkin Starfinder Kickstarter itself to find out when the BackerKit is ready. If you miss this window, you'll have to wait until later in 2018 to buy the game.
On behalf of everyone at SJ Games, Paizo, Munchkin Starfinder artist Howard Tayler, and my friendly local coffee shop, let me thank you all again for the support you've shown. I know you won't be disappointed!
-- Andrew Hackard
Unrivaled Wrapup
Sorry for the delayed post, everyone -- Vegas doesn't live on the same spacetime continuum as the rest of the planet.
The Unrivaled tournament "Grand Finale" was held this past weekend in Las Vegas. Almost 700 gamers competed in six games to win a $10,000 grand prize, and Munchkin was one of those six games. I'm pleased to report that the winner was Matt Fagan, from my own home town of Austin. Not only does Matt walk away with $10,000, his home store of Dragon's Lair also gets a $10,000 check.
The other three Munchkin finalists were:
Fourth place: Matthew Link ($1,250)
Third place: Charlie Bussey ($2,500)
Second place: Brad Anderson ($5,000)
Congratulations to all these winners and to everyone who participated in the tournament!
-- Andrew Hackard
Three Big Events This Week
We've got three big events coming up this week that may be of interest to Munchkin fans! (And that doesn't even include Essen Spiele: Phil and Shelli are in Germany right now meeting with dozens of people who want to work with us – or keep working with us – and by all reports they're having a good and productive time.)
Munchkin Starfinder
The first big event is coming later today (October 23) as I write this: we are launching a Kickstarter for Munchkin Starfinder! It has lots of add-ons and cool stuff you can get... or you can back at the $60 or $80 pledge levels and be assured of getting all the cool stuff we unlock during the campaign, without having to think about it again.
Munchkin Starfinder is our take on the Starfinder Roleplaying Game from Paizo Inc. We figured that Munchkin Pathfinder has been such a hit, we should try again, and writing this one was just as much fun as I'd hoped. We can't wait for you to see all the shenanigans the poor little Skittermander gets up to...
Halloween Game Day
This Thursday is our annual Halloween game day, where we all sit around and play games and eat delicious food, and some of us also dress up in amusing and/or impressive costumes! (I will be wearing my usual "Guy Who Forgot It Was a Costume Party" outfit. It's a perennial favorite, according to 1 out of 1 Czars I recently polled.) I've got a bunch of new games I'm itching to try out!
Unrivaled Finals
Later this week, I'll be flying out to Las Vegas to help with the final rounds of the Unrivaled Munchkin tournament, including crowning a champion who will win thousands of dollars! (I asked and they said I couldn't play in the tournament. Sigh.) The Unrivaled tournament series has been a whole lot of fun – I got to see them when they brought a regional tournament to Austin, and they even put me on a mic for a few minutes! – and getting to work with them again in Vegas is going to be awesome.
If you're going to be in the tournament, or just going to Vegas for your own reasons, I hope to see you there! (FAQ, answered: I am not bringing any promo swag with me. Please, no muggings.)
-- Andrew Hackard
Check Out The New Munchkin Collectible Card Game Page!
Last week, the new web page for the Munchkin Collectible Card Game went live. Check it out by following that link or typing munchkinccg.game into your browser of choice.
Be sure to bookmark the page and check back frequently so you don't miss any updates!
-- Andrew Hackard
You Need This, And I Ain't Kitten Around
Munchkin Kittens is back in Warehouse 23! This 30-card expansion sold out within months of its release, so we're pleased to offer it again. It has some fantastic art from Katie Cook and cards by noted ailurophile Devin Lewis.
If you haven't picked up its companion set, Munchkin Puppies, you're missing out on the Munchkin set that loves you just as much as you love it! And it won't chew on your slippers...
-- Andrew Hackard
October Means It's Time For Munchkin
Of course, that's true of every month, but October is especially good because everyone's getting excited about Halloween (or at least the post-Halloween candy sales) (I admit nothing). With all manner of evil nasties in the zeitgeist, this is the perfect time to explore some of the Munchkin games and expansions that go especially well with the season. If you haven't picked any of these up, talk to your Friendly Local Game Store or come visit us at Warehouse23.com.
For pure Munchkin horror, we have Munchkin Bites! and Munchkin Zombies and their expansions. These sets mix very well, if your brain can get past the idea that you're a vampire/werewolf/etc. AND a zombie. (You're munchkins; you'll figure it out.) For more esoteric horror, we have the entire Munchkin Cthulhu series of games and accessories. If you'd rather fight the living dead than become them, check out Munchkin Undead – this mini-expansion mixes with any Munchkin game. Plus, there's Munchkin Clo– Oh, wait, we haven't announced that one yet. Forget I said anything.
If you prefer the lighter side of Halloween gaming, check out Munchkin Tricky Treats. It's getting a little hard to find, although some stores probably still have copies. It's the only Munchkin game that is guaranteed to have candy in every pack!
And if you want to branch out into some non-Munchkin Halloween games, might I suggest Muertoons and Ghosts Love Candy?
Whatever you end up enjoying this Halloween, we hope it's safe and fun. We want you all to hang around for a long time!
-- Andrew Hackard
Have You Been Reading Munchkin Musings?
It's possible some of you don't realize that, in addition to our weekly Munchkin News (which you're reading right now), we have a blog of news about everything happening at Steve Jackson Games. It's called the Daily Illuminator and posts, well, daily.
Every month for the past year and a bit, I've had a news post called "Munchkin Musings" (link goes to the September post) that is a summary of things we've announced here and on our forums and Twitter. If you go back through the Illuminator archives, you can see previous month's posts, or you can trust to Google or your favorite other search engine.
Make sure you're getting all the Munchkin news; watch for Munchkin Musings every month!
-- Andrew Hackard
P.S. If you're reading this on the morning of Monday, September 25, you still have time to back our Kickstarter for Munchkin Holiday Grab Boxes! They come with the 12 Bonuses of Munchkin Christmas rule and a whole lot of extra swag, no matter what your pledge level... but the Kickstarter ends at noon on Monday! Check it out now!
Munchkin Shakespeare Takes The Stage!
We surprised many of our fans in the United States by shipping your Munchkin Shakespeare Kickstarter rewards ahead of schedule. We've been seeing lots of posts on social media from happy people who have been reading through the cards and playing the games, which makes us very happy, too!
If you've received your Munchkin Shakespeare and want to talk about it, head over to our forums or post on the social media platform of your choice with the #PlayMunchkin hashtag. We'll share the best posts we find!
Shipping to destinations outside the U.S. should begin very soon. Keep watching our Twitter and Facebook for the latest news.
If you missed the Kickstarter, it's not too late: we'll start shipping to stores in October. Let your Friendly Local Game Store know now if you want a copy; preorders really do help!
-- Andrew Hackard
Munchkin Collectible Card Game Release Information
I just realized that while we discussed this at Gen Con, we didn't post anything about it here. So let me rectify this now. The Munchkin Collectible Card Game has an official release schedule, seen below:
February 2018: Munchkin Collectible Card Game core release.
core release. May 2018: Munchkin Collectible Card Game: The Desolation of Blarg.
. August 2018: Munchkin Collectible Card Game: Fashion Furious.
. More to come!
The February release will include three two-player starter packs, each of which contains two class decks and everything else you need to start playing the Munchkin Collectible Card Game. (The first printings of each starter pack will also include a booster.) It also includes randomized 12-card boosters. The May and August releases are boosters only.
We'll continue to talk about the Munchkin Collectible Card Game as February gets closer. Watch this space and check out munchkinccg.game for more information.
-- Andrew Hackard
Milestone Reprints
Next January, we will ship the 25th printing of Munchkin 2 – Unnatural Axe and the 20th printing of Munchkin 3 – Clerical Errors. That's way more printings than many full games get and is a testament to the continuing support we're getting from Munchkin fans. Thanks, gang!
-- Andrew Hackard
Fan Expo!
Over Labour Day*, I'll be attending Fan Expo Canada in Toronto. Phil Reed and I went to this show a couple of years ago and had a blast, so I've been hoping for a return visit.
I'll be sitting on several panels and hope to have time to playtest some 2018 Munchkin expansions as well. Look for me in the open gaming area when I'm not behind a microphone! Here's my schedule as of today:
Crowdfunding Your Concept : Friday, 6:15 p.m., 715B
: Friday, 6:15 p.m., 715B The D&D Panel (moderator): Saturday, 1 p.m., 717A
(moderator): Saturday, 1 p.m., 717A Game Publisher Speed Dating : Saturday, 4 p.m., 712
: Saturday, 4 p.m., 712 Playing in Someone Else's Sandbox: Sunday, 2:45 p.m., 705
I'm already making plans to obtain Timbits and poutine (not simultaneously), and maybe I'll bring home some wacky Canadian chip flavors, too.
* They insist that's how it's spelled, and who am I to argue with my hosts?
-- Andrew Hackard
Announcing Munchkin Magical Mess
At Gen Con, we announced a new release for January 2018: Munchkin Magical Mess. Moop is back with a new menagerie of messed-up monsters in this standalone companion to Moop's Monster Mashup.
Munchkin Magical Mess will be a Deluxe-style game and retail for $29.95. Now you know how to spend your Christmas money!
-- Andrew Hackard
It's Gen Con Time Again!
If you'll be at Gen Con this weekend, make sure to come see us in our new location at booth 1413 for a variety of demos and show-and-tell of new and upcoming releases. And don't forget to come to the Munchkin Tavern – great food, cold drinks, awesome swag, and signings by special guests at 7:30 every night Thursday through Saturday.
We're looking forward to seeing everyone!
-- Andrew Hackard
Board Game Bash Report
This past weekend, I attended Board Game Bash, a small convention that has been run the past several years here in Austin. This year, the convention was down the road from the office, which made it more convenient than ever!
In addition to the usual run of demos and handshakes, I got to playtest a couple of small Munchkin expansions scheduled for 2018, and Devin was there with the Munchkin Collectible Card Game.
Thanks to Austin MIB Seth for his hard work, and thanks as always to Jonathan Grabert for organizing a fantastic, fun weekend!
-- Andrew Hackard
Planning To Come To Gen Con?
If you don't already have a badge, you're already out of luck for Saturday and Sunday: Gen Con is reporting that they've sold out of four-day badges and Saturday and Sunday one-day badges, for the first time in the history of the con. But (as of this writing, anyway) you still have a little time to pick up Thursday and Friday badges if you're slacking. [August 2 edit: Thursday has now sold out!] They will not sell badges on-site, so you have to preorder if you want to come see our booth (1413) at the show.
Of course, if you just want to join us in the evenings at the Munchkin Tavern, you don't need a badge for that... just an empty tummy, a full wallet, and an appetite for fun. We'll have signings every night and some cool announcements Thursday night that you won't want to miss! Be the first person in your group to find out what's coming in 2018!
And if you can't be at Gen Con – which we know is most of you – you can keep up with all our news on our various social media channels. Head over to news.sjgames.com for all our social media info and stay connected even when you can't be right there with us. (When I put it like that, it sounds a little creepy...)
-- Andrew Hackard
Hot Stuff
No, I'm not just talking about the mid-July climate in Austin. We had some a bunch of stuff move forward last week!
Munchkin Collectible Card Game: The core game left production and went to Miranda Horner for prepress checks. This is a vital step in making sure we haven't made any dumb mistakes, or at least that we really meant to make them if we did. Once Miranda is satisfied that everything is perfect (spoiler: it's never perfect), it will go to a premortem meeting where a team dissects every card and every page of rules to see if we can do things even better. This is one of our most important releases in years, so we're going to be extra picky. More news about this when we have news to share!
Munchkin in 2018: We had a premortem for our first 2018 Munchkin release, and it should be going to print in the next couple of days. Woo! I would love to tell you what it is, but we're saving that announcement for the Munchkin Tavern. I playtested a couple of other 2018 Munchkin sets with some of my tolerant co-workers, and their feedback has already been very helpful in refining my ideas and getting these expansions ready to move to the next steps. Steve's been hard at work on his own 2018 Munchkin projects, which I can't tell you about in any detail except to say that they're awesome and are going to make a very big splash when we're finally ready to announce them.
Munchkin Special Delivery: You guys are wonderful. Thank you for all the support you gave our little "flash" Kickstarter! We've got the box order ready to go (it may have gone in by the time you read this!) and I've worked up revised, expanded cookbooks for the swag that will go inside. Will we have more Munchkin Kickstarter projects? Make sure to follow our social media feeds to find out!
Munchkin at Gen Con |
Pokémon to be banned in ORAS OU, after a two-times Suspect Process and one day before Pokémon Sun/Moon release — which honestly was the only reason I decided to include it here. Mega Sableye was the face of the stall archetype, having strong 50 HP / 125 Defense / 125 Special Defense stats, coupled with the anti-stall ability Magic Bounce. This, allied with the fact that it had a good defensive utility movepool with Knock Off, Taunt, Will-o-Wisp while being immune to Rapid Spin made the Stall vs Stall game a lot slower and thus unhealthy and boring.
Closing words
After getting through four aspects of what generation VI was, what do you think? Do you think it was better or worse than previous generations? Are there features you want to see in future games? Did you like the metagame now or then?
I actually liked this generation a lot! The Megas made some forgotten Pokémon — such as Mawile, Beedrill and Camerupt — rise in popularity. I’d love to see more minor flavor things like the TV Shows and the Sea Mauville lore and I’m in for more intriguing NPCs. As for the metagame, VGC’15 became my favorite along with VGC’13.
Closing this post, I’d like to say that Gen. VI was a huge step to the Pokémon franchise when it comes to originality and innovation.
AnúnciosIn May 2008, when Marco Rubio retired as Florida’s House speaker, he bid his colleagues farewell with a passionate defense of American exceptionalism. Standing on the floor in front of the speaker’s rostrum, Rubio invoked boatloads of refugees washing up on American shores, quoted John F. Kennedy and lauded political dissent.
“It’s honestly one of the greatest political speeches I’ve seen in my life,” said Republican operative Gregg Keller. “To this day, I can’t watch it without getting a lump in my throat.”
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But youthful charisma wasn’t the only aspect of Rubio’s delivery that has stuck with Keller. “He’s got this ice,” recalled the veteran operative. “He’s got this water in this cup that’s got ice and it’s making weird noises.” Indeed, video of the speech shows Rubio halting mid-delivery at dramatic moments to reach down to a table in front of him and take noisy swigs from a Styrofoam cup.
Rubio, of course, became famous five years later for diving for his water bottle and taking a sip in the midst of a roughly 14-minute nationally televised response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech. He responded in good humor by tweeting out a picture of the empty bottle, and over the next week his PAC raised $100,000 off the sale of water bottles.
But the water tic has persisted and remained noticeable on the campaign trail this fall, drawing comment from those who have worked with and watched the Florida senator. Like Richard Nixon’s perspiring or John Boehner’s crying, Rubio’s need for constant hydration is a bodily quirk that impinges on his political life.
The 44-year-old senator takes care to ensure the availability of water at his public events and can be particular about how he takes it. His advance team has mandated exact requirements for the vessels he will drink out of: stemless glasses — not stemmed ones or water bottles. He reaches for it constantly during public remarks. Its absence has thrown off his delivery, and he and his campaign have acknowledged its presence by attempting to turn it into a joke. On the trail, he has even asked hecklers to time their outbursts around his breaks for it.
“Marco does have a water thing,” said one longtime Rubio associate who has been affiliated with his past campaigns. “I don’t know what it is. He says he just gets thirsty, but it’s clear it’s just a nervous tic. It’s something he just has to have around, like a security blanket or something.”
A spokesman for Rubio, Alex Conant, declined comment for this story, saying only that “POLITICO has lost its mind.” In a recent New Yorker profile, Rubio attributed his extraordinary need for water to unspecified allergies developed since 2011. “I said, ‘How come I’ve never had allergies before, and now, suddenly, the last four years I’ve developed allergies? And the answer the doctor gave me was: ‘Well, because you’re travelling to places that you never used to travel to before.’”
But the testimony of Rubio’s longtime associates and his 2008 speech belie this explanation, indicating that Rubio’s water tic predated his career in the United States Senate, even if it escaped notice before then.
Even during brief remarks — like his speech at CPAC in February 2010 and his Senate victory speech in November — Rubio has consistently had water at hand and snuck sips of it into his delivery. Its absence, meanwhile, has thrown him off balance.
When Rubio addressed CPAC in 2012, event staffers failed to stock the podium with fresh water for his speech. At an early applause line, Rubio — who had been visibly struggling with dry mouth and licking the inside of his mouth and his lips, as he often does during speeches — reached down for his water with his right hand, and coming up empty bent his knees and peered under the podium but did not find what he was looking for.
“I remember standing backstage and cursing out loud because there was nothing we could do,” said a person staffing the event. “It caused him some awkward pauses throughout the speech.” Halting his speech again for another applause line several minutes later, Rubio brought his empty right hand up to his nose, lowered it, brought it up again to his lips and rubbed them.
At some point, Rubio became self-conscious about the water breaks, and he began narrating them at several events later that year.
Speaking at a major Republican fundraiser in March 2012, the senator sipped from a glass of water and laid it down on the ground next to him. “I hope I don’t need a drink of water during the speech, that’s a long reach down there, but I’ll — you’ll forgive me,” he said.
Campaigning for Mitt Romney at an elementary school in Las Vegas in July, he took advantage of extended applause to reach for his bottle. “Keep clapping. I can drink some water while you do,” he said. “If you’re here to heckle me today, could you wait another five minutes, because that gives me the moment to get my water.”
When an attendee shouted “Marco for vice president” at the same rally and prompted the audience to break out in wild applause, Rubio went again to his water, and said, “Hey, that was not the kind of heckler I was expecting, but thank you for the water, I appreciate it.”
Taking the stage after Clint Eastwood’s memorable performance at the Republican National Convention in August, Rubio again took a swig. “I think I just drank Clint Eastwood’s water,” he said. “Thank you.”
AP and Getty photos.
But six months later, it was Rubio’s water, not Eastwood’s histrionics, that would steal the show.
On Feb. 12, 2013, Rubio delivered the official Republican rebuttal to the State of the Union, his highest-profile gig to date — and one meant to showcase the gifts of the party’s fresh-faced talent. But his turn in the national spotlight was overshadowed by his awkward break for water, which launched a thousand Internet memes. On Twitter, it was called #Watergate, and it has remained a defining moment of his career since.
Rubio took it with good humor. In one television appearance following the rebuttal, he ostentatiously chugged from a bottle.
The next month, arriving backstage at CPAC 2013, he asked for a five-gallon jug as a prop. No jug was available, so he took to the stage and, with both hands, scooped up three glasses of water from behind the podium. “Let me just say I love the hospitality, but this is an exaggeration,” he joked. The crowd loved it.
But 15 minutes later, water once again knocked him off his game as he reached down for a sip, and the CPAC audience broke into applause. “Thank you. Never in the history of the world has water been so popular; I appreciate it,” said Rubio sarcastically. “Never. Let me tell you. No,” he continued, but then paused, lowered his head, raised his hand to his face and took a deep breath before getting back on track.
The water thing had not gone away — and it still hasn’t.
As Rubio’s standing in the 2016 nomination fight has improved, Donald Trump has seized on the senator’s bodily functions, repeatedly calling attention both to Rubio’s drinking and to his sweating. “Rubio, I've never seen a young guy sweat that much. He's drinking water, water, water,” Trump told ABC News in September. “I never saw anything like this with him, with the water.”
On Fox News, Rubio responded to the attacks, "I drink water. So what? And I only sweat when it’s hot."
But people who have worked with Rubio said sweat has also been a distraction for him. “You hear Donald Trump make fun of him for it. But he’s onto something,” said Rubio’s longtime associate. “I don’t think Marco sweats that much more. But Marco thinks he does. He’s always wiping, wiping, wiping sweat — even if he’s not sweating. It can drive you crazy if you’re watching him closely.”
The person who has staffed CPACs at which Rubio has spoken agreed with Trump’s assessment. “He sweats quite a bit, and when you sit down under television lights it gets very hot,” said the person, who recalled the issue arising when Rubio did not have water during his speech at the 2012 gathering. “Not only was he very thirsty, but he was under very bright lights. … Beads of sweat were just popping up on his forehead.”
In private, water remains a preoccupation of Rubio’s campaign.
At one stop along the campaign trail this fall, Rubio’s advance team miffed organizers who have hosted multiple presidential candidates by dictating accommodations down to the type of vessel the senator’s water would be served in: a stemless glass, rather than a stemmed one or a water bottle.
“Huckabee didn’t need water,” said an event organizer, who spoke on the condition that his name be withheld and the event not be made identifiable. “It was the first time that glassware entered into one of these events.”
In public, Rubio has continued to work to make water an endearing totem of his public persona — one that, if all goes according to plan, could occupy a place similar to Ronald Reagan’s beloved jelly beans in the American imagination.
At the second Republican debate in September, he found room for it in his opening statement. “I’m honored to be at the Reagan Library, at a place that honors the man who inspired not just my interest in public service, but also our love for country. And I’m also aware that California has a drought, and so that’s why I made sure I brought my own water,” he said, brandishing a bottle of it.
At the end of a September campaign video in which Rubio answers a series of personal questions while being tossed a football, he is asked, “Most important preparation for a big game or a big speech?” Rubio responds, “Make sure that there’s water nearby,” as he catches a bottle.
In a message that plays at the end of videos on his campaign’s YouTube account, Rubio speaks straight to the camera and says, “Make sure to click below to subscribe to my YouTube channel so you can get our campaign’s latest videos.” After a pause, the senator who has risen so quickly through the rungs of American politics says, “Go ahead, I’ll wait,” and reaches down for a bottle of water, taking a swig.
Marc Caputo contributed to this report.Share. Titans is the latest Berlanti-produced DC series. Titans is the latest Berlanti-produced DC series.
Warner Bros. Television and DC Entertainment have announced that both the third season of Young Justice and a new live-action series called Titans will debut in 2018.
Both shows will air exclusively on a new DC-focused digital service run by Warner Bros. Digital Networks Group that promises to "deliver an immersive experience designed just for DC fans."
The New Teen Titans art, courtesy of Warner Bros.
Titans is being written by Akiva Goldsman (Star Trek Discovery), DC Entertainment president Geoff Johns, and Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl). All three, along with Sarah Schechter, are on board as executive producers. This new live-action drama will center around Dick Grayson, who "emerges from the shadows to become the leader of a fearless band of new heroes" that includes Starfire, Raven and many more. For now, Dick's superhero alter ego -- he's been both Robin and Nightwing in the comics -- hasn't been revealed.
While Warner Bros. was previously working with TNT on a Titans series, the network confirmed production was canceled last year. It's worth noting that Goldsman was working on Titans when it was at TNT, but with a different co-writer, Marc Haimes.
Meanwhile, the third season of Warner Bros. Animation's Young Justice, which was confirmed last year, is officially titled Young Justice: Outsiders. In Season 3, the team of young heroes will fight against "meta-human trafficking and the terrifying threat it creates for a society caught in the crossfire of a genetic arms race spanning the globe and the galaxy."
Young Justice: Outsiders logo, via Warner Bros.
Sam Register (Teen Titans Go!) is on board as executive producer of Young Justice: Outsiders, with Brandon Vietti (Batman: Under the Red Hood) and Greg Weisman (Star Wars Rebels) serving as producers. Additionally, Phil Bourassa (Young Justice, Justice League Dark) is returning as art director.
For more on Young Justice, here's a look at six things we'd like to see in Season 3.
Exit Theatre Mode
Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter and subscribe to his YouTube channel.A Sainsbury's supermarket in England recently put out an ad seeing an "ambitious artist to voluntarily refurbish our canteen." But what they really need is a scotobiologist, since all they got in response was shade.
Artists, you see, don't like being asked to work for free by companies that are more than able to pay them, and a number of them voiced their frustration on social media using the hashtag #PayArtists.
Composer Paul Johnson Rogers, for example, said the chain "should be ashamed" for asking artists to essentially work for exposure. (The ad invited entrants to "bring their own style to transform … what is originally a basic canteen to salvage the energy of our staff members.")
The Artists Information Company called it "ludicrous" and "misguided." As well they should; painting and decorating an employee break room, even a small one, is a fairly serious undertaking and requires a lot of planning and effort. Asking someone to do all that for free is insane.
One anonymous artist also released a response ad seeking "a well-stocked supermarket to voluntarily restock our kitchens":
Sainsbury's has since apologized for its cluelessness, and we're wondering if they have store artists the way American grocery chains like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's do. If not, they should look into it.Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) thinks he knows something that you don't about Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Bloomberg News' Dave Weigel reported Friday that Paul gave a speech on Thursday to a pro-life group in which he predicted that the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation would soon be hit by a major scandal.
"There's going to be stuff coming out about the Clinton foundation and their donations from different companies that get special approval by the secretary of state. It's coming out in the next couple weeks," Paul said.
As Weigel noted, Paul has made similar predictions in the past. At an April 8 press conference, Paul told reporters that the coming scandal will "shock people" and undermine her presidential campaign.
"I think that there are things that went on at the Clinton foundation that are going to shock people. And I think they're going to make people question whether or not she ought to run for president," he said then.
Pressed for details, however, Paul wouldn't elaborate.
"Then it wouldn't be a secret!" he jokingly exclaimed. "It's coming soon."
Former Secretary of State Clinton has been dogged by questions about her foundation's fundraising practices. Paul and others have harshly criticized the $2 billion foundation for accepting donations from oppressive governments, and the foundation broke an agreement it had made with the White House by accepting $500,000 from Algeria when Clinton was secretary of state.
NOW WATCH: Here's what Senator Ted Cruz said about Hillary Clinton and President Obama hours before announcing his presidential candidacy
More From Business InsiderIn an effort to put an end to Operation Choke Point — a financial task force that was created by the Obama administration to “choke out” businesses it finds objectionable like gun shops — the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued a letter Wednesday saying all banks should examine their customer relationships on a case-by-case basis and not by industry operational risk.
The government agency followed the action with a memorandum to its supervisory staff requiring examiners put in writing their recommendation to terminate an account, which the financial institution must review before the account is ended.
The memorandum makes it very clear that “reputational risk” alone is not enough reason to end a client’s banking account.
“The FDIC is issuing this statement to encourage institutions to take a risk-based approach in assessing individual customer relationships rather than declining to provide banking services to entire categories of customers,” the FDIC said in a letter to its financial institutions released Wednesday.
Both the memorandum and formal financial institution letter were requested by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, Missouri Republican, after reports surfaced last year that the FDIC created a so-called “reputational-risk” industry list, which financial institutions were using as a guide on the parties with whom they do business.
This action choked off financial services to many legitimate small businesses that were defined as high-risk on the list, including payday lenders, gun retailers and ammunition merchants.
The FDIC has since retracted the list.
“We’ve gone down that road and have choked off Choke Point,” said Mr. Luetkemeyer in an interview with The Washington Times. “The FDIC has acknowledged wrongdoing and put in place measures to stop this activity.”
Mr. Luetkemeyer is still moving forward with a bill he introduced last session aimed at cementing the FDIC’s proposed actions into law and to insure other financial institutions like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Reserve commit to similar steps.
In addition to its memorandum and letter to institutions, the FDIC has agreed to cooperate in an inspector general investigation into Operation Choke Point, allowing the IG to interview all staff members with knowledge of the operation, Mr. Luetkemeyer said.
In December, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a report detailing the FDIC’s involvement in Operation Choke Point and concluded that the FDIC “explicitly intended its list of ‘high-risk merchants’ to influence banks’ business decisions. FDIC policymakers debated ways to ensure that bank officials saw the list and ‘get the message.’”
“I’m pleased the FDIC has agreed to work with the IG like we’ve requested and to start to change the culture of what’s going on,” said Mr. Luetkemeyer, adding that the regulator went one step further than the congressional proposed reforms and agreed to host an email address of the agency’s ombudsman listed on their website so consumers could report any potential abuse with their identity protected.
“FDIC is the main culprit in this operation, and if they take the lead in stopping this nonsense, the other agencies will follow,” he said.
Last year, The Washington Times broke the story that several legitimate gun retailers were dropped by their banks as a result of Operation Choke Point, including Powderhorn Outfitters, a sports shop in Hyannis, Massachusetts, which was dumped by its bank of 36 years — TD Bank — as a result of “reputational risk.”
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Before getting caught, the furthest that Chien got to was setting up his Xiaoyu (meaning "little jade") mobile phone design firm in Taiwan, as well as Yu ("jade") in mainland China ahead of collaborating with the Chengdu government. Chien and his two accomplices -- ex-R&D director Wu Chien-hung and ex-design team senior manager Justin Huang -- also used an external design firm to invoice HTC NT$20 million (about US$668,000, and twice as much as previously reported) between May and July for the One's design, when in fact the project was all done in-house.
Reports also say in the first hearing of the case today, the court heard that investigators found NT$7.8 million (about US$262,100) worth of cash -- all fresh NT$1,000 bills (about US$34) -- in Chien's Audi car which was, ironically, still parked at HTC; but Chien said he couldn't remember where the money came from. This goes on top of near NT$8 million (about US$268,800) confiscated from Chien and Wu -- NT$6 million and over NT$1 million, respectively.
Chien and Wu are still in custody, whereas Huang was released on bail over the weekend. We will keep an eye out for further developments.Lurker from original pizzagate on Reddit...
Coming from a lawyer... I want to help focus this sub on building a case. If not interested, then i guess the post will just die out. I will ask questions and play devils advocate to help form a case (just like real prosecutors).
To make this on-topic, it seems as if the seth rich killing could blow pizzagate wide open, if proven true. That being said, here are my thoughts... As of right now, everything is based in the court of public opinion. For that, the standard of proof (by how much someone would need to prove something ie beyond 50/50 vs beyond a shadow of a doubt) seems extremely high because at first glance, the DNC involvement in a murder seems unlikely and unreasonable to most people because they don't WANT to believe it.
Moving it over to the criminal prosecution world, the standard is much lower to begin. In order for police to obtain warrants and make arrests, you need to show Probable Cause. Probable cause is a "fair probability." It doesn't even have to be better than 50/50. Probable Cause can be based on hearsay but must be reliable evidence. An anonymous source CAN be used, but only if reliable. For example, an anon source says Steve did it, with no other information, then that is not reliable. However if anon source says Steve did it and included facts that are verifiable and not of public knowledge yet, then that would be reliable.
so let's start... Is it a fair probability that Podesta was involved? If so, what makes it a fair probability? Is it a fair probability that Dr. Sava was involved? If so, what makes it a fair probability?
If you can establish probable cause and then show the DC police are not acting, that's a whole different potential crime and more evidence of the ultimate truth. If there is a cover up by DC police, you might want to find out if it was normal for each officer that reported to the scene to be there and if there are any complaints against any of them and if that was their beat. Also, what is their protocol (from their actual training, not what you suspect it to be) and did they follow it? EDIT: http://m.policemag.com/article/1691/understanding-probable-cause
EDIT 2: So, even I get caught up in the rabbit hole sometimes and make things much more difficult than they need to be.
Simply put, a killing occurred. It most likely was not a robbery attempt as nothing was taken. So, from there, we need to decide whether it was pre-meditated or random. Considering most killings occur for a reason, we must assume that the killing occurred for some reason (for investigative purposes). Therefore, as detectives, we look at who had the most motive, the biggest reason. Considering we know that there is an eyewitness who claims to have proof of why someone or a group of people might have motive to kill our victim, we must investigate that claim. However, as good detectives, we realize that the claim itself (devoid of any further proof) is still evidence in and of itself. As good, normal detectives, we are going to look into this group/person who is claimed to have a reason to want our victim dead, now... Leaving no stone unturned, because after all, a young man died, and it is our job. We have to investigate all suspicious leads. Now, this leads us to a big dilemma. If the potential suspect or person of interest has any connection to us or our department, so as to create a mere APPEARANCE of impropriety, as good, normal detectives, we should step aside so as not to potentially taint the investigation. Remembering that it isn't ACTUAL impropriety, but the mere APPEARANCE of it. If it is our entire department that would have the APPEARANCE of impropriety, then a neighboring jurisdiction and/or the FBI should take over.
This is all assuming that we should treat this killing as any other killing, investigating all suspicious leads in some way. It is also assuming we shouldn't give preferential treatment to anyone. Just my two cents
EDIT 3: The articulable facts that would attach JP to this (if they exist) will probably, somehow, be in the WikiLeaks series. These are his communications with his "criminal organization." So, there have got to be SOME nuggets in their (coded or not). Also, think about this... If a gunman brutally, randomly gunned down an innocent staffer of theirs, what would their communications have been like around that time? Maybe the LACK of discussion can be a clue as well...Yesterday, the proletariat peoples over at Paradox officially announced a new major expansion for our 2016 Game of the Year, Stellaris. Called Utopia, the expansion will add a number of new features to make empires more unique and give prospective galactic emperors even more options as they carve up the galaxy. This new expansion will also be complemented by a free update to the vanilla game: version 1.5, known colloquially as “Banks.”
That name is fairly telling for what’s to come. The namesake of the addition, Iain M Banks wrote a variety of science fiction, but is best known for his creation of “The Culture,” an advanced space empire portrayed as incredibly evolved with both positive and negative consequences to their society and the galaxy around them (Which is putting it mildly. Seriously, go read the books. They’re great.)
For now, based on what’s been announced (and covered in the developer diaries), we can tell you that the big change coming with the paid Utopia content will be the introduction of Ascension Perks. These seem to work like the Civics in Civilization VI where you’ll earn the right to choose certain bonuses as your race progresses, although you probably won’t be able to change your choices in Stellaris.
Per today’s Steam announcement, Utopia will also offer:
Megastructures : Build wondrous structures in your systems including Dyson Spheres and ring worlds that will bring both prestige and major advantages to your race
Habitat Stations : Build “tall” and establish space stations that will house more population, serving the role of planets in a small and confined empire
Rights and Privileges : Set specific policies for which of the many species under your thumb will have the rights and privileges of full citizenship. Choose to build an egalitarian paradise or follow a caste system
And even more improvements and updates, including (as is traditional with all of Paradox’s paid content releases) free updates for every Stellaris owner
As for Banks, we’re still learning more. The developers have talked about a new system of traditions and a new resource, called “unity,” that is used to acquire them. This seems very similar to how the Ascension Perks will work, and even though they are being offered in different content sets, it’s hard to imagine how one will work without the other.
There will be seven new tradition trees (and if you play as Plantoids, you could BE a tradition tree):
Expansion : Focuses on growth through rapid colonization
Domination : Focuses on maintaining control over your population and subjects
Prosperity : Focuses on economic growth
Harmony : Focuses on maintaining a happy and diverse population
Supremacy : Focuses on growth through military conquest
Purity : Focuses on strength through homogeneity and dominion over other species
Exploration : Focuses on exploration and scientific discovery
Banks will offer a slew of new options for species rights, the freedoms (or, ummmmm, not-freedoms) you can give your various diverse populations. This will allot players a lot more options for dealing with the many different races that may live under their flag, allowing them total equality with the primary race, a caste system, slavery, or even deportation or forced extinction. Again, the way this unpaid content will interact with what is offered in Utopia is unclear, The two seem so intertwined that it might be hard to get the most out of one without purchasing the other.
Of course, Paradox is still slowly letting information leak out and we’ll no doubt learn more about these updates in the near future. No official release date has been announced for Banks or Utopia (though the dev diaries suggest it might be a while), so be sure to come back often for even more Stellaris news!WASHINGTON -- FBI Director James Comey announced Tuesday that he was referring the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to the Department of Justice for a "prosecutive decision."
"There is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," Comey said of Clinton and her colleagues. But he said he would recommend to the DOJ that "no charges are appropriate in this case."
Comey said the FBI reviewed the approximately 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in 2014. If an email appeared to contain classified information, the bureau consulted any government agency that "was a likely 'owner'" of the information to determine if it was classified at the time it was transmitted or if it would be considered classified today.
The FBI found that 110 emails in 52 email chains contained classified material. "Eight of those chains contained information that was top secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained secret information at the time; and eight contained confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification," Comey said.
He also said it was "possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account."
Comey noted that while a single server was mentioned during the outset of the investigation, "it turns out to have been more complicated than that."
"Secretary Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous mobile devices to view and send email on that personal domain," Comey said.
Piecing together information from multiple servers and equipment “has been a painstaking undertaking, requiring thousands of hours of effort,” he said.
The FBI found evidence that the security culture at the State Department was "generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government,” Comey said, though he noted that was not the focus of the investigation.
Giving an example of the “careless” handling of sensitive information, Comey pointed to email chains that contained information that was considered “top secret/special access program level” at the time they were sent or received.
“There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation,” he said.
Aaron Josefczyk / Reuters Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 27, 2016.
Comey said that the FBI could not find a case in the past that would support bringing criminal charges based upon the facts. The bureau did not find clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information or vast quantities of material, or indications of disloyalty to the U.S. or efforts to obstruct justice.
"To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences," Comey said. "To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now."
Comey said that only the facts mattered to the bureau, and the FBI found the facts in "an entirely apolitical and professional way." He said he wanted to reassure the public that the investigation was done "competently, honestly and independently" and that "no outside influence of any kind was brought to bear."
The FBI announcement came days after Clinton met with investigators at the bureau's headquarters in Washington. That was seen as a signal that the federal investigation could be winding down. Attorney General Loretta Lynch -- facing criticism over her meeting with former President Bill Clinton -- said Friday she would accept the recommendation of career prosecutors on the matter.
Hillary Clinton's press secretary said Tuesday that the campaign was satisfied with the outcome of the investigation.
"We are pleased that the career officials handling this case have determined that no further action by the Department is appropriate," Brian Fallon said in a statement. "As the Secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved."
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said the FBI announcement showed that the "system is rigged."
The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2016The stunt happened in south-western Russia. Police have arrested one boy
The teens say they did the stunt to gain more social media likes and views
As the flames engulfed the boys they launched into the water below
set themselves on fire and then jumped off a bridge
Hair raising footage from Russia shows a group of teenagers atop a high bridge setting themselves on fire and then jumping into the murky waters below in the name of getting more likes on social media.
The unusual stunt happened in the south-western Russian city of Penza where two videos of the teenagers launching themselves from the bridge were shared online.
The first video starts off by showing a teen being doused in a flammable liquid before a friend puts a lighter to his coat to set the boy alight.
To make sure the boy had to jump into the water he was doused in a flammable liquid so the flames engulfed his body. There was no way to back down, he had to jump
The flames start to spread from the daredevil's coat. He is nearly ready to jump off the high bridge in order to get more social media likes
As the flames quickly engulf the lad he jumps from the bridge and makes a splash as he lands in the water below.
The second video was filmed from the ground and shows two burning daredevils jumping from the same bridge, almost in tandem, much to the delight of their onlooking friends.
The two boys can later be seen swimming in the water seemingly unharmed after they leaped.
One of the thrill seeking youngsters said he jumped to get more likes and views on social media. He didn't mention a desire to gain the adrenaline rush that undoubtedly comes from jumping from a bridge while on fire.
The boy is ablaze and to escape excruciating burns he jumps into the cool water below. Police are investigating the gang of teens over their bridge antics
The boy looks a bit like a comet falling from the sky due to the flame trail he leaves in his wake
'We did it for the likes on social media. We took the idea from a blogger. We made a bet with our friends and jumped off the bridge. We wanted to get a lot of views,' he said.
The police are checking the circumstances of the stunt and have reportedly arrested one of the pair.
A number of Russian youngsters appear to have penchants for fear inducing stunts.
Russian trio Ivan Kuznetsov, 22, Alihan, 20, and Ivan Semenov, 24, used a drone to film themselves scaling the Eiffel Tower in Paris earlier this year without any using any safety equipment despite the windy conditions of the day.
The trio survived the climb up the 985ft structure and impressively managed to scale up and then down the landmark without getting caught by security.
Similar videos have emerged online of Russian youngsters setting themselves on fire and then jumping from a height into the snow below to cool off.Bruce Willis (Photo: AP file/Denis Poroy)
GRANVILLE - Bruce Willis may be coming to Granville to shoot a film this fall.
Willis is attached to star in an action-thriller called “First Kill” that will likely be filming in and around central Ohio, including several possible locations in Granville, later this month.
The film’s director, Steven Miller, recently tweeted and posted several comments and images on Instagram from location scouting, including shots of Lazy River and the Aladdin Restaurant in Granville, remarking, “Excited to be in #Columbus!” and “We are going full on beauty for this movie. #sky#clouds#firstkillmovie @ Granville, Ohio.”
Friday morning, Granville Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Steve Matheny, Village Manager Steven Pyles and Mayor Melissa Hartfield all confirmed there had been discussions between village officials and the film production crew about possible filming to take place in and around Granville in late August or early September.
According to the IMDb film site, Willis “will play a police chief who tries to solve a kidnapping, with a ticking clock. After a man and his son witness a thug shooting a bank thief while on a hunting trip, the bank robber takes the boy hostage, in order to recover the key to a locker that contains the loot from the bank heist.”
Matheny said he was told by those scouting possible sites that the film would also have a coming of age element.
He said the crew was looking for storage space and might require lodging for cast and crew for some period of time.
Pyles also confirmed talks were underway. He said, “They are looking very strongly at the area. They’ve been in town and we’ve had discussions.”
A person affiliated with the production said Friday he couldn’t comment on the project, but did confirm that Willis is attached to the film and that Granville sites are in the running as possible locations |
be subject to terrorist attack," Brown said at a Riverside news conference. "We have seen it south of the border, but not here yet."
The attacks have involved booby traps aimed at either the headquarters of the Hemet-San Jacinto Gang Task Force or officers assigned to the unit, officials said.
Last December a utility line was redirected to flood the offices with gas so any spark would cause an explosion. In February, a modified handgun was hidden by the gate to the office and rigged to fire. When a gang officer opened the gate, the weapon went off, narrowly missing him. And two weeks ago, police said, a "dangerous" device was found near the unmarked car of a task force member.This is a wild story. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke is reportedly going to resign after Chief of Staff John Kelly (her former boss as DHS Secretary) called her from Asia to complain that she wasn’t expelling Honduran immigrants quickly enough.
This comes from a report in The Washington Post. The details are important. There are a substantial number of immigrants in the US from a handful of Caribbean basin nations where there were either natural disasters or human rights crises which led to the decision to allow immigrants from those countries to stay in the US under Temporary Protected Status. The Trump administration’s policy goal is to change those country designations and expel those people.
Elaine Duke is basically in the process of doing just that. She’s already done it with Nicaraguans. She’s just not going fast enough apparently. She decided more time and fact-finding were necessary to make a decision. That got Kelly and Bossert on her case for ‘kicking the can down the road’ and lacking ‘decisiveness’. Kelly was apparently also upset that Duke’s decision might adversely impact confirmation hearings for Kirstjen M. Nielsen, his chosen successor at DHS. The upshot though is that Kelly is angry with Duke because she’s not expelling people quickly enough. The Post’s sources says Duke told Kelly she’s going to resign, though the DHS spokesperson said that’s not true.
From the Post …
On Monday, as the Department of Homeland Security prepared to extend the residency permits of tens of thousands of Honduran immigrants living in the United States, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly called Acting Secretary Elaine Duke to pressure her to expel them, according to current and former administration officials. Duke refused to reverse her decision and was angered by what she felt was a politically driven intrusion by Kelly and Tom Bossert, the White House homeland security adviser, who also called her about the matter, according to officials with knowledge of Monday’s events, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
From what I can tell Duke is mainly a career government bureaucrat/administrator rather than an ideologue. She was appointed Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Management under George W. Bush and then stayed on through mid-2010 under Obama.I want to share this with you. It is from our friend Jim Rigby. Jim is a Minister at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas.
It was something he posted on his Facebook page. When I read it, I thought of all of the judgment, rejection, and “condemnation to hell” conveyed to people who are LGBTQ by Christians – often justified by a “theological disagreement.”
Jim is changing lives, and changing the world with his heart and his tireless commitment to loving and serving people.
The church often uses that ‘theological disagreement’, conveyed ‘in Jesus name’ as permission to heap shame, oppression & marginalization on people who just so happen to be LGBTQ and many others. Indefensible. As Jim has said, “I think it’s important to explore the theological roots of the problems.” I agree.
MY BAD NEWS
I received some bad news this week. Apparently, because I don’t believe in a literal resurrection, I’m not really Christian. This unfortunately also means I won’t be going to heaven with many of you.
Of course, this is a hard thing to learn at Christmas time. As I share meals with my family, I have to face the fact that while they are enjoying the heavenly banquet, I will be screaming in unending torment along with Jews and Democrats and the evil college professors who teach evolution.
And it’s particularly embarrassing to be Presbyterian minister bound for hell. I’ve been such a fool. I was trying to live as Jesus taught when I should have been reciting the Apostles Creed like a cockatiel.
In my hard-heartedness I asked one of my accusers if, instead of being a one time magic trick, the resurrection might not be understood as a poem about the whole life process. Like Jesus before Pilate, my accuser was silent.
I asked, if the virgin birth and resurrection were essential to Christianity, why the earliest versions of Mark’s gospel had neither. Again, my accuser would not be sullied by giving a response.
I asked my accusers if they would also follow Hitler if he were to rise from the dead. I asked if love were not what makes anything divine?
My accusers explained to me that I had it all wrong. They said I did not understand the gospel. You see, the earth was once a paradise. The dinosaurs were actually gentle and friendly. But then Adam and Eve stole a piece of fruit. God got very angry. So God invented cancer and hemorrhoids to punish human beings for our treachery.
And God’s righteousness is infinite, so God couldn’t just forgive us or teach us how to do better. What might seem to some like a first time misdemeanor of shoplifting fruit, was actually an irreversible irredeemable sin.
You see, God loves us very much, but mindless obedience is VERY important to God, So God decided to barbecue us eternally for the mistakes of our ancestors. But God has a son named Jesus who asked God to abuse him instead. And so God killed Jesus in our place. And we call this story, the “good news.”
We don’t have to be loving or kind like Jesus to be saved from God’s wrath. In fact we don’t have to do a single thing Jesus commanded us to do. All that matters is that we admit that we are worthless trash, but that Jesus likes us anyway. Oh, and we have to LITERALLY believe Jesus’ corpse got up. If you believe all the above you will get to be with God in heaven. Let’s just hope God has a handle on that anger problem by now.
So, anyway, if you believe the “good news,” your physical cadaver will get up too. Hopefully someone will remember where you are buried and come dig you up. I’m not really sure how clothes rise from the dead, so everybody may be naked; but try not to think about that. In fact, learn from my sad example and try not to think about anything too much.
Just know while you all are enjoying the heavenly banquet, I will be:
rotating on the rotisserie of the reprobates,
bobbing in the boiling broth of blasphemers,
and weeping on the wok of woe.
So, as we go our separate ways, me to eternal torment with Gandhi and Socrates; you to an eternity sitting in worship services with televangelists and ethical monsters who happened to believe in the literal resurrection, please go on and have a good time in heaven without me. Don’t give me a second thought. I’ll be fine.
I’ll try to keep down my screams of agony.
– Jim RigbyAn Ontario court has ordered the owners of the FreeDominion.ca to disclose all personal information on eight anonymous posters to the chat site. The required information includes email and IP addresses. The case arises from a lawsuit launched by Richard Warman, the anti-hate fighter, against the site and the posters. The court focused heavily on the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure, which contain a strong duty of disclosure on litigants.
The discussion includes a review of many key Internet privacy cases, including the CRIA file sharing litigation (which the court distinguishes on the basis of different court rules) and the Irwin Toy case (which emphasized the importance of protecting anonymity, but which the court tries to distinguish on the basis of the newness of the issue at the time). The court also looks at the string of recent cases involving child pornography cases and ISP disclosure of customer information, concluding that "the court's most recent pronouncement on this is that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy."
According to the defendants in the case, they are unsure if they have the resources to appeal. This particular decision feels like a judge anxious to order to disclosure, despite the weight of authority that provides some measure of privacy protection for anonymous posters. Indeed, the public policy issue is characterized as "we are dealing with an anti-hate speech advocate and Defendants whose website is so controversial that it is blocked to employees of the Ontario Public Service." Leaving aside the fact that sites blocked to employees of the Ontario Public Service is not much of a threshold (Facebook is blocked to the OPS), the public policy issue is not the merits of the particular website. Rather, it is the privacy and free speech rights of the posters to that site.
Protection for anonymous postings is certainly not an absolute, but a high threshold that requires prima facie evidence supporting the plaintiff's claim is critical to ensuring that a proper balance is struck between the rights of a plaintiff (whether in a defamation or copyright case) and the privacy and free speech rights of the poster. I cannot comment on the postings themselves (and I recognize that Warman has been a frequent target online) but I fear that the high threshold seems to have been abandoned here, with the court all-too-eager to dismiss the privacy considerations associated with mandated disclosure by not engaging in an analysis as to whether the evidentiary standard was met.The Kiki scene is blowing up out of New York. But veterans of the voguing community know it’s no passing trend. This is a subculture backed by some serious history – and it’s got the political bite to prove it.
The Kiki scene is blowing up out of New York. But veterans of the voguing community know it’s no passing trend. This is a subculture backed by some serious history – and it’s got the political bite to prove it.
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At a 24-hour restaurant in Manhattan favoured for its people watching, Gia Love is drawing glances from other diners.
Wearing black jeans and a tank top, the tall 25-year-old cuts a distinct figure: flicking and smoothing a hip-length brown weave as she describes her first experience of a ball.
“I felt like it was a space where I could be myself,” she says of the Hetrick Martin Institute, a non-profit dedicated to serving the needs of LGBT youth. “And there’s not many spaces where people like me, a trans woman of colour, can be ourselves.”
Gia and her four siblings were raised in the Bronx by a single mother who did the best she could with the little they had. Although her family struggled to accept Gia’s gender presentation when she was younger, she was determined to be herself.
She features in new documentary Kiki – a colloquial term for ‘just having fun’ – which explores a ballroom subculture of the same name. If it wasn’t for ballroom, Gia says, she would have never known what it’s like to be accepted for her true self.
For those unfamiliar, ballroom refers to an extension of the New York drag circuit which first emerged during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.
But as much as these carnivalesque pageants celebrated sexual and gender nonconformity – championing dance moves and fashion styles that defied the grey categories of the era – they were typically presided over by white men.
By the 1960s, Harlem’s black community developed its own exclusive events where participants would vogue – a stylised dance that was all angular body movements and model-like poses – and ‘walk the ball’ under different themes and categories, from ‘realness’ to ‘vogue femme’ and beyond.
It all took root at locations like Rockland Palace, which is revisited in the documentary as an homage to ballroom’s history. The scene exploded with its own self-styled energy but it would be another 30 years before the world cottoned on.
In 1990, Madonna catapulted ballroom’s moves into the global spotlight with her hit single ‘Vogue’. And in 1991, cult documentary Paris is Burning dug at the stories and struggles at the movement’s roots. But the general consensus in the community is that the scene has evolved.
Paris is Burning may have been the mainstream’s first insight into this world but Kiki takes us straight to the present. “I didn’t feel like [Paris is Burning] represented the trans experience,” says Gia.
“Plus, things are different now. On Facebook, for example, I have a group where we talk about everything to do with race and transphobia and politics.
Even Instagram can be affirming. I think this generation are more open-minded and forward-thinking. Not that the previous generation aren’t, but I feel like we are more active and are having radical, progressive conversations about our situation.”
That outlook is what sparked Kiki, the documentary. Four years ago, Twiggy Pucci Garçon – a lynchpin of the Kiki scene – realised that the time had come to represent LGBT black and non-white identity in contemporary America with nuance.
“I was talking to my friend Chi Chi [Mizrahi] about why there hasn’t been another doc about ballroom other than Paris is Burning and How Do I Look [2006],” says Twiggy.
The 26-year-old, who’s originally from Virginia, co-wrote the film with Swedish director Sara Jordenö in order to illuminate a way of life that goes unseen. While still part of the wider ballroom community, Kiki is a youth-driven offshoot pushing for social change.
“Kiki is more than entertainment,” says Twiggy. “It has a history formed out of radical resistance to homophobia, transphobia and racism. It was created out of struggle.”
Homelessness in New York City reached a state of crisis during the 1980s. A combination of economic cutbacks, unemployment and a lack of resources to deal with the HIV epidemic forced people onto the streets in unprecedented numbers.
At its peak, demand for space at the city’s homeless shelters doubled to more than 28,000 people on any given night.
Yet ballroom culture boomed, developing its own infrastructure and spreading to other cities. Participants began banding together in alliances known as ‘houses’ under the guidance of a ‘house mother’ or team leader, with each family boasting its own distinct identity and culture.
These houses formed an underground social network: essential not just for mobilising and organising events but for offering marginalised figures a sense of community.
Today ballroom is international, with parties taking place everywhere from Paris to Tokyo.
The Kiki scene in particular serves as a safe haven where at-risk gay and trans youth (mostly aged between 12 and 24) can become better equipped to deal with life beyond the balls.
Whereas mainstream voguing embraces competition and high-fashion, Kiki also focuses on DIY attitude and social activism.
The Kiki Coalition – an overarching body made up of various outreach services – aims to reclaim public spaces by organising balls everywhere from school gyms and warehouses to clubs and community centres.
“My favourite theme was ‘intergalactic avant-garde and haute couture’ – all in one look,” says Twiggy of a recent ball. “I spent seven hours in make-up where an artistdid my entire body with prosthetics and stones. The dress took, like, two months to make.”
Twiggy is mother to the House of P.U.C.C.I., a name partly inspired by designer Emilio Pucci but also an acronym for Peers United for Community Causes Initiative.
As a teenager in Virginia, Twiggy volunteered at a community health organisation and followed that pursuit to New York, where – despite being forced to couch-surf while struggling to make ends meet – he became an influential advocate in areas such as sexual health and substance use prevention.
Twiggy now focuses on tackling LGBT youth homelessness through his day job with non-profit organisation the True Colors Fund.
And, as the documentary makes clear, there’s a sharp contrast between the glitz of ballroom and the everyday life of dancers struggling to survive on the streets.
One scene in particular suggests that while same-sex legislation felt like a win for the white gay community, homeless trans women of colour are left fighting a very different battle. Transgender people are being murdered at a historic rate worldwide.
Last year saw a record 22 reported cases in the US and a further 14 this year at the time of writing – almost all of whom are women of colour – though the Human Rights Campaign believes the true number may be far higher.
In June, a gunman opened fire on an LGBT nightclub in Florida, killing 49 people – the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
The statistics tend to leave many in the ballroom community feeling that when it comes to matters of gay rights in the US, non-white LGBT issues go ignored. And there are signs on the horizon that things could get worse.
“Being exposed to Trump is very scary,” says Twiggy. “It makes you realise that oppression is real, racism is real, transphobia is real. I’m concerned that right-wing leadership will be a halt to where we are in the movement. We’re at a phase where we just can’t afford that.”
So how can Kiki make a lasting cultural and social impact beyond the ball?
For the older generation of voguers, it’s crucial that mainstream audiences give ballroom culture the credit it deserves. I hear about performance artist Derek Auguste countless times before I finally meet him at a BBQ joint on West 23rd and 8th Avenue in Manhattan.
Best known under his stage name ‘Jamel Prodigy’, the 32-year-old has achieved the honour of ‘legendary status’ in the voguing scene over the last 15 years.
“Can I just say this…” he says, pointedly. “Voguing is not a trend… You see these brands and artists trying to cash in on vogue? That is what appropriation looks like.
“Yesterday you didn’t see it but today, because Sarah over in the suburbs is doing it, it’s the fab new thing! Now the Hamptons are voguing… while we’ve been voguing on the pier, on our own, for years!”
As a teenager attending dance school in Harlem, Derek often missed out on big roles because of his height (5ft 7in), which affected his confidence. But finding an outlet at balls unlocked his passion for vogue.
He now works as a dance teacher and, over the last two years, has become a frequent collaborator of FKA Twigs – the experimental British dancer, singer and producer – after she approached him for lessons at Vogue Knights, a weekly ballroom event.
In person, he’s charismatic and full of energy, gesticulating enthusiastically over a plate of wings and fried okra.
“Vogue is expression,” he says. “It’s catharsis. It’s taking your energy to a place of beauty and letting all that transphobia and racism and negativity out in the most fab way.”
Simply put, vogue is a fluid but ferocious dance based on (roughly speaking) five elements: catwalk, spins, duck walking, dips and hand performance. For figures like Derek – who’s trained in classical, jazz and tap – this is a craft worth investing in.
“Are people going to pay dancers from the community to vogue at their shows? Are they going to allow these kids to make a living from their art?” he says, his joviality cracking into frustration at how the scene has been consumed and portrayed in the past.
“After Paris is Burning, people just thought that these fab young kids were all HIV-positive and had nothing else going on creatively, you know? But it’s like, hello? Some of these people are students and artists and community organisers – yet all you care about is how cute their spins are.”
Derek wants to show the world that black culture is multidimensional. As part of that mission, he’s using vogue culture to establish himself in art spaces “where there’s not a lot of people like us”.
When we meet, he’s recently completed a performance piece at the Tribeca Gallery, throwing paint inside a plexiglass cube while voguing to the beats of DJ Mike Q (‘the crown prince of modern ballroom’) and FKA Twigs.
“Why can’t we push boundaries?” he says. “Why can’t we be stepping out of the clubs and be making art history?”
To reinforce how far the possibilities can be pushed, Derek takes me out that evening to an exhibition afterparty in Harlem for fellow multidisciplinary artist Rashaad Newsome.
Inside, the dance floor is dominated by a circle of voguers trying to outperform each other as commentator Kevin JZ Prodigy sets the pace, shouting ‘Cunt!’ on the beat at double speed.
Arms are outstretched, fingers are pointed and backs are slammed into death-drops.
The soundtrack shifts between rapper Cakes Da Killa (who jumps up on a bench to deliver an impromptu performance), DJ MikeQ, classic ballroom tracks by Byrell the Great as well as chopped and screwed versions of Aaliyah, Beyonce and Missy Elliot.
You can see why superficial readings might miss the urgency, solidarity and jubilance underpinning it all: as an outsider, it’s a euphoric experience to witness.
But when we leave the party in the early hours and make our way to the subway, pointed stares make it clear that voguing in the street can quickly feel like an unwelcome source of tension.
That part of the experience doesn’t seem to have changed. The next day, in Rashaad’s Brooklyn studio, we drink coffee on his white leather couch surrounded by the beautifully crafted collage pieces he’s been working on.
Influenced by his work with trans women in the community, they’re pieced together using jewels and photos from ‘urban glamour mags’ – like King and Black Lingerie – with the aim of sparking discussion around black bodies and agency.
“Our art has never been invested in,” says Rashaad, who’s been part of the voguing community for over 14 years.
“Can you make a living as a vogue dancer like you can with these Eurocentric art forms? No. Vogue was co-opted very early in its creation, like so many other things in black cultural history. But we can still push our art further, out of ballrooms and into galleries and art spaces.”
Later in the day, Derek takes me to another place featured in the documentary: the now infamous Village pier that serves as a congregation space for the community.
As the sun sets, it becomes a hive of activity: teenagers are voguing, discussing the cost of ’mones [hormones], yelling words of encouragement – “Your hair is cute”, “I’m gagging!” – while music blasts in the background.
It’s here, in the real world, away from cameras and exhibition spaces, where the community is truly coalescing.
Stepping into that world, even briefly, feels like glimpsing America’s future play out in its best possible light at a point in history when things could swing either way.
The more people you meet in the ballroom community, the more you hear stories of the moment someone walked into a space that transformed how they see themselves.
It’s those quiet, unassuming moments – moments of reflection amid something much greater – where self-determination can trigger a broader change.
“The first time I went to a ball, I was 14,” says Twiggy. “I was like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ On one hand I was afraid and overwhelmed.
“On the other hand, I was excited and felt celebratory because it’s so intense and so high energy. It was the most LGBT people I had ever been around in one space. I was like, ‘Who are these people? Is this who I am? Is this me?’”
This article appears in Huck 56 – The Independence Issue. Buy it in the Huck Shop now or subscribe today to make sure you never miss another issue.
Find out more about Kiki the documentary. Check out photographer Krisanne Johnson’s portfolio.
Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.Photo: Tom Andrews
We first learned about Mark Oshiro while following his Twitter updates as he marched on the Mormon Temple in Los Angeles last week. Under the name Panasonicyouth, he provided other protesters and interested folks with a play by play of what was happening. Then an update appeared: “Holy shit some asshole in a truck” and he went silent. In a sign of how much the internet is shaping the protests, Twitter users spread news that something had happened to Oshiro and even ABC7 got involved in the story.
Hours later, another update: “pacific station. arrested. help”. Oshiro, who along with his co-worker Richard Flores, was released later that night and are facing charges from the LAPD. Queerty asked him about the experience, what happens now and his advice to future protesters.
QUEERTY: I know you can’t talk about the events leading up to your arrest, but can you tell me what happened after?
Mark Oshiro: Richard and I were both arrested after trying to help Maurice Carriere (the protester assaulted by the guy in the truck with the Yes on 8 poster). For what? We didn’t know, as we weren’t told (definitively) what our charges were going to be for over two and a half hours. We spent a lot of time handcuffed to a bench with our heads against a wall. My blog entry on the ordeal goes into detail more about the whole experience, but suffice to say it was pretty traumatizing, especially when you learn you’re charged with battery on a peace officer. I mean, really, I couldn’t imagine a worse charge.
My brother thankfully bailed me out around 11:30pm and my best friend Ramon was kind enough to bail Richard out (literally) right before midnight. If he had been 5 minutes later, Richard would have had to stay in jail all night.
Why were you protesting? I know that sounds like an obvious question, but I think it’s one people want to know.
Both gay rights and civil rights are important issues to me, so I’ve been protesting various causes since I was in high school. I had learned of the protest outside the Mormon temple at the rally the night before in West Hollywood. I felt there was nothing more symbolic than protesting outside of a church that told its followers to pass a proposition that didn’t affect them, but affected those they were voting against. I’d met gay couples who had become married since our state Supreme Court had overturned Prop 22 and saw how destroyed they were that their marriage license might be dissolved because of a popular vote. It seemed, to me, to be imperative that, as a gay man and as an activist, I show up and give my support and my voice to those who didn’t have it or who it needed it in unison with theirs.
You were Twittering while protesting and while you were arrested, people started talking about what was happening to you via Twitter. When did you find out you’d become an internet sensation? How did you feel?
Oh man, thank the LORD for Twitter. I don’t know if anyone would have even known Rich and I were in jail if it wasn’t for that godsend. I had no idea if anyone knew what happened to us, so while I was being booked in, I asked for my phone to get phone numbers out to call my brother and my mom. (This wasn’t actually a lie; I seriously didn’t know their numbers.) While the officer was talking to the booking officer, I tried to send a Twitter; my service went out immediately after I hit send. So I opened my web browser and tried sending one that way. I got the numbers out of my phone in the meantime and was then ordered to shut off my phone. And that’s when my infamous Twitter was sent out to the world: “pacific station. arrested. help.” Even when I Twitter, I’m melodramatic. Awesome.
It wasn’t until I was bailed out and turned on my phone that I realized the full scope of the last 11 hours. I literally had so many text messages my SIM card on my Sidekick went haywire. I had so many emails, it exceeded the capacity on my phone. Then my friends in the lobby all told me about the liveblog on Buzznet and the ridiculous Twitter strings and the existence of a video they described as “disturbing” and “horrifying.”
What’s going on with your case now?
I wish I knew! Richard and I spoke with the LA Gay and Lesbian Center’s legal department yesterday and set up a consultation meeting; we have an appointment with a Lambda Legal lawyer later this afternoon. So, as far as we know, we’re still charged with battery on a peace officer. Our court date is December 3rd.
All we’re doing is trying to spread the word about what happened to us and the importance of this issue, both here in California and in the rest of the country. Richard’s not too keen on the spotlight, but I myself am terrified of seeing this swept under the rug. I know how often cases like this fall off the radar so quickly and perhaps because I’m personally involved, I really don’t want to see this happen.
There are protests scheduled for tomorrow in New York and across the country. What words of advice do you have for demonstrators?
Don’t be anti-religious bigots, for one. Protest a church’s involvement in an election and protest their contribution to passing Prop 8. But don’t turn it into a free-for-all on that church’s tenets or members. One, it makes absolutely no sense to do that. Why protest the Mormon church’s practice of polygamy, which was outlawed AGES AGO? It’s no longer relevant. Why protest anything else they believe in? Protest what they did, not who they are.
Don’t be racist. While I don’t agree with the number of “70%” when it comes to how many people in the black community voted for Prop 8, there’s no denying the rampant homophobia that runs through that community. But holy fuck, please do not turn this into a racist tirade against black people. Not only is it not the point of the protest, but you’re perpetrating the same hatred and ignorance you’re charging them with. Grow up and be mature about your charges against them. Again, protest what they did, not who they are.
Do you plan on continuing to protest?
Absolutely. I went to the gigantic protest in Silverlake last Saturday; I’ll be attending a rally on the 15th, along with hundreds of thousands of other people around the world. And I’m trying to find a way to Sacramento on the 22nd to (hopefully) be one of a million people there.
I just plan on walking the opposite direction whenever I see riot gear.This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
A 6.7 magnitude earthquake hit northeast India in the early hours of Jan. 4, rattling eastern India, Bangladesh, and parts of Myanmar.
The quake killed at least nine people and injured nearly 200, Reuters reported, adding that rescue efforts have been hampered by disrupted electricity supply and severed telecommunication links.
The epicentre was 29 kilometres away from Imphal, the capital city of India’s Manipur state, which straddles the Indo-Myanmar border, the US Geological Survey (USGS) reported.
USGS
Social media posts showed the damage to buildings in Imphal, including Ima Keithel, a major women-run market in the city centre.
A National Disaster Response Force team has already arrived in Imphal, India’s defence ministry said. A three-member team from the health ministry is also likely to reach the state by Jan. 5.
Other large cities in the region including Guwahati and Kolkata in India and Bangladesh’s capital city of Dhaka also felt the quake but no significant damage has been reported so far.
India’s northeastern region lies at the northern end of the Indian plate, a major tectonic plate that is in constant friction with the Eurasian plate. Friction between the two plates triggered the massive earthquake in Nepal last April, which killed over 8,000 people and displaced thousands more in the Himalayan nation.
The last big earthquake to hit Assam was on Aug. 15, 1950. The 8.6 magnitude quake had its epicentre in eastern Tibet but wreaked havoc across northeast India, killing thousands. This is how a 1974 study (pdf) of the earthquake described its impact:Traffic chaos is expected across Canterbury when the city’s three main level crossings are shut on the same day.
Council officers have given the green light for barriers to remain down for 24 hours in St Dunstan’s Street, St Stephen’s Road and Sturry.
All three crossings will shut for unconnected reasons on Sunday, June 4, sending motorists on diversion routes around the city.
Sturry level crossing
The train line between Ashford and Ramsgate, via Canterbury West, will also be closed throughout the day for maintenance works.
KCC says while permission would not typically be given to close the crossings simultaneously, there are “exceptional reasons” for granting the request from Network Rail.
The St Dunstan’s Street crossing will close to enable Network Rail to deliver machinery and technical equipment to complete work on the line between Canterbury West and Chartham.
St Dunstan's level crossing
It says the crossing is the only viable access point from which the work can be delivered.
The crossing in St Stephen’s Road will shut so work to repair the damaged road surface - which started earlier this year - can be completed.
Kent County Council says the work requires “specialised equipment” which has been booked for use on that day, saying “any deferral would result in significant delay to this work being delivered”.
St Stephen's Road level crossing
Sturry’s level crossing will shut for “scheduled maintenance work”.
A KCC spokeman said: “We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the longer diversionary routes in operation on Sunday, June 4, but accept that access is required by Network Rail at these crossings on this date for urgent work to be undertaken.
“It is also preferable to have all the engineering work required at these crossings to be undertaken on one day when the railway line is shut between Ashford International and Ramsgate, via Canterbury West, rather than to spread this essential maintenance work over several days, requiring separate line closures.”A Skowhegan propane dealer who said he’ll no longer deliver to supporters of President-elect Donald Trump called the Republican “the Antichrist,” but that he wouldn’t cut off freezing customers.
If you call Turner LP Gas in Skowhegan, you get a message from owner Michael Turner: “If you voted for Donald Trump for president, I will no longer be delivering your gas,” it says. “Please find someone else.”
Reached on Friday night, Turner said he recorded the message on Election Day. After media learned of it earlier that day, he said he had 50 voicemails. Most of them were from angry Trump supporters, but he said one of four were supportive.
He said Trump is “despicable” and said, “I think he’s the Antichrist,” though the Skowhegan native and veteran said his family likely all voted for the president-elect because of his stances on gun rights and abortion.
“It’s just a statement,” Turner said. “If you voted for Trump, don’t tell me and I wouldn’t cut anyone off that was freezing.”
Turner could be turning away a lot of business, given that the Republican president-elect won Somerset County with 58 percent of votes.
Some cases like this have already garnered national attention after Trump’s win over Democrat Hillary Clinton, including a New Mexico marketing firm that refused to do business with Trump supporters.
The Maine Human Rights Act bans discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry or national origin. Some places have added political beliefs to these kinds of protections, with Washington, D.C., shielding “political affiliation” and Seattle adding “political ideology.”
So while it may not be good public relations, Turner’s move is legal. He said he’s not fearful for his business because he’s retiring soon, and he’s mulling becoming more politically active.
“He’s surrounding himself with white supremacists, racists, and now he’s got a bunch of generals going into his cabinet,” Turner said of Trump. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled a Fidel Castro: Declare martial law and take over.”Have you heard? Cider is having a moment. Yes, I know, of course you’ve heard!
It seems that excitement about (hard) cider has reached a fever pitch as food journalists here, there, and everywhere have taken note that it is the fastest growing alcoholic beverage category.
Shop the Story
It was America’s original favorite spirituous beverage and cold regions' answer to wine. Popularity and interest in cider has grown as craft cider makers have moved away from easy, fruity, fizzy and have rediscovered the art of making cider that is intense, funky, and makes you think.
It should be no great surprise, then, that clever bartenders have taken note of this interesting ingredient and started to shake and stir it up with other spirits to concoct cider cocktails. Brown spirits like rum, bourbon, or rye that have definite molasses, caramel, vanilla, and spice leanings are easy, natural fits for the apple flavors of ciders.
All you need to do is upend a shot of one of these spirits into a glass of cider—opt for a cider that is not sweet but also not completely dry, so it still has a bit of sugar and apple flavor—and you’ll have yourself a pleasant cocktail for sipping.
On the other hand, as the alcohol content of the cider goes up, the sugar recedes (remember: there’s a trade-off between sugar and alcohol because as the yeast eats the sugar it makes a higher alcohol and a drier tasting final product). This leaves behind flavors of earth, mushrooms, and barnyard (the, um, pleasant kind of barnyard), which will be more complicated with your mixology.
Good dry cider, of the sparkling sort (not all hard cider is sparkling), reminds me in some ways of a complex dry Champagne, and I like to put it to use in various cocktails that you could group and categorize as the extended family of the French 75. Shake an ounce of blended Scotch with 1/2 ounce of lemon juice, and 3/4 ounce maple syrup and top it with a few ounces of your dry cider, for example. It’s like a drinkable version of a Robert Frost poem about fall.
The Pink Lady-inspired cider cocktail
Or, you can mash-up a French 75 and the Pink Lady, another classic gin cocktail that usually gets its (dry, boozy) apple flavors from apple brandy. In this iteration, shake an ounce |
roughly 50 daily flights that will be affected by the ban come from those three airlines, which have made huge gains on legacy carriers in North American and Western European airlines in recent years.
Governments heavily subsidize the operations of all three, allowing them to offer better service at lower prices than other carriers. Which is why biggest three U.S. airlines — American, Delta and United — have lobbied the Trump administration to crack down on those practices which they call unfair.
"These airlines have been very, very nervous ever since Trump came into office that they may be in the target sights," Farrell said. So this move could be nothing more than "the Trump administration is giving U.S. airlines a boost by knocking down their competitors."
That's because they all cater to high-end Western business travellers by giving access to Asia on luxurious planes via a hub-and-spoke system — and all their main hubs have just been made less desirable.
"If you're a business class or first class passenger," Farrel says, "you're probably going to be quite worried" about not having access to your laptop during a 15-hour flight. "You're very likely to choose a different airline."
Perhaps there's an unknown or secret logic. But as presented and reported, this electronics ban makes absolutely no sense. —@tweetsintheME
Others agree with that assessment. "It may not have been directed at the three Gulf airlines, but there will be collateral damage to those carriers," San Francisco-based travel analyst Henry Harteveldt said. "The question is how much."
Differing security rules and protocols at different airports has added to the confusion in the interconnected air travel network. Canada hasn't immediately moved to match the new rules, but that's a clear possibility eventually.
"A decision on whether to implement a similar ban respecting large electronics on flights to Canada will be made shortly," Transport Canada said in a statement to CBC News.
"For security reasons, we cannot elaborate on aviation security concerns. Transport Canada continuously assesses our security and makes adjustments whenever needed."
Security issues aside, Farrell says one obvious impact will be to compel travellers between the West and Asia to choose their routes more carefully.
Winners here are US legacy carriers and their European alliance partners. Now have to fly to, say, Istanbul via Frankfurt, London, or Paris —@TomPepinsky
"If you're trying to travel onwards on to India, you might be best advised to travel with a different airline," he says.
That describes Paula Berger to a tee. The energy company manager was trying feverishly on Tuesday to rebook an upcoming business trip scheduled to depart from Houston through Dubai and on to her company's branch office in Hyderabad, India.
"I've been spending hours this morning trying to find a way to reroute us without it costing $5,000, but I haven't found anything," Berger said. "We might have to suck it up."Prosecutors say Darreck Enciso allegedly posted a Craigslist ad seeking women who would engage in sexual acts. (Photo courtesy OC District Attorney's Office)
SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) — A Disneyland employee faced charges Monday in offering free tickets to the Anaheim theme park to an undercover police officer who he believed to be a 14-year-old girl in exchange for sex acts.
Darreck Michael Enciso, 27, of Adelanto was scheduled to be arraigned Monday afternoon on one felony count each of attempted lewd act on a child, contacting a child with the intent to commit a specified sex crime and meeting a minor with the intent to engage in lewd conduct.
Prosecutors say Enciso allegedly posted a Craigslist ad dated July 1 seeking women who would engage in sexual acts in exchange for tickets to Disneyland.
A Huntington Beach police officer contacted the defendant and set up a meeting, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors say when Enciso showed up for the meeting July 9 “with condoms and Disneyland tickets” in hand, he was arrested.
If convicted, Enciso faces a maximum sentence of over four years in state prison and mandatory lifetime sex offender registration.
Disneyland Resort’s Suzi Brown released a statement regarding Enciso on Monday evening.
“He was immediately relieved of his duties as a dishwasher.”Image copyright AP Image caption President Park was marking the 1919 uprising against Japanese colonial rule
South Korean President Park Geun-hye has warned Japan it will only bring isolation on itself if it reviews a statement acknowledging its wartime use of sex slaves.
She called on Japan to embrace "truth and reconciliation".
Japan apologised in 1993 to survivors of the many thousands of women who were forced into army brothels.
On Friday Tokyo said it would set up a panel to review the evidence on which that apology was based.
Some conservatives in Japan have claimed that the women, known euphemistically as "comfort women", were prostitutes - something fiercely denied by the women and by Japan's neighbours.
President Park's warning came in a speech marking the anniversary of a 1919 uprising in Korea against Japanese colonial rule.
"Historical truth is in testimony from the survivors," she said.
"Japan would only bring isolation on itself if it turns a deaf ear to their testimony and sweeps it under the rug for political benefits."
President Park urged Japan to follow the example of Germany in repenting its past wrongs so that their two countries could "move forward for a new era of co-operation, peace and prosperity".
"I hope Japan extricates itself from denial of history and starts making a new history of truth and reconciliation", she said.
Image copyright AP Image caption A museum to some of the comfort women was set up in a nursing home in Toechon, South Korea
Some 200,000 women in territories occupied by Japan during World War Two are estimated to have been forced to become sex slaves for troops.
Many of the women came from China and Korea, but also from the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan.
The 1993 acknowledgement from Japan was viewed as a landmark apology.
Issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, the statement acknowledged that women had been coerced, and that the Japanese military had been involved in the establishment and management of the process.
His statement was based in part on evidence given by 16 Korean women.
However, Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said on Friday that a team would be formed to review the lead-up to the 1993 statement.
He said the team would "re-examine and understand the background".
He did not say whether Japan would issue a new statement following the review.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama has urged against any revision of the apology.
Mr Murayama, who was prime minister from June 1994 to January 1996, said that the Kono statement was based on evidence.Shops to be banned from displaying tobacco products
Meltem Özgenç – ANKARA
Cigarette packages will no longer be displayed in shops selling tobacco products and new regulations on their sales will be implemented, according to a statement by the Health Ministry.The statement also said cigarette brands will no longer be visible on packages according to the new regulation.Recep Akdağ, the health minister, said the rate of smokers over the age of 15 increased from 23.2 percent to 27.3 percent in the last four years, in a speech he delivered at parliament’s planning and budget commission.Akdağ’s plan aims to start a serious campaign against the use of tobacco products, adding that cigarettes would be placed in closed cabinets in shops and plain packaging for cigarettes would be introduced.The display ban came after a series of smoking regulations were implemented earlier this year under former Health Minister Mehmet Müezzinoğlu who prohibited the sale of all sorts of cigarettes on university campuses and reduced the number of outdoor public spaces for smokers.According to a study by Ankara-based Hacettepe University, almost 100,000 people die earlier than expected in Turkey each year due to smoking-related illnesses.Share This Story Tweet Share Share Pin Email
Detroit — Detroit has had more homes foreclosed in the past 10 years than the total number of houses in several suburbs — or all of Buffalo, New York.
Since 2005, more than 1-in-3 Detroit properties — 139,699 of 384,672 — have been foreclosed because of mortgage defaults or unpaid taxes, property records show. The vast majority are houses, and the tally is so huge it shocked even those who spent years working on foreclosure in Detroit.
"When you see it on a map, it's absolutely terrifying," said Chris Uhl, a vice president of the Skillman Foundation that is working to prevent foreclosures.
To get a sense of the loss, consider all the houses in Warren, Livonia, Royal Oak, Southfield and Allen Park.
Empty them. The number is still less than all the foreclosures in Detroit.
"Even if you are deeply involved, you can't help but be staggered by these numbers," said Steve Tobocman, a former state representative who served as co-director of the Michigan Foreclosure Task Force.
> Explore a database and map of tax-foreclosed homes in Detroit
"It's not just 140,000 properties. It's people living in those properties. The number of lives affected is just staggering."
The Detroit News compiled its findings using records from CoreLogic and RealtyTrac, real estate tracking firms, and the Wayne County Treasurer's Office, which forecloses on homes after three years of tax nonpayment. The News' analysis is the first to combine both types of foreclosure, giving a better sense of damage that some say is comparable to a natural disaster.
In Detroit, homes lost to foreclosure are often never re-occupied: 76 percent of the 84,000 properties on the city's blight list are foreclosures, according an inventory of housing conditions by the Detroit Blight Task Force.
Taxpayers pay for the damage, from demolition costs and declining property values to diminished quality of life. On the 8200 block of Faust near Joy on the city's west side, city crews last fall razed six bungalows that had been foreclosed since 2005. Much work remains: All but seven of 24 homes on the block have been foreclosed in the past 10 years.
CLOSE Talise Banks talks about the past decade, when homeowners could not meet mortgage payments and keep up the appearance of their houses. Clarence Tabb Jr., The Detroit News
"People come around and see no neighbors, so they steal, rob and strip," said Talise Banks, 30, a single mother of two young boys. "They come by, take out windows, hot water heaters and whatever else from homes. There're just a lot of problems."
When she bought in 2002, all homes on the block were occupied. Her mortgage payment is $900 per month for a home appraised at $5,000. She owes $82,000 on the mortgage for the 900-square-foot home.
Banks said she's lost more in break-ins than her home is worth today: Four TVs, a laptop, a tablet, a digital camera, a lawn mower and more.
“You don't keep anything valuable here. Young guys are always trying to get in. I'd like to get some expensive stuff, but with no alarm system, I'd be a fool.” Lem Wade, Faust Street resident
By her count, there are more raccoons, 18, in one empty house on the block than there are people. There are about 10 people, including her neighbor, Lem Wade.
"You don't keep anything valuable here," said Wade, who has lived in a rental on Faust for five years. "Young guys are always trying to get in. I'd like to get some expensive stuff, but with no alarm system, I'd be a fool."
More foreclosures are on the way. Wayne County Treasury officials plan to foreclose on another 28,545 city properties for nonpayment of taxes at online auctions this fall. About 10,000 are occupied, and county officials extended the deadline to make payment plans to June 8.
Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac, a California company that tracks real estate, said the double whammy of tax and mortgage foreclosures accelerates the decline of neighborhoods.
Detroit is fourth in mortgage foreclosures over the past 10 years, behind Las Vegas, Phoenix and Chicago. But Detroit had far more tax foreclosures, 110,000, than those cities, and its housing prices have slumped the most: Homes sold for $22,000 on average in the city last fall, down 73 percent from its peak before the housing market crash, RealtyTrac records show.
That is by far the lowest among 50 big cities. Cleveland was second lowest with $66,000. The fall national average for home sale prices was $193,000.
"It's almost unbelievable unless you drive by and see houses selling for $500," Blomquist said. "No matter how you look at the data, Detroit keeps popping up as having the deck stacked against it."
Kurt Metzger, director emeritus of Data Driven Detroit and mayor of Pleasant Ridge, analyzed foreclosures for Detroit's Office of Foreclosure Prevention and Response. He said foreclosure "affected everything: housing stock, neighborhoods. It exacerbated crime, blight, the loss of city services and taxable incomes."
Those losses are harder to quantify.
Detroit's population fell by nearly 240,000 residents from 2000 to 2010, to about 700,000. The foreclosure crisis raged for at least five of those years, and Metzger said there's "certainly an argument that many residents were forced out" of the city by foreclosure, but it's impossible to determine.
Declining property values alone cost Detroiters an estimated $1.3 billion in personal wealth in 2012, according to a 2013 report by an anti-foreclosure group, the Alliance for a Just Society.
Add in incalculable costs of arson, blight, crime — as well as social costs — and Tobocman said foreclosure's toll on Detroit rivals that experienced in the 1967 riots. That unrest cost $100 million in property damage — $700 million in today's dollars — and accelerated a population decline that had already begun in Detroit.
"In terms of tax base, destruction to the physical landscape and the number of people disappearing from the city, this (foreclosure crisis) may have been the most devastating," said Tobocman, who lives in southwest Detroit and is director of Global Detroit, a group that works to increase immigration to the city.
Detroit has averaged 15,000 to 25,000 foreclosures a year since 2006. In the late 2000s, the vast majority were mortgage foreclosures. Last year, the vast majority were tax foreclosures.
Either way, the result is often the same: An abandoned building in a city with too many of them.
It's a crisis that quietly unfolds every Thursday in the 13th floor auditorium of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, where sheriff's officials auction bank-foreclosed properties.
Late last year, Renee Jester attended the sale and wondered if she'd be homeless by the end of it.
She's rented a home on Mansfield near Outer Drive on the west side since February 2014. The home's owners stopped paying the mortgage, owing Fidelity Bank $27,591 and leading to a foreclosure notice.
Detroit has averaged up to 25,000 foreclosures a year since 2008. Every Thursday, sheriff's officials auction off the properties at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center.
(Photo: David Coates, The Detroit News)
"I'm hysterical. I don't know what to do —
if I'm going to need to find somewhere else or what," Jester said. "I'm a nervous wreck."
By law, bidders have to pay $1 more than is owed or the property reverts to the lender. Mortgage holders then have six months to work out a deal.
Jester rocked in her seat during the auction. Three Detroit homes sold. All fetched less than $1,000, including a bungalow on Grandville in northwest Detroit that sold for $470. In November 2008, at the dawn of the meltdown, the same house sold for $86,667, property records show.
The deputy read Jester's address. No bids. She wouldn't lose the home that day.
"Thank God," Jester said, as her hands shook and held a foreclosure notice.
The reprieve is temporary.
The so-called redemption period ends in late June, when the bank can take possession of the home and evict Jester.
By the numbers
36 percent of all Detroit properties went through foreclosure from 2005 to 2014.
139,699 total homes foreclosed.
56 percent of all mortgage foreclosures are blighted, need to be demolished or have been foreclosed again for nonpayment of taxes.
76 percent of the 84,000 properties on the city's blight list are foreclosures.One of the great unanswered question of our age is why Western rulers are obsessed with importing tens of millions of unassimilable foreigners into their lands. In the US, the conventional wisdom among immigration patriots is that one side of the political class wants cheap votes, while the other side wants cheap labor. In Europe, the theories range from female hysteria to poorly conceived economics. The one common thread is that across the West, the ruling elites appear to be trying to crash their cultures.
The trouble with these reductionist theories is they don’t make much sense at the individual level, so they can’t very well scale up. For example, the cheap labor argument does not hold up very well when you examine it. Helot labor is great for the business owner, just as long as he is the only guy doing it. When every landscaper is using Aztec workers, there’s little benefit to the landscaping companies. That’s not to say there is no benefit, but does it warrant the suicidal drive to import Mexico into the US?
In Europe, the cheap labor argument makes less sense. Depending upon who is counting, between 80% and 90% of migrants are on public assistance. Even if these migrants wanted to work, there is little demand for low-IQ unskilled workers. Even if there was some demand, the labor laws in Europe would make it impossible to hire them. One of the vexing problems the Euros have are restricted labor markets, that prevent the sort of labor mobility we have in the US. There’s just little demand for cheap foreign labor.
The cheap voter argument is a better one, but even so, the returns are spotty. In the US, Latin voters have been unreliable. They have very low turnout numbers, relative to other groups. Unlike blacks, they are not easily agitated into rushing out to stage big protests or shoot white people. There’s also the fact that they tend to cause the white vote to coalesce around white candidates regardless of party. That or it results in white flight, as we see in California. So far, open borders has been a disaster for white Democrats.
A similar result has been seen in Europe. The Brits are the example closest to the US for obvious reasons. Open borders has destroyed the party that advocated for it. On the continent, the anti-Euro movements are entirely driven by the immigration waves triggered by Merkel. Even docile countries run by cat ladies and cucks are starting to see the rise of nationalism and anti-immigrant parties. Exactly no where is immigration helping the political class. Yet, the ruling class is universally in favor of open borders.
The fact is, there are no good political or economic arguments in favor of mass immigration. In some places, the arguments have some plausibility, but even the best nuts and bolts arguments in favor of elevated immigration levels don’t justify the high political and cultural costs. Yet, our political classes have an unshakable loyalty to foreign migrants. In every Western nation, the smart political play is to oppose high immigration levels. In many countries, banning all immigration is overwhelmingly popular.
There must be something else at work, beyond money and power. Even if we extend the bounds of the ruling class beyond the elected class and their attendants, there’s no upside for the elites. Why is Mark Zuckerberg berserk for high immigration? He’s even in favor of importing Muslims. The same is true for Hollywood people. They get nothing from open borders, other than fewer job opportunities. Ditto the mass media. About the only thing the self-actualizing classes get from open borders is domestic labor.
That may be the key to it. I’ve pointed out before that the self-actualizing class may prefer Spanish landscapers, as it avoids them having to see blacks raking leaves, while singing old fashioned negro work songs. It also avoids seeing downscale whites, who remind them of the tenuousness of their position. Asian and Caribbean domestics not only avoid those problems, but everyone can pretend they make better workers in those roles. The Korean nanny is like a tiger mom for hire. It makes the deception more palatable.
The underlying cause here may be narcissistic altruism. It is generally assumed that altruism is selfless, while narcissism is selfish. That may not be the correct framing, as lots of people do charity work because it makes them feel good. Similarly, lots of self-absorbed people commit public acts of piety because it makes them look good and elevates their status. The guy funding the museum and demanding his name be over the front door is not acting from pure selflessness. He wants glory too.
It has always been known that men often become more religious as they grow older, often returning to the religion of their youth in a serious way. The pattern is not as obvious with women as they much more likely to stay in their church as young adults. Young mothers will often get involved with their church for family services and socializing with other mothers. Men, on the other hand, often have a religious awakening in their middle years and not only return to their religion, but do so with vigor.
George Vaillant was a researcher at Harvard and did a 50 year study on men, tracking them from their teens to old age. One of the areas he studied was altruism and he found that as the men aged, their altruism increased significantly. This was not simply due to selflessness. Helping others becomes increasing rewarding as we age. Neuroimaging has revealed that helping others brings pleasure to the person providing the help. Altruism activates brain centers that are associated with selfish pleasures like sex.
Organized religion, obviously, provides a ready made structure into which this selfish desire to help others can flow. Not only does organized religion have structured charity, it comes with a spiritually rewarding purpose and generations of others who have followed the same path. The female desire to provide charity is funneled into activities that support the community the church serves. The late onset male altruism follows on providing money and intellectual capital to society-strengthening altruism.
Again, this is not pure selflessness. When you volunteer at your church, you feel good about it, because the pleasure centers of your brain are stimulated. It could simply be that as we age, the vanity of youth is no longer effective. To get the same pleasure from life, that desire for selfish pleasure (sex, wealth, status), is redirected into other areas like church participation and charitable giving. Doing good makes the person feel good for having voluntarily done a good work on behalf of their fellows.
The collapse of organized religion, particularly among the Cloud People, is leaving them with no structured outlet for this normal human impulse. The reason a Lyndsay Graham cares more about Dreamers, than his fellow South Carolinians is he feels like he is helping those who need help. It’s why John McCain spent the last three decades chanting about “causes greater than yourself.” Without a structure into which his narcissistic altruism could flow, he searched around for causes and purposes, most of which were destructive.E-Learning Storyboards RECAP #48: Challenge | Recap
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, storyboards are critical to e-learning success. Whether you’re using text-based storyboards or detailed visual storyboards, there’s a storyboard format for every project and course designer.
This week's challenge features free storyboard templates, tips and insights, and even video tutorials! Please take some time to read and comment on the uber helpful storyboard articles your fellow community members shared this week.
A big E-Learning Heroes shoutout to first-time challengers Ajay Gupta, Gena Hocson, and Nicola Redfearn! Thanks for joining the challenges. We're really glad you're here.
New to the challenges?
If you have a blog, please consider writing about your challenges. We’ll link back to your posts so the great work you’re sharing gets even more exposure. If you share your demos on Twitter, try using #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can track your e-learning coolness.
Have a great week, E-Learning Heroes!
Patricio’s desk and storyboard example | e-Learning Ninja | @patob2000
Download Storyboard Template | Serious Learning (Jeff) | NuggetHead Studioz (Kevin) | @elearningjeff @LearnNuggets
What’s in an e-learning storyboard? | @MelMilloway
The Challenge of Storyboarding (+Free Template!) | @jackietrains
Storyboard Templates for E-Learning | @amdchiasson
E-Learning Challenge: Storyboarding | @ElearninCanBfun
Download Nicola’s Storyboard Template | Nicola Redfearn
E-Learning Storyboards
Storyboarding Essentials Screencast
3 Ways to Storyboard Your E-Learning Course
Storyboards for e-Learning | @bridgehillLS
Free Product Tour Template in PowerPoint 2007 | @epiphanylearnin
Storyboarding 101 – Creating the Blueprint For Your eLearning | @AndrewSellonNY
Gerard Friel
Learn more & download | Gerard Friel | Website | @gerardfriel
Charles Hamper
View demo | Charles Hamper | Website | @cfhamper
Daniel Adeboye
Learn more | Daniel Adeboye | Website | @danno4krist
Linda Lorenzetti
Download (Word) | Linda Lorenzetti | Website | @lindalor
Nick Russell
View demo | Nick Russell | Benchmark Learning
John Curran
Download | John Curran | Website | @designedlearnin
Rachel Barnum
Learn more & download | Rachel Barnum | @OhThatRachel
More About the E-Learning Challenges
The weekly challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.
Share Your Storyboard Templates for E-Learning!Xfinity, NASCAR closer to deal
Editor’s note: This story is revised from the print edition.
Comcast’s Xfinity is in contract negotiations with NASCAR to become title sponsor of the sport’s secondary series.
The company’s broadband, TV and phone division is considering a five- to six-year deal valued at more than $100 million, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The potential agreement would see Xfinity pay approximately $9 million in rights fees and $9 million in media and activation in its first year as title sponsor. Its annual spend would increase in subsequent years.
Comcast declined to comment. In a statement, NASCAR said, “We anticipate NASCAR will soon be aligned with an outstanding brand that will help take this series to new heights, but out of respect for our current partner and the process, we will not comment on speculation about any potential replacements until there actually is one.”Though discussions have moved into the contract phase and NASCAR executives have begun telling officials in the sport that a sponsorship is done, the deal still faces some obstacles.
Fox Sports and Comcast-owned NBC Sports are slated to split television rights to the series from 2015 to 2024. Sources said that Fox, which declined to comment, wants assurances that Comcast will spend equally on advertising across both of the series’ rights holders, Fox and NBC, and not favor its own company, NBC.
NASCAR and Comcast are addressing other category issues as well.
Provided those issues are resolved, the deal should close and be announced in the coming weeks.
NASCAR’s Chief Sales Officer Jim O’Connell has been leading negotiations for the sanctioning body. Matt Lederer, Comcast senior director of sports brand strategy, is playing a central role for Xfinity, and Peter Intermaggio, Comcast senior vice president of marketing communications, has been involved.
The deal would represent a major accomplishment for NASCAR and fulfill one of its top business goals for the year by delivering a sponsor to replace outgoing secondary-series sponsor Nationwide Insurance, which decided last year that it wouldn’t renew its sponsorship of the Nationwide Series following the 2014 season.
The sanctioning body began its search for a replacement early this year and was asking $12 million to $15 million annually in rights fees, with media and activation commitments taking the total value of the deal to more than $25 million.
A deal of that size would have represented an increase from the approximately $10 million in rights fees that Nationwide spent for its title sponsorship of the series, but NASCAR was unable to find a replacement partner willing to pay more for a series that has seen average TV viewership per race fall from 2.09 million in 2008, Nationwide’s first year of the sponsorship, to 1.75 million this year. The number of Sprint Cup drivers who participate in the series also has dropped in recent years because full-time Cup drivers no longer can compete for a Nationwide Series championship.
Xfinity emerged as a leading candidate for the sponsorship earlier this summer, and sources said the company in July approved a total spend of approximately $18 million in 2015.
The deal was driven at Comcast by Lederer, sources said. He previously worked at Nextel when the wireless company signed its deal in 2003 to become title sponsor of NASCAR’s premier series and was familiar with the benefits of a NASCAR title sponsorship.
Comcast pursued the deal after identifying it as an opportunity to promote Xfinity while also saving money for Comcast-owned NBC, which committed to spending as much as $10 million a year on NASCAR promotion as part of its 10-year, $4.4 billion TV rights deal for the sport. Under terms of most media rights agreements, TV partners commit to spend a certain amount of marketing dollars to promote the sport on an annual basis. Sources familiar with Comcast’s negotiations said that the company could count title sponsorship of an Xfinity-backed series and subsequent promotion of that series toward its NBC marketing commitment.
Comcast renamed its cable, broadband and phone service Xfinity in 2010. The change followed Comcast’s acquisition of NBC and allowed the company to rebrand its consumer services after years of criticism from customers for everything from the price of cable packages to the quality of service.
Xfinity’s NASCAR deal would be the first national sports sponsorship Comcast has signed for its cable, broadband and phone division. It also would be its first deal in NASCAR. Three years ago Xfinity began signing sponsorships of teams in markets where Comcast services are available. It currently has more than a dozen sports sponsorships, including deals with the Atlanta Braves, Jacksonville Jaguars and Pittsburgh Steelers.
Comcast’s Xfinity operates in 40 states, is the nation’s largest distributor and the main cable operator in major U.S. cities with NASCAR tracks nearby: Atlanta, Miami, Chicago and Detroit. Comcast is awaiting FCC approval of a $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable that would expand its national footprint into NASCAR areas such as Texas and the Carolinas.
In addition to Comcast, NASCAR met with a number of companies in the auto aftermarket category, including Advance Auto Parts and AutoZone.
O’Connell, who spearheaded the sales effort, previously sold the Nationwide deal in 2007 and Camping World’s title sponsorship of the truck series in 2008. He also negotiated Sprint’s recent renewal for the top series through 2016 and Camping World’s renewal for the truck series through 2022.
GMR Marketing serves as Xfinity’s sponsorship consulting and activation agency.Top 10 Best Player Walk-up Songs In Baseball
Photo: Eric Christian Smith / Stringer(Getty Images)
Part of the fun of going to a baseball game is jamming out the music, mostly of which is played before each home at-bat.
What some people don’t realize is that those jams are specifically picked by the player, a way of hopefully pumping them up before they face a whizzing 96 mph fastball go past their face.
Walk-up music was started in the 70s by former Chicago White Sox organist Nancy Faust, who thought it would be neat to play each home player’s state songs before they came to the plate to bat. So, we essentially have Nancy to thank for what we hear today, which is mostly a lot of Drake and AC/DC.
But, here are the best songs throughout Major League Baseball which get the biggest reaction from fans. Songs that either have people jumping up and down wanting more, or, songs that have people laughing, saying to themselves, ‘What the *&^%?”
Note that some players have the ability to change their walk-up diddys often. But the following songs have been noted to have appeared for each player at least once this season.
Top 10 Best Player Walk-up Songs In Baseball:
Honorable mention:
Prince Fielder – Texas Rangers: A siren.
Yup. The dude simply plays an air raid siren before going up to bat. It’s certainly one way to get everyone’s attention!
I’ve missed you, Prince Fielder, but your walk up music is literally just a siren. pic.twitter.com/bxg4Pljs0S — kerissa (@wornwhite) April 12, 2015
Chris Sale – Chicago White Sox: “Come Sail Away” by Styx.
Only real fans will even notice the cleverness this pitcher uses before his at-bat during inter-league games. But just the piano intro alone might get some ample attention. Well done Chris. Great song for a great pitcher.
R.A. Dickey – Toronto Blue Jays / Noah Syndergaard – New York Mets: “Game of Thrones”
Both players use a part of the hit TV show’s theme song/orchestra before their at-bat. For Dickey, in the American League, this comes just a few times a year during inter-league play. Is there really any substitute for a song that makes you feel like an ancient soldier going into battle?
Francisco Cervelli – Pittsburgh Pirates / Bryce Harper – Washington Nationals: Frank Sinatra & Dean Martin
Cervelli jams to “That’s Amore” by Martin while mo-hawk wearing, beard-blazing Bryce Harper gets amped to “The Best Is Yet To Come” by Sinatra.
Who knew classic post WWII lounge music could help you hit a home run outside the bedroom?
Luis Jimenez: Boston Red Sox (earlier with Milwaukee Brewers): “La Bamba” by Richie Valens.
Jimenez is back in the minors, but earlier this year played a classic dance tune sure to get everyone moving in the stands.
Troy Tulowitzki – Toronto Blue Jays (earlier with Colorado Rockies): “The Sign” by Ace of Base.
90’s sing-along-heaven with that instantly-noticeable intro.
Mark Teixeira – New York Yankees: “Thriller” by Michael Jackson
MJ for MT? Yes, please. One of the all-time greatest songs really is a thrill to hear at the ballpark.
Charlie Blackmon – Colorado Rockies (with 5 other players): “Your Love” by the Outfield.
It’s impossible not get a stadium full of people singing this 80s one-hit-wonder every third inning before an at-bat. I’ve witnessed it. And it’s glorious.
Zach Walters – Cleveland Indians: “Let it Go” by Idena Menzel (“Frozen” soundtrack)
Although Tony Sanchez was likely first, Walters was caught using this Disney favorite. Not only is it great for the kids, but even if you’re an adult, you have to admit that this song is amazing. Hell, any of the “Frozen” songs are fantastic. Don’t agree? Just leave. Now.
Hunter Pence – San Francisco Giants: “Circle of Life” by Elton John
Go ahead. Hold up imaginary baby Simba while you make your kid hold your glove. Or, you know, just make your kid Simba.
Zack Greinke – Los Angeles Dodgers: “Careless Whisper” by George Michael
Greinke wasn’t the first to use this song, but the pitcher has certainly carried on the tradition to what started in Oakland as a joke. And it was one that went viral instantly.
Adrian Gonzalez – “El Mariachi Loco” by Mariachi Vargas De Tecalitlan.
A Mexican favorite played in Dodger Stadium, this tune will always get loads of people dancing in the stands, including myself. It even got a mention in an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball commercial for heaven’s sake. A-Gon is turning into a local folk-hero, especially with the use of this song.
Josh Helmuth is the editor of CraveOnline Sports.
Photo Credit: GettyBEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese dissident Yang Chunlin, who called for human rights to take precedence over the Olympic Games, has been sentenced to five years in jail on charges of inciting subversion, his family and lawyer said on Monday.
A mother and her child watch Chinese soldiers in riot gear walk past an advertisement for a Chinese phone company bearing the Beijing Olympics logo in the main square of the city of Kangding, located around 250 miles west of Chengdu in Sichuan Province, March 24, 2008. REUTERS/David Gray
The unemployed factory worker from the northeastern city of Jiamusi in Heilongjiang province went on trial in February after he helped nearby villagers issue a petition about disputed land last year that declared: “We don’t want the Olympics, we want human rights.”
Yang’s sister, Yang Chunping, said on Monday the reason he was jailed was because of essays he posted online that were critical of China’s parliament, the ruling Communist Party and Communism in general.
“He said he’s not guilty, and he was just exercising his freedom of speech and publication. But because courts lack legitimacy he said there was no use in appealing,” she said.
Lawyer Li Fangping confirmed the sentence but said Yang Chunlin maintained his innocence.
“He believes that he’s innocent,” Li said. “After the official verdict is given to us, he’ll have 10 days to decide what to do. So, we hope we can sit down with him so he can make a serious decision whether to appeal or not.”
The petition touched a nerve in the Communist-run country that has been going all out to prepare for the Games. China’s leadership is hoping the Games, which start in Beijing on August 8 will showcase the country’s economic prosperity and social unity.
Prosecutors had said the petition stained China’s international image and amounted to subversion.
During a visit to Beijing by British Foreign Secretary David Milibank in late February, China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi defended China’s rights record.
“People in China enjoy extensive freedom of speech,” Yang told reporters. “No one will get arrested because he said that human rights are |
to pump more oil to increase the company’s value. What is more, with copious reserves still in the ground, the Saudis may see logic in stepping up production in order to extract as much value as they can before technology and climate change dampen the world’s appetite for oil. A price of $50 a barrel may well be sustainable, but the battle of the sheikhs and the shalemen is not over yet.Boston College made it official today with the hiring of Martin Jarmond, who was previously Ohio State’s Deputy Athletic Director:
BREAKING NEWS: Boston College names Martin Jarmond as William V. Campbell Director of Athleticshttps://t.co/B3zAbEAxD9#BCEagles pic.twitter.com/YHyZVauTXM — #BCEagles (@BCEagles) April 20, 2017
Jarmond, who was a key member of Michigan State’s 1.2 billion dollar “Campaign For MSU” fundraiser and was recognized by Sports Business Daily Journal for his contributions to intercollegiate athletics by being named to its prestigious “Forty Under 40.” He oversaw Ohio State’s $120 million Athletic Director master plan as well.
He was spoken highly of by BC President Father Leahy:
“I am delighted that Martin Jarmond will be the next athletics director at Boston College,” said Fr. Leahy. “His work as deputy director of athletics at Ohio State and at Michigan State have given him not only appreciation of the opportunities and challenges of intercollegiate athletics, but also experience in how to respond effectively to them. He is a person with high energy, infectious enthusiasm, and an impressive ability to engage with people and issues.”
The energetic Jarmond also spoke to Boston College in a press release today (press conference will be on Monday):
“I am humbled and honored to serve as the William V. Campbell Director of Athletics at Boston College,” said Jarmond. “I am grateful to Fr. Leahy and Boston College for entrusting me with this role. I have always believed that the commitment to high academic standards and competing at the highest level athletically are not mutually exclusive. The opportunity to serve at a top-notch academic institution in the ACC is a dream come true for me. I am passionate about helping young people develop and integrate the intellectual, athletic, social and spiritual components of their lives. “My leadership style is consistent with BC’s values: operating with integrity, passion, and a relentless focus on getting better every day,” said Jarmond. “I can assure you that I will put in the work to make our students, alumni, and fans proud of BC athletics. I knew it would take a special place to leave Ohio State. It is clear to me that Boston College is that place.”
Former boss, Ohio State AD Gene Smith also spoke highly of his protege:
“Martin is one of the best administrators I have ever worked with,” said Gene Smith, who serves as OSU’s senior vice president and Wolfe Foundation endowed athletics director. “His leadership skills are exceptional. It has been a tremendous honor working with him and watching him develop into a premier athletic administrator. His contributions to The Ohio State University have been significant, and he will be missed.”
Jarmond will take over for Brad Bates when he leaves June 1. He has a lot of work ahead of him, but it’s hard not to get excited about the potential he brings to Boston College.
Welcome to the Heights, Martin!Boston’s building boom will need to stretch into some of the farthest reaches of the city to keep pace with a population that could hit 800,000 by 2050, according to a new citywide master plan the Walsh administration previewed Thursday.
A draft of the plan, called Imagine Boston 2030 envisions new neighborhoods emerging from underdeveloped pockets of a city that is bursting at the seams in more central locations. Walsh officials said they will use the master plan to sustain and redirect growth more evenly around the city, and to attack seemingly-intractable challenges, from pricey housing, to traffic-choked streets, to rising sea levels.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh noted that the last big master plan developed for Boston was in the 1950s.
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“The result of that plan was a thriving city,” Walsh said. “This city’s going to be very different as we move forward from here. We want to make sure as we grow and change, that we grow for everyone.”
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One key element of the 300-page document is “expanding neighborhoods,” in which a half-dozen pockets, mostly on the outer edges of the city, would be targeted for large-scale mixed-use development. Many of these locations already have good access to public transit, city officials point out, and have lower land costs to allow for more moderately-priced housing. That would help relieve pressure on more popular neighborhoods where prices have soared.
Among the areas targeted for additional development are Suffolk Downs, Sullivan Square in Charlestown, the Beacon Yards in Allston, and Readville in Hyde Park.
“These are places where you can imagine transformational change,” said Imagine Boston 2030 director Rebekah Emanuel.
Two other areas singled out in the report are already in the crosshairs of development: the Widett Circle industrial yard off Interstate 93 and the “100 acres” section of Fort Point, where General Electric Co. is soon to build a new headquarters.
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Elsewhere, though, the city’s development agency recently approved a 177-unit apartment building at the Hood Park complex in Sullivan Square. And earlier this week, developer Jordan Warshaw filed plans for a 521-unit apartment complex near the commuter rail station in Readville.
Warshaw is a veteran of the downtown luxury market, but said there is a big opportunity building middle-class housing in outer neighborhoods.
“This is the kind of project that can really transform this city into a place where middle-income people can afford to live,” Warshaw said in an interview earlier this week. “You’re not going to solve that 80 or 100 units at a time. You’ve got to think big.”
Boston is already on track to add at least 40,000 housing units this decade, said Walsh’s housing chief, Sheila Dillon, a 15 percent increase from 2010. But if the city’s population grows as projected, Boston will have 800,000 residents by 2050, up from around 656,000 today. That would match Boston’s all-time high in 1950.
Housing those new people will require another 50,000 units, according to the master plan, which will help determine where those homes get built.
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“This identifies ways to be even more intentional about our growth,” Dillon said. “That could make a whole lot of difference.”
But any large-scale growth in this old and crowded city is going to require more investment in streets, sewers, transportation, and other infrastructure. The Walsh report even contemplates “nature-based and hard-engineered flood defenses” to protect low-lying areas from rising seas. Yet it gives few details on how to pay for all this.
Boston could tap private sector sources. Sara Myerson, director of planning for the Boston Planning & Development Agency, said the city could explore joint ventures with private investors, and induce developers to pay for street work and parks around their projects. They’ll also look to Washington and Beacon Hill for help.
No matter how they’re paid for, those sort of improvements are long overdue, Walsh said.
“If we want to be competitive on a global scale, on a national scale, we’d better start investing in infrastructure,” he said. “We’re talking about decades of neglect.”
Imagine Boston has other ambitions: reducing greenhouse gas emissions; improving service on the Fairmount Corridor commuter rail line to better link some of Boston’s poorest neighborhoods to job centers; and completing the Emerald Necklace from Franklin Park to the waterfront.
The Walsh administration has held dozens of community meetings over the past year soliciting input for Imagine Boston 2030.
The draft version will be refined based on additional feedback and a final report is expected to be released in the spring.
Tim Logan can be reached at tim.logan@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @bytimloganBUFFALO — Long before he was Jack Eichel, emerging NHL star, 2015 Hobey Baker Award winner, presumptive heir to the role of “his generation’s best American-born center,’’ the ruddy-faced kid from North Chelmsford was tutoring his grammar school teachers on Career Development 101.
“I told them I’d play in the NHL my whole life, starting in the first and second grade,’’ recalled Eichel, 19, as he sat in the Buffalo Sabres dressing room, only thirtysomething games into fulfilling his schoolboy pledge. “Some believed me more than others.’’
These days, there’s no doubting the 6-foot-2-inch, 205-pound Eichel, who returns home to play at TD Garden on Saturday night for the first time as a professional winter wunderkind. His parents have reserved a couple of luxury boxes. A pal or two from the season he spent at Boston University, when the Terriers just missed winning a national title last spring, are expected to be part of the one-night Eichel return tour.
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Eichel’s BU days, though brief, no doubt will be a hot topic the moment he sets foot on Causeway Street. This week, BU revealed that junior forward Nick Roberto was under investigation for gambling and had been suspended from the team for the remainder of the 2015-16 season by the NCAA. A day later, BU announced sophomore forward A.J. Greer, a draft pick of the Colorado Avalanche, chose to end his college career and play instead in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
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Meanwhile, rumors have run rampant across the local college hockey landscape that other players on the 2014-15 BU roster also gambled and, in some cases, incurred significant debt. Eichel, the centerpiece of that Frozen Four team, has refused to comment on the subject, a posture likely to continue fueling questions about how proliferate betting was among the 2014-15 Terriers.
Meanwhile, Eichel’s stat line (9-7—16 in 34 games) may not suggest that he has been an overwhelming offensive force in his rookie season, but his assimilation into the NHL game has been seamless. Everybody says they “Like Eich,’’ as evidenced by an ever-replenished stock of souvenir shirts featuring that slogan displayed prominently in the merchandise shop at First Niagara Center.
According to Mike Kaminska, the club’s director of merchandise, the run on Eichel items has been “just crazy.’’ Normally, he said, he might stock 144 sweaters ($180 each) and name-and-number T-shirts ($32) for any other Sabres player, and that would be enough for a full season. But the store already has sold 2,000 each of just those two Eichel items.
“I have been here 27 years and I’ve never seen anything like it,’’ said Kaminska. “Not with Dominik Hasek, not with Chris Drury, Pat LaFontaine, Danny Briere — no one’s come close. The sales are incredible. It’s definitely Eichelmania here.’’
‘He is one gifted player’
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There is also an Eichel bobblehead, signed Eichel pucks, and sundry other No. 15 goodies, all part and parcel of a craze that exploded even before the Sabres made him the No. 2 overall pick in June’s amateur draft.
Then, of course, there is the on-ice version of Eich that everyone likes.
“No question, he’s going to be here a while,’’ said Harry Neale, the former NHL coach, general manager, and broadcast analyst, as he sat in the press box prior to a recent Sabres game against the Kings. “He’s got a great shot, good imagination, and when he comes down that wing, you think, ‘Geez, he’s flying,’ and then he takes it up even another gear. He is money in the bank.’’
Canadiens assistant GM Rick Dudley, who believed in Martin St. Louis’s abundant skills long before most NHL scouts and managers, has been impressed by Eichel’s legs (“dangerous’’) and wrist shot (“special; rarely seen today’’). Per Dudley’s eye, when Eichel masters the knack of deking around defensemen while controlling the puck on the rush, “then look out, because with his outside speed, he’ll draw penalty after penalty. He is one gifted player.’’
Then there is Dean Lombardi, the Kings GM, who has seen enough of Eichel in just a few months to consider him the best US-born pivot since a bumper crop in the 1980s yielded LaFontaine, Mike Modano, Jeremy Roenick, and Craig Janney. Because of size, position, playing style, and skating, Modano is the most common Eichel comparison.
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“I saw Jack up close at the World Championships last spring,’’ said Lombardi, “and I thought, ‘Holy smoke, what is this?!’
“His wrist shot and release are unbelievable. Great vision on the ice. Already understands the game defensively. Really, what can’t he do? If there’s anything, I’ve yet to see it.”
Craig Button, the former Calgary Flames GM who is now an analyst for the NHL Network and TSN, see hints of Mark Messier’s game in Eichel.
“We saw Mess evolve as this powerful, skilled player,’’ noted Button. “He has this almost unstoppable quality about him as he grew older. I don’t see that same kind of nastiness in Jack, but because of his skating, I think he has that skill to run over people, just be a bear to play against.
“It’s a force of will you don’t see in many players.’’
He can cut it
The big, baby-faced lug even mows the lawn. At least he did that not long ago, while working as at Zwicker’s skate and hockey shop in Bedford for three or four years before he entered BU. Store owner Wayne Zwicker and Eichel’s father Bob have been pals since school days, and Jack often wedged three-and four-hour shifts at the store between school, practices, and games.
“Most of the time he was on the floor, selling skates, sticks, and equipment for us,’’ said Zwicker, whose father sharpened the Bruins’ skates for 20 seasons until the mid ’50s. “A really level-headed kid. I’ve had kids come in from college looking for work and you want to say, ‘Go home and grow up.’ But not Jack.
“Mature. He really knew his stuff. Parents would come in with their kids, and they could tell right away, ‘This kid knows what’s he’s talking about.’ ’’
The willing, eager kid with the curly hair also had a deft hand with the lawn mower when he wasn’t selling Tacks and Eastons.
“We don’t have a lot of grass here, but yeah, he’d do it, and do it without complaining,’’ said Zwicker. “I’d just say to his dad, ‘Bob, I gotta get this lawn cut,’ and he’d say, ‘Hold on, I’ll send Jack right down there.’ ’’
In the richer, greener pastures of his budding NHL career, Eichel has had a variety of linemates, but of late has worked with Evander Kane at left wing and Matt Moulson at right wing. Moulson is also Eichel’s landlord, inviting the rookie to billet with his family in one of the city’s immediate suburbs.
“They’ve spoiled me,’’ said Eichel, who also billeted with a guest family for his two seasons with the National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich. “I don’t cook. I don’t do laundry. Really, I don’t do a thing.
“I might get my own place next year, not sure, but I’ve liked being at Matt’s place so much I’d probably spend a lot of my time there anyway. He and his wife like to joke that I’m like their third kid.’’
Rare skating ability
On the ice, Eichel has progressed not in baby steps, but rather in what coach Dan Bylsma terms “long, long strides.’’ Predictably, he has not scored anywhere near his college pace, which led him to be the NCAA’s top scorer last year as a freshman (40 games: 26-45—71). He also needs to improve his faceoff work, as he has struggled to win half his draws.
The NHL is increasingly a grinding, defensive, marrow-sucking game, in part why Eichel’s scoring pace has dropped by approximately two-thirds. With his speed and shot, he could (should?) become a dominating offensive force, but points for even some of the league’s proven gifted scorers nowadays come in dribs and drabs rather than buckets.
Bylsma has been impressed most of all by Eichel’s improvement on defense.
“I know that doesn’t necessarily show in his plus-minus right now,’’ said Bylsma, with Eichel a minus-6. “But defensively he is a way better hockey player than he was at the start of the year. He is tracking down pucks. In the D zone, he is way better there in the last two months. And he’s been really attentive in trying to get better in that area.’’
Eichel’s mantra is that he needs to strive for consistency in overall execution and always look “to improve my game.’’ That is familiar to the ear of Kim Brandvold, who was named the Bruins’ skating coach earlier this year, and three or four years ago began working one-on-one with Eichel to enhance his skating.
Brandvold, who played four seasons at UMass-Lowell, figures Eichel’s skating — an exceptional blend of force and fluidity — is in part a God-given skill. He also has found Eichel to be a tireless worker, ever willing to build on those natural skating skills, which Brandvold believes rival those of Bobby Orr and Paul Coffey.
“Special skater, special athlete,’’ noted Brandvold, who is also the associate hockey coach at Central Catholic High School in Lawrence. “You see right away that this kid has a lot of potential. From the time I first saw him at 14, he’s continued to work on his skating, refine it, keep becoming a stronger, more efficient skater.
“I think anyone who walks into a rink, even if you never knew much about hockey and just watched, you’d say, ‘Wow, this is a beautiful skater.’ ’’
Teammate Ryan O’Reilly, the former Avalanche standout who for now holds the position as the Sabres’ No. 1 center, kidded recently, “If I ever got my speed up that fast, I would be panicking. ‘’
O’Reilly, a key part of the team’s restructuring under GM Tim Murray, said he has been amazed at how well Eichel has handled the transition from college to pro to team leader.
“It’s not easy for a kid to come to the team, especially one that that has struggled so much the last year or two, and put all the weight on his shoulders,’’ said Murray. “To handle it the way he does is just awesome. He is only getting better. He is definitely a massive piece of this puzzle.’’
Garden of his youth
Sam Reinhart, another young and highly talented Sabres center, is Eichel’s roommate on the road. Also chosen second overall in the draft (2014), Reinhart is a year older and, along with Eichel, noted that it takes time to adapt to the NHL’s grinding schedule, with frequent travel and three or four games a week.
“He’ll say he’s funnier than he is,’’ said Reinhart, asked to share an insider’s perspective of Eichel. “A lot funnier than he is. He’s the one laughing at his jokes.’’
To which Eichel countered, with a straight face, “I think I am a funny guy.’’
Boston humor, always an acquired taste.
Eichel’s first visit to Causeway Street was Oct. 28, 2000, memorable not only because it was the first time he witnessed big-time hockey, or the simple fact that it was his fourth birthday.
“Because it was my birthday and Mats Sundin scored the overtime winner for Toronto,’’ he said. “I was never a Sundin fan after that. Great player, but he screwed up my birthday.’’
Saturday night, years removed from telling one and all he one day would make a career on hockey’s biggest stage, Eichel has the chance to spoil a Garden party. It’s his first time back home since August, his first time on Causeway Street since wearing Terrier red and white.
“It is going to be a big game for us, because Boston’s obviously a tough team,’’ he said. “Personally it is, um, I don’t know, it is going to be a little weird for me with a lot of family there.
“I’ve been going to the Garden my whole life, watching the Bruins play, and now I am going to go there to play against the Bruins. It will be a little bit weird, I am just super excited for it. What a dream come true.’’
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeKPDThe augmented reality and virtual reality markets have yet to get off the ground. But market advisor Digi-Capital estimates that the combined markets will reach $150 billion by 2020.
Digi-Capital managing director Tim Merel believes that augmented reality — where you can add a virtual overlay to glasses that enable you to see the real world in a new way — will be four times bigger at $120 billion than virtual reality, which immerses you in a virtual world via goggles. Merel estimates that virtual reality will be more of a niche market at $30 billion by 2020. In 2016, Merel believes the market will be “single-digit billions.”
“VR [virtual reality] and AR [augmented reality] are exciting — Google Glass coming and going, Facebook’s $2 billion for Oculus, Google’s $542 million into Magic Leap, not to mention Microsoft’s delightful HoloLens,” said Merel in a statement. “There are amazing early stage platforms and apps, but VR/AR in 2015 feels a bit like the smartphone market before the iPhone. We’re waiting for someone to say ‘One more thing …’ in a way that has everyone thinking ‘so that’s where the market’s going.”
Merel acknowledges that a “pure quantitative analysis of the VR/AR market today is challenging, because there’s not much of a track record to analyze yet.” But he believes VR/AR are compelling enough to grow new markets and cannibalize existing ones after the technology really starts taking off next year.
“VR and AR headsets both provide stereo 3D high-definition video and audio, but there’s a big difference,” Merel said. “VR is closed and fully immersive, while AR is open and partly immersive – you can see through and around it. Where VR puts users inside virtual worlds, immersing them, AR puts virtual things into users’ real worlds, augmenting them.
“You might think this distinction is splitting hairs, but that difference could give AR the edge over not just VR, but the entire smartphone and tablet market. There are major implications for Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others.”
Merel said that VR is great for games and 3D films. However, he sees it primarily as a living room, office, or seated experience, as you might bump into things if you walked down the street wearing a closed headset.
Image Credit: Digi-Capital
He expects that it could snare tens of millions of fans among console, PC, and online gamers as well as those who prefer 3D to 2D films. VR will also have niche markets in enterprises, medical, military, and education markets.
AR, meanwhile, can be fun for games, but not as much fun as VR when true immersion is required.
“But that possible weakness for gamers is exactly why AR has the potential to play the same role in our lives as mobile phones with hundreds of millions of users,” Merel said. “You could wear it anywhere, doing anything. Where VR is like wearing a console on your face [Oculus], AR is like wearing a transparent mobile phone on it [Magic Leap, HoloLens].”
He said that AR could play a similar role to mobile across sectors as well as a host of uses nobody has thought of yet. He foresees uses in e-commerce, voice calls, web browsing, film and TV streaming, enterprise apps, advertising, consumer apps, games, and theme park rides.
“There could be meaningful enterprise VR revenues, but we think that AR could take more of that market,” Merel said. “We think AR’s addressable market is similar to the smartphone/tablet market. So AR could have hundreds of millions of users, with hardware price points similar to smartphones and tablets. This could drive large hardware revenues for device makers.”
Merel said both technical and social issues (privacy) still have to be worked out.
As for the companies leading the charge, Merel said “Facebook placed an early bet on Oculus, which might win VR but not address the larger AR market. Google learned from Glass, and had the foresight to invest in Magic Leap. HoloLens could allow Microsoft to regain the glory it lost to Apple in the last decade. And Apple? We would love to see an augmented ‘One more thing ….'”Text Size:
Combating Vaccine Extremism in America
By Barbara Loe Fisher
To activate and view hyperlinked references, please click here once and then click any superscripted number below to access a hyperlinked reference, or scroll down to the bottom of the article to view all hyperlinked references.
2016 will be my 34th year as a vaccine safety and human rights activist.1 For more than 20 years I have been warning that the day would come when vaccine extremists and profiteers would move to legally force Americans to buy and use all government mandated vaccines and punish those who refuse.23 Still, it was a shock to see it happen in California this year,4 even as I know that preparations are being made by vaccine extremists to attack the religious and conscientious belief vaccine exemptions in more states next year.5 6
But knowing and predicting what will happen is very different from watching it actually happen.
Born in Minnesota to a mother, who was a nurse, and a father, who fought on the beach at Anzio and then re-enlisted in the Army after returning from World War II,7 I was raised with a deep respect for the values and beliefs upon which this Republic was founded and for the natural rights and principles of democratic government outlined in the U.S. Constitution.8 Like so many others who are grateful for freedom of thought and religion in this country, my abiding faith in a Creator of the natural order sustains me during my life’s journey and I believe Americans will not give up the natural rights and cultural values that define who we are as a nation without a fight.
Earlier this year, when vaccine extremists and profiteers used a few cases of measles at Disneyland to attack freedom of speech, thought, religious belief and assembly,9 my heart sank. It was painful to watch good people be demonized for simply criticizing poorly tested vaccines and inhumane one-size-fits-all vaccine policies.10 11 Then, when dozens of pharmaceutical and medical industry-backed bills were introduced in multiple states to eliminate religious and conscientious belief vaccine exemptions so citizens could be tracked, discriminated against, segregated and punished for making vaccine choices that do not conform with government policy, I held my breath.
What would the people do? Would they bow down and cower before their oppressors, or would they stand up and defend their natural rights and civil liberties?
In a remarkable display of outrage, common sense and courage, we witnessed mothers, fathers and grandparents from every walk of life in California show up by the thousands to testify in legislative hearings and hold rallies in Sacramento opposing a forced vaccination law that was rammed through the legislature, despite the biggest public protests in that state Capitol since the Viet Nam war.1213 The same thing happened in Vermont, where industry lobbyists strong armed enough legislators to eliminate the philosophical belief vaccine exemption despite overwhelming public opposition,14 even as spirited citizen action in Texas and nine other states was successful in blocking the passage of bills stripping away personal belief vaccine exemptions.15
Recently, I attended several FDA vaccine advisory committee meetings where I watched vaccine extremists and profiteers hijack the vaccine licensing process so future vaccines targeting seniors and pregnant women can be fast tracked to licensure without first proving safety and effectiveness.16 17 There were only a few of us in that room representing the general public to voice opposition to exploitation of the most vulnerable among us.
I felt sick to my stomach as I realized the foxes were not only guarding the chicken coop, they were in the coop having a feast because they were sure that nobody would stop them.
Why are we seeing this unprecedented gutting of informed consent rights and vaccine licensing standards in America? One big reason is that during the past three decades, while the majority of us have been struggling to get an education and work two jobs to pay rent or a mortgage and put food on the table for our children, Congress has directed federal health agencies to create a business partnership with the pharmaceutical industry.18 Politicians have given vaccine extremists and profiteers the money and power to do whatever they want to do to the people, without any legal accountability for their actions,19 20 21 including forcing us to buy and use dozens of doses of vaccines or be denied a school education, medical care and employment.22 23
Now we are facing the biggest public health disaster in our nation’s history as 1 highly vaccinated child in 45 develops autism in America today;24 1 in 6 has learning disabilities; 25 1 in 9 has asthma;26 1 in 10 has ADHD;27 1 in 12 suffers with depression;28 29 1 in 400 become diabetic30 and millions more struggle with other kinds of immune and brain disorders marked by chronic inflammation in the brain and body.3132 33 34 So many of our children's brains and bodies are on fire, a fire stoked by a poorly tested federal vaccine schedule that starts in the womb and on the first day of birth,35 36 and artificially manipulates the immune response to induce inflammation that may never resolve.
We must combat vaccine extremism in America. We cannot afford to allow this failing public health report card, which has gotten worse with every new vaccine added to the government mandated list, to go unchallenged any longer.
It is going to take a lot of muscle and money to turn this sinking ship around before we all drown. Waking people up is the first step. Getting engaged and voting at the polls to elect men and women with integrity to defend our freedoms, and un-electing those who threaten our freedom, is the second step.
And while we are waking up, engaging and going to the polls, it is also critical to financially support charities uncorrupted by industry and government money that are speaking truth, fighting against extremism and defending freedom. NVIC is one of those charities.
NVIC has been here since 1982 providing accurate, referenced vaccine information to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths and help you educate your family and friends. We have been standing up to vaccine extremists37 and empowering Americans with information they can use to protect the legal right to make voluntary vaccine choices.38
So, while NVIC may be a small charity, we are mighty in spirit. We are here every day, year after year, monitoring and reporting on vaccine science, policy, law and ethics; educating, counseling, and encouraging everyone to fight against vaccine extremism.
Please remember the work we do at the National Vaccine Information Center and make NVIC one of your favorite charities. NVIC has been a beacon in the night, a flag on the hill for many, many years. But we cannot continue to be that for families across this country or expand our mission to reach more people without your financial support.
Every dollar you give makes a difference in someone’s life.
Please send NVIC a gift today and ask your friends and family to do the same. Go to NVIC.org and make a tax-deductible donation in memory of someone whose life has been forever changed by a vaccine reaction, or honor someone you love and want to stay healthy.
Please help NVIC combat vaccine extremism in America.
It’s your health. Your family. Your choice.The Taoiseach has called for for a national debate on pornography and its effects on young people being exposed to the "avalanche of communications of all descriptions" on the internet.
Enda Kenny said some young minds are being "tainted and even corrupted" by such material.
"We should have a national conversation about what is important for our children, what is a priority for our children when they are growing up and when they grow up".
Speaking in Dublin at the launch of a new helpline for the victims of crime, Mr Kenny said what used to be termed "the lads magazines" are being replaced with pornography and young people are growing up "imagining what they see on a screen might be normal sexual behaviour".
Mr Kenny said the matter is "part of our agenda for a better and caring Ireland where you can be as comfortable as you can that your children are able to deal these things when they come across them".
The Taoiseach's comments were welcomed by the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
The ISPCC said callers to its Childline service regularly talk about seeing pornographic material which leaves younger children traumatised and leads to the sexualisation of older children
It said legal reforms are needed to restrict pornography, adding that politicians, internet service providers and parents all need to play their part in protecting children from pornography.The NIA, better known for cutting straight to the chase and not really mincing its words today focuses on the latest trillion + dollar bubble: that of US higher education, which is getting increasingly more funded directly by the US Government. "The National Inflation Association believes that the United States has a college education bubble that is set to burst beginning in mid-2011. This bursting bubble will have effects that are even more far-reaching than the bursting of the Real Estate bubble in 2006. College education could possibly be the largest scam in U.S. history." And the kicker: unlike housing debt, college debt has that extra oomph to it that it traditionally is not discharged in bankruptcy: as such it is the ultimate subjugation mechanism. This one sure is set to get interesting...
From the NIA
The National Inflation Association believes that the United States has a college education bubble that is set to burst beginning in mid-2011. This bursting bubble will have effects that are even more far-reaching than the bursting of the Real Estate bubble in 2006. College education could possibly be the largest scam in U.S. history.
NIA's advice to the youth of America today is to think for yourselves. Don't get suckered into overpaying for a college degree that is worthless because everyone else has one. College is only worth attending if you plan on actually learning something there. If you are only going to college because you think a piece of paper is going to help you find a job, you would be much better off skipping college and entering the workforce right now at any entry level job. Your experience will benefit you more than any piece of paper.
The median U.S. home price is currently $170,600, down 26% from its peak of $230,200 in July of 2006. The Dow Jones is currently 11,672, down 18% from its peak of 14,198 in October of 2007. Oil is currently $91 per barrel, down 38% from its peak of $147 per barrel in July of 2008. After the financial panic of 2008, the U.S. saw a collapse in the prices of just about all assets, goods, services, and commodities. Between lost stock market and home equity wealth, Americans lost $10.2 trillion in paper wealth in 2008, and have only recouped a fraction of it since then.
College is the only thing in America that never declined in price during the panic of 2008. It actually rose in price substantially. The annual tuition for a private four-year college was $21,235 in the 2005-2006 school year. Despite Real Estate beginning to collapse in late-2006, college tuition rose by 4.6% in the 2006-2007 school year to $22,218. Despite the stock market beginning to collapse in late-2007, college tuition rose by 6.7% in the 2007-2008 school year to $23,712. Despite oil and other commodities collapsing in late-2008, college tuition rose by 6.2% in the 2008-2009 school year to $25,177. Even after the Dow Jones crashed to a low in early-2009 of 6,469, college tuition still rose by 4.4% in the 2009-2010 school year to $26,273.
Annual tuition for a private four-year college in America is now $27,293, up 29% from five years ago. Meanwhile, the employment situation in the U.S. has deteriorated. There are currently 130.7 million non-farm jobs in America, down 3% from 134.5 million U.S. non-farm jobs in December 2005. 3.8 million jobs have been lost, while the U.S. population has grown by approximately 14 million people during the same time period. We would need to have seen the creation of 6.7 million non-farm jobs just to stay even, but now we are 10.5 million jobs short.
All across America, thousands of students are graduating law school each year with $250,000 in debt, but with no jobs at law firms available to them. 15,000 attorney and legal staff jobs have disappeared since 2008, yet 43,000 law degrees are being handed out each year. Law degrees are losing their value faster than the U.S. dollar is losing its purchasing power. Lawyers are non-producing workers that do nothing to create any real wealth for society. The artificially high incomes of lawyers are made possible entirely by inflation, which steals the wealth from hard working goods producing middle-class Americans and transfers it to those who add no real value to society.
The service sector currently makes up 76.9% of the U.S. GDP. Agriculture, which in 1933 made up 28% of GDP, currently makes up only 1.2% of GDP. The wealth of |
the infrastructure, economy and social services of the country."
Complicating matters, the country now has 61 confirmed cases of cholera and 1,700 more suspected cases, O'Brien said.
O'Brien addressed the council by telephone from Bahrain to report on the dire situation in Yemen, which has been in the midst of a civil war since September 2014 when Shia Houthi rebels swept into the capital of Sanaa and overthrew the country's internationally recognized government.
The secretary general's special envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said the security situation inside Yemen remains dire and that the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate.
"Despite the international community's calls for the Yemeni parties to fully commit to the peace process, the parties continued to embark on unilateral actions which risk undermining the prospects for peace," Ahmed told the council.
He said he had been informed "unofficially" that the parties have rejected a proposed road map paving the way for a peace agreement and that he planned to head back to the region with the aim of reaching a detailed agreement based on the plan. He said it "provides a comprehensive solution and includes guarantees for the political representation of all political groupings."
"After 18 months of horrific fighting, thousands of deaths, injuries and unspeakable human suffering, we all need to ask how long will Yemenis remain hostages to personal reckless political decisions?" he asked. "What are the parties waiting for to sign a political agreement? Have they not understood there are no winners in wars?"Did you know that you can play thousands of easy guitar songs with just 4 chords? It’s pretty incredible. You may have even see that Axis of Awesome YouTube video in which they use the 4 chords to play a bunch of popular songs.
To give you some inspiration, below is a list of popular songs that use 4 chords. Be sure to check out our free guitar chord chart and download it for your reference! You might also like our free guitar course for beginners.
In fact, many guitar players and musicians have made millions with songs using different combinations of just 4 easy guitar chords (see the list of 229 easy guitar songs at bottom of this post). Let us show you what we mean.
The chords are the I, IV, V and vi chords in any key. For example, the I, IV, V, vi chords in the key of C Major are:
I = C chord
IV = F chord
V = G chord
vi = A Minor chord
In any key you can make chord progressions using the I, IV, V, vi chords. Here is the list of all the guitar chords in every key:
C, F, G, Am
G, C, D, Em
D, G, A, Bm
A, D, E, F#m
E, A, B, C#m
B, E F#, G#m
F, Bb, C, Dm
Bb, Eb, F, Gm
Eb, Ab, Bb, Cm
Ab, Db, Eb, Fm
Db, Gb, Ab, Bbm
Gb, Cb, Db, Eb
List of Easy Guitar Songs with Just 4 Chords
“Let It Be” The Beatles I-V-vi-IV
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” John Denver I-V-vi-IV
“Tuesday’s Gone” Lynyrd Skynyrd I-V-vi-IV
“No Woman, No Cry” Bob Marley I-V-vi-IV
“’39” Queen I-V-vi-IV
“Peace of Mind” Boston vi-IV-I-V
“So Lonely” The Police I-V-vi-IV
“Don’t Stop Believin'” Journey I-V-vi-IV
“Down Under” Men at Work I-V-vi-IV
“Skulls” Misfits I-V-vi-IV
“Africa” Toto vi-IV-I-V
“Forever Young” Alphaville I-V-vi-IV
“Sleepwalking” Canton I-V-vi-IV
“Still Loving You” Scorpions vi-IV-I-V
“Take On Me” A-ha I-V-vi-IV
“Tonight She Comes” The Cars I-V-vi-IV
“Higher Love” Steve Winwood IV-I-V-vi
“Hearts of Olden Glory” Runrig 1987 vi-IV-I-V
“With or Without You” U2 1987 I-V-vi-IV
“Like a Prayer” Madonna 1989 IV-I-V-vi
“Right Here Waiting” Richard Marx 1989 I-V-vi-IV
“Fall at Your Feet” Crowded House I-V-vi-IV
“Once in a Lifetime” Gregorian I-V-vi-IV
“Little Baby Nothing” Manic Street Preachers I-V-vi-IV
“Please Play This Song on the Radio” NOFX I-V-vi-IV
“Under the Bridge” Red Hot Chili Peppers I-V-vi-IV
“Butterfly” The Pale I-V-vi-IV
“Cryin'” Aerosmith I-V-vi-IV
“When I Come Around” Green Day I-V-vi-IV
“Soul To Squeeze” Red Hot Chili Peppers vi-IV-I-V
“Today” The Smashing Pumpkins I-V-vi-IV
“Tears of the Dragon” Bruce Dickinson vi-IV-I-V
“Glycerine” Bush I-V-vi-IV
“Silverflame” Dizzy Mizz Lizzy vi-IV-I-V
“Can You Feel the Love Tonight” Elton John I-V-vi-IV
“Farmhouse” Phish IV-I-V-vi
“Zombie” The Cranberries vi-IV-I-V
“Self Esteem” The Offspring vi-IV-I-V
“Con te partir” Andrea Bocelli I-V-vi-IV
“Good” Better Than Ezra I-V-vi-IV
“Baby Baby” Corona vi-IV-I-V
“Freedom” DJ BoBo vi-IV-I-V
“China Roses” Enya I-V-vi-IV
“One of Us” Joan Osborne vi-IV-I-V
“Hurt” Nine Inch Nails V-vi-IV-I
“Bullet with Butterfly Wings” The Smashing Pumpkins vi-IV-I-V
“Head over Feet” Alanis Morissette I-V-vi-IV
“Roses Are Red” Aqua vi-IV-I-V
“Hand in Hand” Dune vi-IV-I-V
“Acha” Khaled vi-IV-I-V
“All I Want” The Offspring vi-IV-I-V
“Dammit” Blink-182 I-V-vi-IV
“Love Is on the Way” Celine Dion I-V-vi-IV
“Save Tonight” Eagle Eye Cherry vi-IV-I-V
“Just Ace” Grinspoon I-V-vi-IV
“High” Lighthouse Family I-V-vi-IV
“Sex and Candy” Marcy Playground I-V-vi-IV
“Torn” Natalie Imbruglia I-V-vi-IV
“That Was a Crazy Game of Poker” O.A.R. vi-I-V-IV
“Building a Mystery” Sarah McLachlan vi-IV-I-V
“Black Widow” Children of Bodom vi-IV-I-V
“Life” Des’ree I-V-vi-IV
“Hands” Jewel vi-IV-I-V
“What’s My Age Again?” Blink-182 I-V-vi-IV
“The Kids Aren’t Alright” The Offspring vi-IV-I-V
“It’s My Life” Bon Jovi vi-IV-I-V
“Two Story Town” Bon Jovi vi-IV-I-V
“I Hope You Dance” Lee Ann Womack vi-IV-I-V
“What About Now” Lonestar I-V-vi-IV
“Otherside” Red Hot Chili Peppers vi-IV-I-V
“The Rock Show” Blink-182 I-V-vi-IV; vi-IV-I-V
“Superman (It’s Not Easy)” Five for Fighting vi-IV-I-V
“Crawling” Linkin Park vi-IV-I-V
“Suteki da ne” Rikki I-V-vi-IV
“Whenever, Wherever” Shakira vi-IV-I-V
“Fuck Her Gently” Tenacious D vi-IV-I-V
“Wherever You Will Go” The Calling I-V-vi-IV
“Complicated” Avril Lavigne vi-IV-I-V
“Don’t Forget Me” Red Hot Chili Peppers vi-IV-I-V
“Electrical Storm” U2 vi-IV-I-V
“Feeling This” Blink-182 I-V-vi-IV
“What I Go to School For” Busted I-V-vi-IV
“Quelqu’un m’a dit” Carla Bruni I-V-vi-IV
“Numb” Linkin Park vi-IV-I-V
“Dragostea din tei” O-Zone IV-I-V-vi
“So Far Away” Staind vi-IV-I-V
“Where Is the Love?” The Black Eyed Peas I-V-vi-IV
“The Artist in the Ambulance” Thrice vi-I-V-IV
“Whiskey Girl” Toby Keith I-V-vi-IV
“Air Hostess” Busted I-V-vi-IV
“Miracle” Cascada vi-IV-I-V
“Taylor” Jack Johnson I-V-vi-IV
“Behind These Hazel Eyes” Kelly Clarkson vi-IV-I-V
“She Will Be Loved” Maroon 5 I-V-vi-IV
“Scar” Missy Higgins vi-IV-I-V
“Wagon Wheel” Old Crow Medicine Show I-V-vi-IV
“Run” Snow Patrol I-V-vi-IV
“Madre hay una sola Bersuit Vergarabat I-V-vi-IV
“In This River” Black Label Society vi-IV-I-V
“Hide and Seek” Imogen Heap I-V-vi-IV
“You’re Beautiful” James Blunt vi-IV-I-V
“When God Made Me” Neil Young I-V-vi-IV
“Love and Memories” O.A.R. V-vi-IV-I
“Ever the Same” Rob Thomas I-V-vi-IV
“Pieces” Sum 41 vi-IV-I-V
“From Yesterday” Thirty Seconds to Mars I-V-vi-IV
“Fantasma” rbol I-V-vi-IV
“Don’t Matter” Akon I-V-vi-IV
“Mardy Bum” Arctic Monkeys I-V-vi-IV-V
“Scenic World” Beirut I-V-vi-IV
“Where’d You Go” Fort Minor I-V-vi-IV
“Apologize” OneRepublic vi-IV-I-V
“U + Ur Hand” P!nk vi-IV-I-V
“Snow (Hey Oh)” Red Hot Chili Peppers I-V-vi-IV; vi-IV-I-V
“Gomenasai” t.A.T.u. vi-IV-I-V
“Canvas Bags” Tim Minchin vi-IV-I-V
“No One” Alicia Keys I-V-vi-IV
“Afterlife” Avenged Sevenfold I-V-vi-IV
“The Story” Brandi Carlile I-V-vi-IV
“This Is My Now” Jordin Sparks I-V-vi-IV
“Daybreak’s Bell” L’Arc-en-Ciel I-V-vi-IV
“Happy Ending” Mika I-V-vi-IV
“Nobody’s Perfect” Miley Cyrus vi-IV-I-V
“Stand” Rascal Flatts vi-IV-I-V
“Umbrella” Rihanna IV-I-V-vi
“Don’t Trust Me” 3OH!3 vi-IV-I-V
“All I Ever Wanted” Basshunter vi-V-I-IV
“If I Were a Boy” Beyonc vi-IV-I-V
“This Is Me” Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas vi-IV-I-V
“I’m Yours” Jason Mraz I-V-vi-IV
“Hot n Cold” Katy Perry vi-IV-I-V
“Poker Face” Lady Gaga vi-IV-I-V
“Too Cool” Meaghan Jette Martin vi-IV-I-V
“You’re Not Sorry” Taylor Swift vi-IV-I-V
“You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid” The Offspring vi-IV-I-V
“Breakeven” The Script IV-I-V-vi
“The Man Who Can’t Be Moved” The Script vi-IV-I-V
“Pork and Beans” Weezer I-V-vi-IV
“Replay” Iyaz vi-IV-I-V
“In My Head” Jason Derlo vi-IV-I-V
“Down” Jay Sean feat. Lil Wayne IV-I-V-vi
“Love Me” Justin Bieber vi-IV-I-V
“Already Gone” Kelly Clarkson I-V-vi-IV
“Paparazzi” Lady Gaga I-V-vi-IV
“Ave Mary A” P!nk I-V-vi-IV
“Nothing is Impossible” Planetshakers I-V-vi-IV
“Hey, Soul Sister” Train I-V-vi-IV
“Grenade” Bruno Mars vi-IV-I-V
“Enter the Ninja” Die Antwoord vi-IV-I-V
“Not Afraid” Eminem vi-IV-I-V
“Love the Way You Lie” Eminem feat. Rihanna vi-IV-I-V
“Don’t You Wanna Stay” Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson I-V-vi-IV; vi-IV-I-V
“One Day” Matisyahu I-V-vi-IV
“Just a Dream” Nelly vi-IV-I-V
“Good Life” OneRepublic vi-IV-I-V
“Fuckin’ Perfect” P!nk I-V-vi-IV
“The Island” Pendulum vi-IV-I-V
“Favorite Distraction” SuperSpy I-V-vi-IV
“Dynamite” Taio Cruz vi-IV-I-V
“Double Rainbow Song” The Gregory Brothers vi-IV-I-V
“For the First Time” The Script I-V-vi-IV; vi-IV-I-V
“If We Ever Meet Again” Timbaland feat. Katy Perry I-V-vi-IV
“Written in the Stars” Tinie Tempah vi-IV-I-V
“Someone like You” Adele I-V-vi-IV
“Kaze wa Fuiteiru” AKB48 vi-IV-I-V
“I Was Here” Beyonc vi-IV-I-V
“Brighter Than the Sun” Colbie Caillat vi-IV-I-V
“Paradise” Coldplay vi-IV-I-V
“Skyscraper” Demi Lovato vi-IV-I-V
“Lost in Paradise” Evanescence vi-IV-I-IV
“Bullet” Hollywood Undead I-V-vi-IV
“On the Floor” Jennifer Lopez feat. Pitbull vi-IV-I-V
“Price Tag” Jessie J I-V-vi-IV
“Who You Are” Jessie J vi-IV-I-V
“Hair” Lady Gaga I-V-vi-IV
“The Edge of Glory” Lady Gaga I-V-vi-IV
“Ai Se Eu Te Pego” Michel Tel I-V-vi-IV
“Little Talks” Of Monsters and Men vi-IV-I-V
“Bridge of Light” P!nk I-V-vi-IV; vi-IV-I-V
“International Love” Pitbull feat. Chris Brown vi-IV-I-V
“Give Me Everything” Pitbull feat. Ne-yo, Afrojack, and Nayer vi-IV-I-V
“California King Bed” Rihanna I-V-vi-IV
“We Found Love” Rihanna feat. Calvin Harris vi-IV-I-V
“Sparks Fly” Taylor Swift vi-IV-I-V
“I Just Had Sex” The Lonely Island feat. Akon vi-IV-I-V
“Jack Sparrow” The Lonely Island feat. Michael Bolton vi-IV-I-V
“Science & Faith” The Script vi-IV-I-V
“No Me Toca” Anselmo Ralph vi-IV-I-V
“Ready or Not” Bridgit Mendler vi-IV-I-V
“Raindrops” Cillo I-V-vi-IV
“Whistle” Flo Rida vi-IV-I-V
“Cruise” Florida Georgia Line I-V-vi-IV
“Demons” Imagine Dragons I-V-vi-IV
“Adagio in D Minor ” John Murphy vi-IV-I-V
“Eu Quero Tchu, Eu Quero Tcha” Joo Lucas & Marcelo vi-IV-I-V
“Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” Kelly Clarkson vi-IV-I-V
“Come Over” Kenny Chesney vi-IV-I-V
“Rise” McClain Sisters vi-IV-I-V
“The Light Behind your Eyes” My Chemical Romance vi-I-IV-V
“When Can I See You Again?” Owl City I-V-vi-IV
“Good Time” Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen IV-I-V-vi
“All Too Well” Taylor Swift I-V-vi-IV
“Come Back… Be Here” Taylor Swift I-V-vi-IV
“Six Degrees of Separation” The Script vi-IV-I-V
“Hall of Fame” The Script feat. will.i.am vi-IV-I-V
“Drive By” Train IV-I-V-vi; vi-IV-I-V
“Say Something” A Great Big World vi-IV-I-V
“Uh…a song played with a nipple ring” Andrew Huang I-V-vi-IV
“Contact” Daft Punk vi-IV-I-V
“Heart Attack” Demi Lovato IV-I-V-vi
“Only Teardrops” Emmelie de Forest vi-IV-I-V
“Let It Go” Idina Menzel I-V-vi-IV
“All of Me” John Legend vi-IV-I-V
“Unconditionally” Katy Perry vi-IV-I-V
“Wrecking Ball” Miley Cyrus I-V-vi-IV
“Boomerang” Nicole Scherzinger I-V-vi-IV
“Let Her Go” Passenger IV-I-V-vi
“Song for Zula” Phosphorescent I-V-vi-IV
“Walks Like Rihanna” The Wanted I-V-vi-IV
“Cliche Love Song” Basim I-V-vi-IV
“The Last Goodbye” Billy Boyd vi-IV-I-V
“All of the Stars” Ed Sheeran I-V-vi-IV
“Bailando” Enrique Iglesias vi-IV-I-V
“Forever” Kari Jobe I-V-vi-IV
“Final Masquerade” Linkin Park IV-I-V-vi
“Flashlight” Jessie J I-V-vi-IV
“Are You With Me” Lost Frequencies vi-IV-I-V
“El Perdn (Forgiveness)” Nicky Jam ft Enrique Iglesias vi-IV-I-V
“Coming for You” The Offspring vi-IV-I-V
What other easy guitar songs do you know that can be played with just 4 chords? Let us know in the comments!
Source: GuitarSixThe purpose of this website is to help in promoting the learning of the Sanskrit language.
At present the site offers a few learning and teaching tools, as well as links to various useful and free Sanskrit resources on the web.
In addition to that we are working to produce and upload reviews of various Sanskrit resources - such as online books, dictionaries, texts, grammar guides etc, and in the future we also plan to upload some free video lessons.
Content is updated periodically, so please visit once in a while to check what is new.
At the moment the main Sanskrit tools we offer are:
1. Sanskrit Alphabet tutor
2. Sanskrit Reading Tutor
3. Sanskrit Text to Speech
4. Sanskrit Typing Tool
Our hope is that this website would be useful and helpful for all those interested in Sanskrit - especially those who are interested to learn but hesitate due to the lack of proper guidance or suitable learning materials.The 19 Most Stunning Movie Covers By the Criterion Collection
READ MORE: 10 Films That Should Be in the Criterion Collection
How do you capture the essence of a classic? Every day, the designers at the Criterion Collection are tasked with reimagining some of the most iconic creations in the history of cinema. Together with their team, Head Art Director Sarah Habibi and Designer/Art Director Eric Skillman analyze each film’s historical context, director’s career and influence on the popular imagination in order to conceptualize cover designs (their new book, “Criterion Designs,” details the process.) In repackaging dated or overlooked gems, the Criterion Collection lifts films out of the folds of history and gives them new life. But above all, Criterion’s work celebrates the visual language of cinema — and its indelible impact on human culture.
Here are our favorite Criterion cover designs, in no particular order.
1. “House” (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)
One of the most bizarre movies ever made, this Japanese cult horror-comedy follows a group of young girls to a remote haunted house filled with evil spirits that want to eat them, including the demented supernatural feline pictured below. The film was first brought to the U.S. as a midnight screening series, and Nashville designer Sam Smith dreamed up this terrifying silkscreen face to promote it at a local theater. Criterion expanded upon the image, which is now synonymous with the film itself.
2. “The Royal Tenenbaums” (Wes Anderson, 2001)
Who better to capture the spirit of Wes Anderson’s movies than his own brother, who happens to be an illustrator? Criterion hired Eric Chase Anderson to draw all but one of his brother’s covers, and the artist delivers on Wes Anderson’s cartoonish yet sleek and detailed aesthetic.
3. “F for Fake” (Orson Welles, 1975)
Welles’ genre-defying investigation into the nature of truth and lies is perfectly evoked in this design, which emphasizes the elusive quality of the film as well as its devious creator.
4. “The Great Dictator” (Charlie Chaplin, 1940)
By mocking both Hitler and Chaplin’s mustache and literally inverting expectations, the cover sends a satirical message in keeping with the film’s.
5. “In the Mood for Love” (Wong Kar Wai, 2000)
This almost seems to be screenshot from the film itself; it captures the somber tone, nearly every stylized shot bathed in lustrous red and a deep sense of longing.
6. “Belle de Jour” (Luis Buñuel, 1967)
A riff on the film’s famous seductive image of Catherine Deneuve, this design uses frenetic outlines to portray the protagonist’s heightened anxiety and to suggest the unraveling of the boundary between reality and fantasy.
7. “Scanners” (David Cronenberg, 1981)
By dismantling and rearranging portraits of two of the lead characters, the design taps into the film’s mastery of transmogrification.
8. “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956)
It could be the cover for any Hitchcock film (ingredients: smoking man, curtain, smoking gun), but this design effectively gets to the heart of the conflict in the movie’s most famous sequence.
9. “Head” (Bob Rafelson, 1968)
The cover places the film squarely in its cultural context: In the world of pop art and pop music. It also serves as a symbol for one of the film’s major themes: the downside of fame.
10. “The Honeymoon Killers” (Leonard Kastle, 1969)
Every ad shown below indicates a plotline in the film, which is based on shocking true events.
11. “World on a Wire” (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1973)
Apart from being a standalone work of art, the design’s concentric circles signify both the space helmet worn by the protagonist and the dual worlds — reality and virtual reality — depicted in the film. The cover also utilizes typography from the film’s original theatrical poster.
12. “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (Terry Gilliam, 1998)
No less a head trip than the movie itself, this cover art expertly builds upon the visual language of the film and its original poster, complete with bats, characters morphed into animals, and the desert horizon.
13. “Breathless” (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
This is Criterion’s most successful minimalist poster. The profound influence of the film and its auteur speaks for itself.
14. “Days of Heaven” (Terrence Malick, 1978)
This illustrated photorealist cover gets to the heart of the film in a single image.
15. “Breaking the Waves” (Lars Von Trier, 1996)
The sky assumes a haunting pre-apocalyptic tinge as a lone woman wrestles with her uncontrollable fate in this perfect rendition of the film’s emotional and physical landscape.
16. “Blind Chance” (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1987)
By depicting train tracks dividing a face, the cover conveys the film’s plot quite literally: A young man runs to catch a train that will ultimately decide the direction of his life.
17. “Eyes Without a Face” (Georges Franju, 1960)
This gem of horror cinema mixes disturbing images with beauty to a grotesquely lyrical effect. The intriguing cover depicts the chilling effect of the mask worn by the main character.
18. “The Ice Storm” (Ang Lee, 1997)
This simple, stark design suggests the sense of isolation and ennui that pervades the film. The accumulation of ice also hints at the mounting tensions that cause the film’s climax.
19. “Diabolique” (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955)
This violent image refers to the gut-wrenching beginning and ending of the film; the inverted grid suggests the film’s shocking narrative twists and recurring theme of revenge.
READ MORE: The 15 Best Mondo Movie Posters of All Time
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.The blow absorbed by veteran journalism in the WikiLeaks affair is one of history's most refreshing defeats. While the rebels stormed the walls, high-flying hysteria broke out in the hallways of the wobbly fortress. "A revolution!" shouted the newspaper editors. "A new contender for the throne, more nimble and sophisticated than we are, has administered a decisive blow.
Oil the presses and double the number of copies!"
In the office next door, the marketing director was beside himself with pleasure. "Spread the news about the coming surrender!" he cheerfully ordered his staff. The television channels burnished their news divisions in light of the expected disaster. Promotion departments brainstormed over the imminent arrival of "the new journalism in all its glory!" And on Judgment Day, white flags indeed flew on the faded roofs of communications organizations, newspaper stands experienced a bustle they hadn't seen for a long time, and viewers watched the news in unprecedented numbers, even at unpopular hours.
All that remained to be done was to summarize the fiasco in the weekend newspaper supplements, and declare in celebratory fashion: "We lost! Long live the king!" and laugh all the way to the bank.
This blessed defeat is nothing like earlier occasions when technology threatened to change the world order. Not only did the Catholic Church refrain from praising Copernicus and propagating his theory that the earth orbited the sun, but it also forbid its teaching, attacked his successor Galileo and disassociated itself from the scientific revolution, until a pope finally agreed to apologize to the Italian astronomer 350 years after he died.
The printing press, too, was not awarded a papal blessing, and for understandable reasons: After all, Johannes Gutenberg's invention dealt a serious blow to the institution of the Catholic Church.
Yet just a few centuries later, the information revolution is getting a completely different reception. Paradoxically, the veteran communications organizations, which were supposed to fill the role of the threatened establishment and prepare to oppose Internet news bitterly, are the ones spreading the new doctrine with unbridled enthusiasm.
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On the day that print and broadcast journalism might have been expected to reject one of the broadest ever invasions of its turf and the source of its livelihood, or at least wallow in shame, it decided to sound the trumpets at the coming of the conqueror, to celebrate his achievements everywhere and exhibit its own decapitated head in the town square and declare itself dead.
Paradoxically, WikiLeaks owes to its professional rival the fact that it has become a word on the lips of those who would never have otherwise heard about the leaks on Julian Assange's website.
Partners in revolution
"WikiLeaks is like a garbage truck," Nir Baram wrote in the Hebrew version of Haaretz last month: "It dumps its load in the middle of the street, and, at least theoretically, each passerby can stop, look and decide what interests him."
The analogy is precise, but in contrast to the spirit of Baram's piece, which called WikiLeaks the "most significant supplier of information in the 21st century," and "a new phase in the history of the defense of freedom in the age of global communication," it exemplifies exactly the reason why WikiLeaks needs the loud trumpets of the veteran media, and not the other way around.
Except for the people on that street, no one would have known about the pile left behind by the garbage truck, if establishment journalism hadn't announced that at such and such an address it stood, on a street which is nothing other than a remote alleyway in the nearly endless cybernetic expanses, a forsaken corridor that no one crosses accidentally, or goes there unless induced to.
And even so, journalists know very well that with all due respect to the media, the soul of its readers is ancient and primitive: Journalists had to put their hands into the pile, dredge up something, offer it to the mouths of their readers and convince them to swallow the way one convinces an infant to do so. It was classic journalistic behavior. A rumor like many others was going around; it was identified as a genuine product, reproduced, disseminated, marketed and sold in millions of copies. After the event, while the king announced his downfall he was already constructing a new wing in the palace.
No, the king never intended to offer his head on a platter. Among all the rumors and piles of garbage spread over the street, journalism selects its material carefully. It jumped on Assange's product as if it were a great treasure, because the documents on the WikiLeaks site are good journalistic fodder.
The communications agenda that presented the documents is the same old world agenda, with the same heroes and villains, and the same centers of power whose authority was reinforced in this case too. It was a scoop, but the rubric "exclusive" is after all not alien to the media, even when supplied by Julian Assange. Furthermore, the content of the documents did not threaten media organizations in any way; perhaps the opposite is the case. It was an impressive enough show to attract attention away from other subjects that were likely to be considered more subversive, those that really can upset the existing order, whose chief instigators are the media barons.
In the case of WikiLeaks, the masses can amuse themselves with an apparently dramatic change, we'll give them the feeling they are partners in revolution, we'll call it a media revolution, a popular uprising in which everyone may take part while sitting in a comfortable chair opposite a computer screen.
We'll convince the masses that instead of taking to the streets, all they have to do to overturn the government is to double click on Internet Explorer.
Of course, there were no changes in consumer habits during the week the revolution took place, except for an increase in profits of the big chain stores. Most of the public did not bother to dive into the treasure they were offered at no cost, instead swarming over newsstands and staring at the television screen even more than usual in order to hear the sensational information promised by the promos.
Afterwards, everyone bathed in the fragrance of the new world, in the abundance of possibilities offered by the Internet, from the information that flows freely, without interruption, in our time, and in the end found respite again, devilishly, in the same newspaper stand at the front of the battered kiosk closest to our place of residence.
New journalism
It may very well be that Internet sites will one day take their place at center stage and save public discourse from the tyranny of newspapers and news broadcasts controlled by the wealthy. But if these sites do not offer groundbreaking content and a new agenda, there will be only a change of form and nothing more, as revolutionary as the migration of viewers from one pair of news presenters to another. They will also be forced to find a way to capture a part of the market sufficient to allow them to rule, because if they do offer a new communications agenda, as several brilliant blogs on the Internet do now, it is doubtful that the established media can save them from anonymity and make them headliners as they did with WikiLeaks.
As with earlier technological revolutions, this new journalism will not be embodied by its form, but by its content. The keypad is not a subversive factor, but rather the hand that taps on it. Just as science undermined the vision of the world offered by religion, and Gutenberg's invention contributed to the amalgamation of dialects which shook the foundations of feudal society and brought about the Lutheran reformation at the expense of the Catholic Church, so too will the journalism which aspires to the title of the "anarchistic factor in the media world," as WikiLeaks was termed in the Haaretz feature last month, be able to offer a new and completely different value system from the one that exists today in Western capitalist culture. No one would be talking about the print revolution now if the books had been filled exclusively with holy writings in Latin.
For the Internet to offer new journalism to the world, it must give up the utopian idea inherent within it: On the one hand, people view it a factor which can save us from the dictatorial hold of veteran media over public discourse, and on the other, it prevents us from taking the lead. In contrast to a commonly held idea, the established media does not survey reality; it sheds light on stories or creates them itself. Because its format is limited to the surface, the publicizing of moments in the time allotted to news, it is incapable of full coverage, because reality changes at a pace too frequent to meet deadlines.
The Internet, or at least the idea of the Internet, is always there, enjoying a flexibility that allows it to increase its territory. Exactly for this reason, the cybernetic utopia that so many wish for and predict cannot replace journalism. While the Internet is terrific at disseminating information and atomizing power centers, its established rival acts to concentrate information and subjugate its readers under the authority of a single story. For the Internet to take the lead on such a story, society would have to disintegrate into tiny pieces. But then established journalism would disappear in any case.About
Using our 3d web app upload your favorite photo and design your own artwork. Once you've supplied the creativity we take care of the manufacturing. All you need to do is decide where to display it. Khora Images make the perfect gifts since they are completely personalized and really unique.
The first step is to select an image that looks great and means something special to you. It’s your art so you decide. Use a photo of a landscape, of a newborn, of your pet, of anything you want.
With our web interface the possibilities are endless.
Your final design is made using a CNC machine. This computer controlled device accurately carves your design into a piece of 100% recycled material.
When you use the interface you’ll notice it’s in full 3d. That’s the key, since we use this information to seamlessly reproduce your design in the materials and colors you select. We make it exactly like you see it.
The size of your piece is selected by your pledge.
Make your image as realistic or abstract as you want by adjusting the resolution.
You can choose from a series of patterns to further enhance your design.
Your art is made of 100% recycled material colored with sustainable water based paint. Choose from a variety of colors to match your space or the personality of your image.
Why make Khora Image?
Everyone has art, and people have innate desire to make art, whether it's the cave paintings of lascaux or Andy Wharhol's Maryliln Monroe. With Khora Image, we've created a way for you to do both. Create graphically unique artwork for your home and make it mean something to you.
Why do we need your support?
At this stage, we are manually processing and cutting the images one by one, which results in a higher cost and limits the quantity we are able to sell. With your donations, we can hire the brains needed to code the backend of our system which will fully automate the process: from your image, to the cut file, to our machine. We are currently using a 4’x8’ machine that is normally used to cut large objects. By purchasing a cutting machine specialized for smaller parts and higher tolerances, we will be able to provide accurate and detailed pieces.
We are a group of designers with years of experience in digital fabrication and design.
We have tons of ideas for products that make you the designer. We can wait to get off the ground to empower everyone to design and tailor their home decor.
Whether you are in need of a piece of art for that blank space on your wall, a fan of digital fabrication, or looking for the perfect gift, Khora Image is a great new way for anybody to make great art. We can’t wait to see what you create using Khora Image.NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stock investors scrambled for the exits on Thursday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 335 points, its worst one-day point plunge in more than a year.
The S&P 500 SPX, -0.08% fell 40. |
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